Jisc XR Meetup June 2024
Back in June, I attended the annual Jisc XR Community Meetup, which was being hosted by the University of Manchester. We were a decent size group, with around 40 people from various institutions across the country.
The day started with some examples of projects currently being worked on at Manchester.
First up was Dr Anthony Payton discussing the extended reality (XR) simulation training package Sentira XR. This combines immersive environments with AI clinicians and patients, allowing students to have a more authentic experience when learning how to perform procedures and develop their reasoning and decision-making skills.
The activities available were diverse and ranged from inter-cell walkthroughs, psychosis and asthma simulations, medical meeting room discussions, step-by-step tutorials and knowledge check quizzes. It had multi-user functionality and enabled monitoring and instant feedback.
Screens from Sentira XR simulation training
Next, Dr Paul Warren introduced us to Manchester’s new VR2 Facility. Funded by the UKRI, it provides XR technologies and motion capture for research in health, disorders and potential therapies.
The first example was the STARDUST project. This is looking into the causes of Persistent postural perceptual dizziness (PPPD), or chronic dizziness, and how VR might be used to reduce its symptoms. Paul showed us a video of the simulation, in which a participant walks around a series of corridors and must avoid or step over obstacles in their path. You could see the hesitation where making a simple movement required a lot of cognitive effort due to the dizziness effect experienced by the participant.
The second example was a project investigating cognitive biases. Paul noted that human judgement and decision-making underpins much of human activity but suffers from cognitive bias, for example the Gambler’s Fallacy, the tendency to believe that a coin flip resulting in heads is more likely after a run of tails. We were able to take part in a VR demonstration of this, in which they had recreated the glass bridge challenge seen in the Squid Game Netflix series. This challenge required you to pick from either the left or right pane of glass and step onto it. This is repeated until you reach the other side. To make the experience more compelling, the bridge was suspended between two very tall buildings, and it was a long way down! Unfortunately, I chose wrong on the first step both times and found myself hurtling through virtual space to the ground. After that luck, I won’t be attempting this in real life anytime soon! It was my first experience of falling in VR and initially I felt very off-balance, though thankfully not enough to fall over in front of the others watching! The second fall I was expecting though, and I found myself involuntarily raising my arms as if I was on a rollercoaster! This wasn’t the case for everyone as the next volunteer described it as being horrible and something they never wanted to experience again!
Screens from the Squid Game style glass bridge simulation
The final example was the HEAR-ABLE project which asks, “to what extent do hearing aids help people to undertake everyday activities involving movement/balance?” Volunteers could take part in a VR demonstration where they needed to cross a busy road with different visual and auditory conditions applied. I didn’t get chance to try this one out, but those that did said it was very effective and genuinely unnerving as the cars raced by in proximity.
Jonny Crook, a learning technologist from the humanities faculty, then spoke to us on the various VR apps that colleagues have been using in their lectures. Examples included:
- Notes on Blindness – used for lectures on visual perception. (I highly recommend trying this if you get the opportunity to.)
- Wooorld – used for urban planning lectures. This allows you to interact with a 3D map of the world alongside other users.
- Immerse – used for improving communication skills in language lectures.
- GALUP VR Experience – 360 video used in Geography for discussions on decolonisation.
- Meta Quest First Steps – used widely to familiarise students with VR and how to interact with it. However, they found it was very variable between users on how quickly they picked up VR skills.
Last to speak from Manchester was Jon Abbas, PhD Candidate. His research was looking at the use of VR to train health professionals in paediatric emergency tracheostomy skills. This would consider the usability and acceptability of unsupervised VR learning, as well as investigate if the learning outcomes are non-inferior. The training package used was Sentira XR, mentioned earlier in this post.
VR is being considered as a solution to enable this training to be scaled up to meet need, as well as safety requirements. A tracheostomy is a life-saving procedure. Though a simple physical task, it can be very stressful and therefore dangerous to perform under pressure. The VR simulation allows the introduction of real-life stressors whilst performing tasks, such as alarms, anxious parents etc.
Screens from Sentira XR simulation training
General Discussion
Jisc are currently developing an XR Maturity Model, inspired by their existing AI Maturity Model for Education as well as other existing models including Npuls Framework XR (2024), Radiant Digital’s Augmented Reality Maturity Model, and Boel et Al’s (2024) Framework for a Nation-wide Implementation of Augmented, Virtual and Mixed Reality in K-12 Technical and Vocational Education.
Attendees noted that it was very much a bottom-up approach to XR at their institutions, with lecturers pushing the case for its use individually, or in small groups. It was agreed that as a collective, it would be far easier to pool data, experience and evidence together to present the importance of investing in this technology to those that make the financial decisions.
There are pockets of great stuff going on in institutions, but the different areas are not necessarily communicating with each other, so excess equipment is being bought, when it could be shared.
Some institutions are currently trying to get buy-in from central IT and acknowledged that proposals needed to be supported by learning and teaching research too. The extra time for onboarding staff and students (on top of existing lectures etc.) would also need to be found from somewhere…
Tech Demos
Proto holographic communication device
Different uses for the Proto
Proto has a volumetric display with a customisable ChatGPT-linked chatbot. It comes in a small portable format as well as a much larger version. This smaller version was being used for examining 3D photogrammetry scans of artefacts and models of body parts, as well as for interactive discussions in and outside lectures with the chatbot. While the smaller version feels a bit gimmicky, there is a larger version which has been used elsewhere to “beam in” speakers to the classroom from around the world. The life-size and 3D elements of the display made it feel more like the visitor was in the room with the students.
Imersifi
Imersifi worked with Swansea University to develop VR training modules for medical simulations and are currently running a 5-year longitudinal study to access the VR potential in this space.
They also introduced aerospace spatial awareness VR training to undergraduate Aerospace Engineering students, which included a virtual walkaround of an aircraft and exam questions, including one final question on whether students would like to see similar VR experiences used in other university modules. Of the 159 students to respond to that question, 139 agreed (103 of those strongly agreed.)