Since the beginning of this year, Karlsruhe University of Applied Sciences (HKA) has been a "European University". Funding comes from the European Commission and further support from the German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD) from funds provided by the Federal Ministry of Education and Research, as well as from the Ministry of Science, Research and the Arts of the state of Baden-Württemberg. The goal is to develop a long-term joint strategy for education, with regard to research and innovation as well as society as a whole in Europe.
Each semester, a Staff Academy lasting several days will take place at one of the 10 INGENIUM university locations with the subject of "INGENIUM for innovative teaching and lifelong learning". The first Staff Academy took place in June 2023 during the first edition of the 10 Days of INGENIUM in Italy.
Teaching staff from the 10 partner universities used this opportunity to present and exchange innovative learning and teaching systems over several days. In workshops and lectures, the participants presented their latest approaches in the field of pedagogy, didactics and knowledge transfer.
The IIIX workshop by Matthias Wölfel and Daniel Hepperle focused on the potential of immersive virtual reality (VR) for teaching. The VR Campus was introduced as a tool for networking universities and to make lectures jointly accessible. The VR Campus developed by IIIX enables students to immerse themselves in a virtual environment using VR glasses, to exchange information with others as avatars and to participate interactively in lectures. The high level of immersion allows learners to experience complex concepts and scenarios first-hand, leading to deeper and more effective knowledge absorption.
"The presented VR application is a great and vivid example of how technology-supported teaching and learning can be designed," said Martin Mandausch from the Centre for Teaching Innovation at HKA. "Karlsruhe University of Applied Sciences was able to inspire with its contribution to the Ingenium Staff Academy and offer an innovative impulse, which led to numerous interested enquiries and follow-up discussions. I am convinced that there will be many more points of contact at the universities in the INGENIUM Alliance and I am looking forward to seeing the exciting teaching opportunities that will emerge for our students as a result."
The workshop participants had the opportunity to try out the VR Campus themselves and to experience its potential first hand. The feedback was consistently positive and many were excited about the possibilities this technology offers. As part of the collaborative project SHELLS (Shared Excellence - Laboratory Learning Spaces 4.0), the development VR Campus is funded by the Foundation Innovation in Higher Education. More information about the campus is available here:
https://www.hochschuldidaktik.net/projekte/shells
We would like to thank all participants, especially the HKA-INGENIUM team for the organisation.
Members of the INGENIUM alliance are
Karlsruhe University of Applied Sciences (HKA) (Germany)
Universidad de Oviedo (Spain)
Munster Technological University (Ireland)
Högskolan i Skövde (Sweden)
Medical University Sofia (Bulgaria)
Università degli Studi "G. d'Annunzio" Chieti-Pescara (Italy)
Universitatea Tehnică "Gheorghe Asachi" din Iaşi (Romania)
Université de Rouen Normandie (France)
University of Crete (Greece)
Southeast Finland University of Applied Sciences - Xamk (Finland).
If you have any questions or suggestions, please feel free to contact us!