One App. Any Story. Any Place.

For Duke faculty and staff looking to engage audiences in new ways, Duke Explore isn’t just an app. It’s an invitation to tell Duke’s stories—deeply, broadly, and on your own terms.

If you’ve walked through the Duke Gardens recently, you may have noticed visitors pausing, phones in hand, listening intently. They’re not lost. They’re exploring the Gardens through Duke Explore, a Duke supported mobile app that offers self‑guided tours using maps, audio, photos, and stories.

Whether you’re onboarding new employees, teaching a course, or planning an event, Duke Explore offers a flexible, supported way to tell the story of a certain place with the convenience of an app.  It allows you to combine geolocations with stories for deeply interactive learning experiences. And you don’t have to figure it out alone.

Todd Stabley, senior media engineer for the Office of Information Technology, supports faculty, staff, and students, working directly with them to get projects off the ground. Duke Explore has already been successfully used in a variety of ways, including the Duke Gardens tour, Centennial tours, and academic projects.

Stabley would like more members of the Duke community to take advantage of it.

“We need to get the word out that this exists,” Stabley said. 

A Platform Built for Storytelling

Duke Explore allows users to combine audio, images, text, and geolocation into self guided tours that people can follow at their own pace. The best part is, no experience is required.

Some may be familiar with the Duke Centennial Tour, created for the celebration last year. Jill Boy, who led the university-wide, year-long, celebration noted how easy it was for her team to learn the app’s functions under a tight timeline.

“Our staff had never used a digital tool before and were concerned about the technical aspect but Todd and team made it easy,” Boy said. 

The Centennial Tour, free to Duke staff, students, and faculty, successfully highlighted more than 30 historically significant locations across East Campus, West Campus, and Duke Athletics. Users can read about each site, view archival images, and listen to narrated audio recorded in the Bryan Center studios. 

Even now that the celebration has ended, people continue to use the Centennial Tour. 

Said Boy, "That's the telltale sign that it’s still relevant, and people are still learning from it. There’s always a need for a tour. The key is jumping in, and then having a strategy to keep people using it.

A ‘Game Changer’ for Duke Gardens

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Recently, Duke Explore has been more visible as part of the rollout of the renovated Sarah P. Duke Gardens. According to Lauren Smith Hong, marketing and communications director, the Gardens team had long been wanting a mobile tour but lacked the resources to make it happen.

“This was a game changer for us,” Hong said.

Using Duke Explore, the Gardens launched a tour highlighting four key spaces in each of the Gardens’ four areas. The content was developed in collaboration with staff and volunteers and integrates many behind-the-scenes stories that many visitors would never otherwise encounter.

”While many people experience the Gardens as a park and public space, it is also one of the most renowned botanical gardens in the country. Duke Explore helps bridge this gap in knowledge by deepening visitor engagement through visual and audio storytelling.” Hong said.

Beyond Campus

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Duke Explore isn’t just for campus visitors, and it isn’t limited to just Duke’s campus either. It can also be used as a powerful academic tool for exploring any place or community. One of the earliest tours on the platform was created as a course project, which Stabley highlights as a potential use he hopes to see more of in the future.

That vision is already taking shape. Clare Callahan of the English department used Duke Explore for a Focus course where students were able to create a walking tour of Durham’s Hayti neighborhood with a focus on health equity and infrastructure. The project is a clear example of how the app’s reach can extend well beyond Duke itself and serve as a tool to document and share stories from far-spanning communities. 

Students worked simultaneously on the tours, using core features like map-based stops, images, and text, demonstrating that the platform’s base functionality can support meaningful projects.

“It’s a very useful app,” Callahan said. “Students picked it up quickly and had no technical difficulties.”

Faculty or staff interested in creating a tour, can learn more about Duke Explore, visit the Office of Information Technology website. 

By Katarina Dragasevic ‘29
OIT Student Marketing & Communications Intern