Practical and affordable Virtual Reality (VR) technology is now available, and it is extraordinarily powerful. VR allows users to experience distant worlds, microscopic environments, or physically inaccessible places and times, and we think that the teaching potential for this technology is incredible and achievable.

Showing the Power of VR

To activate this potential, educators need the right content and, for the most part, that content does not yet exist. So, our plan is to build it ourselves. We have an industry partner in place, Soluis Group, and an academic, Dr Neil McDonnell, with the expertise to guide colleagues from the initial idea to fruition. No coding or design expertise is required from academics!

We are seeking the very best ideas for how to use VR in University teaching, and we intend to develop the ten best ideas into professional-standard applications.

In this first stage, we are calling for staff within the University of Glasgow to submit ideas for VR teaching applications. We require a 200 word outline of the idea, including an indication of why it might be useful to students, and an accompanying note of approval from your Head of School/Institute indicating that the development would be relevant to the programme and student cohort you have in mind.

Applications can be made through this online form.

The call is open until 5pm, Friday 19 May 2017. (The total time commitment for academics, including consultation time during the competition and afterwards with Soluis, is expected to be less than three days, spread over a period of around nine months.)

Successful applicants will be advanced to a second stage call where support and coaching will be available before a final submission. To see the full competition details, visit:

www.gla.ac.uk/schools/humanities/research/philosophyresearch/cspe/projects/vrar/competition

Please contact vrar-lab@glasgow.ac.uk with enquiries.

First published: 18 April 2017

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