Presentation used at iLRN 2018. This paper provides an instrument for ascertaining researchers’ perspectives on the relative relevance of technological challenges facing immersive envi-ronments in view of their adoption in learning contexts, along three dimen-sions: access, content production, and deployment. It described its theoretical grounding and expert-review process, from a set of previously-identified challenges and expert feedback cycles. The paper details the motivation, set-up, and methods employed, as well as the issues detected in the cycles and how they were addressed while developing the instrument. As a research in-strument, it aims to be employed across diverse communities of research and practice, helping direct research efforts and hence contribute to wider use of immersive environments in learning, and possibly contribute towards the de-velopment of news and more adequate systems.

1. Identifying Immersive Environments’
most relevant Research Topics:
An Instrument to query Researchers and Practitioners
Horácio Gaspar, Leonel Morgado, Henrique Mamede, Baltasar Manjón, Christian Gütl

2. Can we reach
widespread adoption of
immersive environments?

3. Our Sicily isn’t old enough!
Sorry, Michael!

4. Damocles doesn’t
look too happy, in
spite of all the
luxury…

5. Perhaps due
to the sword
hanging over
his head?
Context and its
awareness change
everything.

6. Immersive learning
traditionally means
role-playing and other
physical simulations, field
trips, internships, etc.
A sword & horse hair
worked for Damocles.
Immersive technology
can take it further.

7. “The Sword of
Damocles” was the
VR/AR system of
inventor Ivan
Sutherland.

8. Which was
so heavy it
hanged over
his head!
…showing
wireframe
shapes.
Most of what you hear and
see about VR/AR today,
including touch… Ivan
thought of it back then.

9. And by the 1980s this
was being used for
learning (training)
purposes at NASA.

10. 10
Q_GOP_DM_02_V1.1
However, the 80s
were hardly the best
decade for reasonable
approaches to tech….

11. 5 frames / second
Heavy gear
Nauseas
Headaches
…so it didn’t
really work!

12. Consumer AR/VR got lost in its own
desert storm of lack of credibility…
And soon after
the actual
Desert Storm
(Gulf War)…

13. …but something happened
then that VR did not intend…
…it was picked up by the most
unlikely creatures imaginable…

14. Poor graphics (vs.
competition), poor
processing… but
you could move and
hit stuff. Huge hit!

15. Competitors
sprouted!

16. Another creature:
the PSP camera and
its succesful game
of AR beasts.

17. Everyone has some
AR device now.
(But mostly for
professional use.)

18. Third unforeseen
creature: cheap
screens and
computing.

19. Which prompted a
guy to say we now
could make a decent
VR headset.

20. 2160x1200 pixels
(1080x1200 / eye)
@ 90 Hz
Weight: 470 g
3-axis rotational tracking +
3-axis positional tracking)
110° field of view
And he was
right!

21. Competitors
sprouted!

22. And games
actually look
good and play
well!

23. …but
improbability
drives the
world…
And so it did.

24. Who’d have
guessed it?

25. Technology isn’t
static.
Technology isn’t
“done”. Technology isn’t
planned or linear

26. Technology isn’t
static.
But lots of Learning research
assumes so!

27. Games
Studies
Computer
Science
Learning
Sciences
Immersive
Learning
Research
Immersive Learning Research
combines – consciously –
different fields.
So a field must IMPACT
others, not just “use” them.

28. Immersive Learning Researchers should seek to impact
the CHANGE of technology.
- Not just study its “effects”, “impact”, or “use”.

29. 1
Access
3
Deployment
2
Production
Baseline:
technological
challenges for
widespread adoption
Technology Challenges of Virtual Worlds in Education and Training - Research Directions
http://repositorio.utad.pt//handle/10348/2787

30. 1
Access
3
Deployment
2
Production
Interligação
Software
Networks
Interconnection

31. 1
Access
3
Deployment
2
Production
Tools for developers
Tools for everyone

32. 1
Access
3
Deployment
2
Production
MULTIS
http://beaconing.eu/

33. 1
Access
3
Deployment
2
Production
MULTIS
Make it FEASIBLE for any
educator or student to use
immersive environments
anyday, anytime, often, and
yearlong.
Not just occasionally, as a
gimmick or only in
the hands of enthusiasts!

34. 1
Access
3
Deployment
2
Production
What’s the relevance
or priority of doing
research for each
challenge?

35. Setup
Tentative
questionnaire
Population
Scope:
immersive
learning
researchers

36. Expert validation
British U,
computing, male, h-
índex 19
USA U, Educational
Tech, male, h-index
8
Continental Europe
U, Game Studies,
female, h-índex 8
USA U, Learning
Sciences, female, h-
índex 37
Reviewer of
iLRN2018, self-
reported confidence
3 (medium)
Expert 1
Expert 2
Expert 3
Expert 4
Expert 5
Expert review
interactions

37. Outcomes – Four types of feedback
• Structural - visual organization of the questionnaire.
• Context clarification - aspects which could be misunderstood
by researchers from fields other than computer science;
•Ambiguity - aspects which could lead to differences of
interpretation and subsequent impact on meaningfulness of
answers.
•Missing aspects - new questions which may be relevant

38. Final instrument – appendix to the paper

39. Early results applying it to the iLRN community
0 2 4 6 8 10 12 14 16 18 20
Studying the consequences for the learning context of adopting
immersive environments based on client-server vs. peer-to-peer
networking.
Analysing which immersive learning environments would benefit
from the decentralized storage and computational workload provided
by peer-to-peer, and which would be harmed by it.
Analysing which educational management methods for teach-ers,
trainers, and educational organizations using immersive
environments would these alter-native network models imply.
Researching aspects impacting the daily work of network ad-
ministrators, such as network behaviour of immersive envi-ronments
(configurations, per-formance impact, security, costs).
Researching the relationship between network behaviour of
immersive environments (con-figurations, performance impact,
security, costs) and specific ed-ucational activities.
Accessing Immersive Environments: networking
Unsure Extremely relevant Very relevant Somewhat relevant A little relevant Not relevant

40. Early results applying it to the iLRN community
0 5 10 15 20 25
Identifying the value of being able to use standard browsers for
accessing the immersive envi-ronment rather than installing specific…
Analysing the feasibility of re-quiring the use of applications that need
be installed in users’ or school’s machines.
Studying the risk of software conflicts or hardware shortcom-ings of
immersive environment software.
Identifying security vulnerabili-ties and tactics used for malicious
exploit of these network-aware applications.
Identifying methods to stream-line installation and updating of
immersive environment software.
Identifying methods to manage, monitor, track, and debug immer-
sive environment software.
Studying the operational behav-iour of immersive environments on
Web browsers (e.g., usability, interfaces, vulnerabilities).
Identifying learning contexts where using video streaming can render
immersive environments feasible.
Identifying learning contexts where using video streaming is not
feasible for using immersive environments.
Accessing Immersive Environments: software
Unsure Extremely relevant Very relevant Somewhat relevant A little relevant Not relevant

41. Early results applying it to the iLRN community
0 5 10 15 20 25
Analysing learning implications of immersive environments that
perform “sharding”: users ac-cess different copies of the same
environment, rather than being all together online, to avoid the…
Creating/Identifying technolog-ical solutions to enable re-sources to
be shared across different immersive environ-ments.
Creating/Identifying technolog-ical solutions to enable users to access
different immersive environments without requiring new login
procedures.
Creating/Identifying technolog-ical solutions to enable users’ virtual
personas (i.e. avatars) to access different immersive environments.
Studying scaling and security issues, at the technological level, of
sharing users and re-sources across different immer-sive
environments.
Studying the relevance, for learning contexts, of learning content and
activities in immer-sive environments being tied (locked-in) to a
specific kind of technology, i.e., of not being able to move them to…
Accessing Immersive Environments: interconnection
Unsure Extremely relevant Very relevant Somewhat relevant A little relevant Not relevant

42. Early results applying it to the iLRN community
0 2 4 6 8 10 12 14 16 18
Identifying the impact on tech-nical workload
and project risk of adopting some production
tools over others (for content production by
experts).
Identifying the impact on tech-nical
development flexibility (e.g., changes,
updates) of adopt-ing some production tools
over others (for content production by
experts).
Production: tools for professionals
Unsure Extremely relevant Very relevant Somewhat relevant A little relevant Not relevant

43. Early results applying it to the iLRN community
0 5 10 15 20 25 30
Studying the development pro-cesses of immersive environment content by
non-technical users.
Studying the adequacy of current development tools for immersive
environment content geared to-wards non-technical users.
Designing training methods for development tools of immersive environment
content geared to-wards non-technical users.
Creating/Identifying development tools that enable non-technical users to
create interactive behav-iours for objects in immersive environments.
Creating/Identifying development tools that enable non-technical users to
create interactive virtual characters for immersive envi-ronments.
Creating/Identifying development tools that enable non-technical users to
define virtual characters’ behaviours by demonstrating what is intended and…
Creating/Identifying development tools that enable non-technical users to
create choreographies of groups of virtual characters for immersive…
Creating/Identifying development tools that enable non-technical users to
create interactive stories with multiple virtual characters for immersive…
Creating/Identifying development tools that enable non-technical users to
express higher-level semantics, such as “from home to work”, instead of raw…
Creating/Identifying development tools that enable non-technical users to
produce content collabo-ratively.
Production: tools for end users
Unsure Extremely relevant Very relevant Somewhat relevant A little relevant Not relevant

44. Early results applying it to the iLRN community
0 5 10 15 20 25 30
Creating/Identifying solutions for tracking student progress while doing assignments in
immersive environments.
Creating/Identifying solutions for teachers/trainers to be able to identify learning support
needs and provide extra resources di-rectly within immersive environ-ments.
Creating/Identifying solutions for learning management systems collect student assessment
data from immersive environments.
Creating/Identifying solutions for learning management systems to provide feedback and
guidance to learners directly within immer-sive environments.
Creating/Identifying solutions enabling learning management systems to manipulate the
content of the immersive environment.
Creating/Identifying solutions enabling learning management systems to adjust tasks within
an immersive environment accord-ing to the learner’s knowledge or skill levels.
Ascertaining the sets of require-ments for improving the integra-tion of immersive
environments with learning management sys-tems.
Creating/Identifying solutions for recording what happens within an immersive environment
from the users’ perspective.
Creating/Identifying solutions for recording what happens within an immersive environment
from a user-independent perspective.
Identifying technical support staff training needs to support the de-ployment of immersive
environ-ments at organizations.
Ensuring that all users within an immersive environment witness the same occurrences at the
same time.
Deployment: integration with LMS
Unsure Extremely relevant Very relevant Somewhat relevant A little relevant Not relevant

45. Demographics

46. Please contribute to this survey,
(link in your e-mail), help identify
the research priorities of iLRN.
Leonel.Morgado@uab.pt