Virtual Reality and the Metaverse as a spark for immersive education
Michael Detyna, Learning Technologist, King's College London
This talk will look at Virtual Reality and the Metaverse as a spark for immersive education. The talk will cover research we've done already in this area, and what we'd like to understand and know going forward. Two research projects will be covered, one looking at the landscape of educational possibilities around virtual reality, and a second looking at possible opportunities for learner engagement using VR. A sceptical approach will be taken about future possibilities, and we'd recommend cautious optimism, and a focus on student experience and evidence-based practice.
Detecting framerate-oriented cyber-attacks on user experience in virtual reality
Blessing Odeleye, PhD Researcher, University of Greenwich
Detecting framerate-oriented cyber-attacks on user experience in virtual reality. Virtual Reality (VR) is expected to become an enabling technology for training in realistic conditions, data visualisation, education and many other applications. However, there is still limited research on cyber threats to VR environments and even less on technical protections against them. In this work in progress, we demonstrate two novel approaches by which a cyber-attack can potentially cause VR sickness on demand based on frame rate manipulation by taking advantage of GPU and network vulnerabilities. We further show that a simple unsupervised machine learning method using Isolation Forest can provide early warning of such attacks likely before they have significant impact on the VR system and its user.
Metaverse - Finding real world application in Higher Education
Simon Williams, Consulting Director and Tom Runge, Director of Business Consulting, CGI
CGI will explore how the metaverse can change the world of education, both in the digital campus and extending global reach.
The metaverse presents new opportunities for education establishments to engage and lead the way in an ever evolving world. It is a digitally-enabled world where higher education establishments, students, business and wider communities interact in real time.
It’s a sustainable environment where we come together to learn, work, shop and share new experiences. Together let’s explore, shape and build pathways to the metaverse so education establishments stay ahead.
Exploring Digital Working Environments within The Open University
Andrew McDermott, Senior Product Development Manager, The Open University
The Learning Innovation team at The Open University has just completed the Digital Working Environment Exploratory Project (DWEEP), designing, delivering, and evaluating a series of virtual events for colleagues across our Learner and Discovery Services unit. The aim of the project was to provide an evaluation of virtual environments for our colleagues in the OU in Wales as part of a larger project supporting digital transformation across Wales in general. This included providing an assessment on whether virtual environments can support remote collaborative working and whether these types of event could be more effective than Teams, Zoom, etc. for some purposes, and could also support sustainable hybrid working in the future.
This session will discuss the findings of the project, giving insight into how effective such environments can be in different situations and for different purposes. It will also explore the challenges and complexities involved in delivering such technical solutions to first time users within a typical University setting (both on campus and working at home), across a range of devices, from mobile, to laptop, to VR headsets.
