Virtual Reality in Higher Education: Application Scenarios and Recommendations Erasmus Project

Project Title

Virtual Reality in Higher Education: Application Scenarios and Recommendations

Project Key Action

This project related with these key action: Cooperation for innovation and the exchange of good practices

Project Action Type

This project related with this action type : Strategic Partnerships for higher education

Project Call Year

This project’s Call Year is 2018

Project Topics

This project is related with these Project Topics: New innovative curricula/educational methods/development of training courses; ICT – new technologies – digital competences

Project Summary

Virtual reality (VR) has become a popular and versatile technology that has recently attracted interest from researchers, practitioners and educators alike. The technology offers the potential for all kinds of disciplines and industries, and higher education in particular may also benefit from VR-enhanced education practices. VR simulations and VR collaboration practices especially allow the experience-based acquisition of high-quality skills and competences that are difficult to acquire with other learning methods. Nevertheless, most educators, particularly in higher education, prefer to stick with traditional teaching approaches because they are unsure how to fit VR into their curriculum. Against this background, educators are seeking recommendations regarding how to incorporate suitable VR software and hardware into their curriculum and, in turn, make sustainable investments.

This project aims to create guiding material on the use of VR practices in higher education. By offering access to this material, this project encourages educators to implement VR practices such as virtual field trips, distance courses and virtual collaboration rooms, as well as support the use of digital technologies and the online delivery of courses. The focus of this work lies in supporting educators to select appropriate VR practices for teaching target skills and competences. Educators may even teach intercultural competences by offering courses in collaboration with other higher education institutions and, in turn, foster social inclusion. Taken together, this project intends to mitigate barriers to using VR in higher education, enable educators to improve their instructional quality and guide them to make sustainable investments when acquiring VR hardware and software.

Four main project activities contribute to the fulfilment of the project’s main objective. Project activities include: (1) the identification of application scenarios and current VR practices in education based on different analyses and a survey, (2) the elaboration of recommendations based on workshops with educators and other collaborative sessions, (3) a prototypical implementation of VR in higher education courses following the previously elaborated recommendations and (4) the dissemination of these recommendations across different channels that target local, regional and national, and worldwide audiences. In particular, this project targets educators in higher education and aims to facilitate their first steps with VR. However, other stakeholders, like educators from various levels, practitioners and researchers, may benefit from the project’s results as well.

Moreover, this project’s results will impact partners, participants, educators and other stakeholders on local, regional and national, and European and international levels. A range of project activities aim to improve partners’ and participants’ expertise in VR and how to implement VR practices in higher education. Project partners plan to make project results openly accessible to educators in higher education to help them with the implementation of VR in their courses and programmes. Not only educators in higher education but also stakeholders like researchers and practitioners may benefit from the project’s results. The dissemination strategy targets all stakeholders and includes several digital and non-digital activities such as postings on social media and educational platforms, presentations and talks, as well as reports and articles.

Three universities from three countries, i.e. University of Liechtenstein (Liechtenstein), University of Duisburg-Essen (Germany) and University of Agder (Norway), are collaborating on this project. In addition, the headquarter of the European Research Center for Information Systems (ERCIS) with its headquarters at the University of Muenster (Germany) and representatives from the University of Nebraska Omaha (US) support this project as associated partners.

Project Website

https://vr.uni.li

EU Grant (Eur)

Funding of the project from EU: 188552 Eur

Project Coordinator

UNIVERSITAT LIECHTENSTEIN & Country: LI

Project Partners

• UNIVERSITAET DUISBURG-ESSEN
• UNIVERSITETET I AGDER