In September, the 'ERASMUS+' project 'VR-intense' was launched under the leadership of Prof Dr Marc Beutner and Dr Jennifer Schneider, Chair of Business Education at Paderborn University, which focuses on the development of innovative VR tools and concepts.

With the help of VR glasses, learners should not only experience a virtual tour of European educational institutions, but also improve their social and communication skills. The international cooperation project will run for 36 months and is being funded with 400,000 euros.

The project partners are working together on the programming, implementation, and evaluation of a VR environment that combines blended learning, in which the analogue meets the virtual learning world, and digital media. The aim is to develop sustainable and transferable strategies for the use of VR in higher education. A particular focus is on the development of VR tools for excursions and Europe-wide collaborative work in virtual spaces.

“With VR-intense, we want to take higher education to a new level,” explains Beutner. “By combining virtual reality and blended learning, we want to inspire students across Europe and provide them with new, interactive learning experiences.”

VR-intense focuses on an inclusive learning environment and also takes the needs of students with disabilities and handicaps into account during development. The project aims to design VR technologies in such a way that they are accessible to all learners.

These efforts will be documented in a comprehensive report on support options for disadvantaged groups. The project will provide a free eLearning platform where students and teachers can familiarise themselves with and try out the new VR tools.

The project is supported by an international partnership that includes the University of Paderborn as coordinator, Ingenious Knowledge GmbH (Germany), Universidad a distancia de Madrid SA (Spain), Otto Friedrich University Bamberg (Germany), Future in Perspective Ltd (Ireland), the University of Zagreb (Croatia) and the Universitatea Nationala de Stiinta si Tehnologie Politehnica (Romania). The partners contribute broad expertise in the fields of didactics, technology and education management.