D-MTEC teaching innovation FactoryVR shortlisted for the “Oscars of Education”
Professor Torbjörn Netland and his team at the Chair of Production and Operations Management have been shortlisted for the prestigious 2020 Reimagine Education Awards, in the category Virtual Reality/Augmented Reality (VR/AR), for FactoryVR, a project created in cooperation with the Hilti Corporation. Reimagine Education is the world’s largest awards programme for innovative pedagogies – the “Oscars of Education”. Only 12 percent of the 1,500 applications were shortlisted this year.
In the FactoryVR project, Professor Netland’s team developed a virtual version of one of Hilti’s real factories. Students can visit the factory using VR viewers and their own smartphones. The VR environment is gamified, meaning that students can explore the factory at their convenience and at their own pace, answer quizzes, and collect ‘stars’ as they advance to higher levels. Guided by a carefully developed course assignment, the students also engage in group work to reflect more deeply on the learning objectives of the course. So far, FactoryVR is being offered in the lecture course Production and Operations Management (363-0445-00).
“Of course, we are very happy to be shortlisted and to have a shot at winning the VR/AR award,” said Professor Netland. “For the latest developments, I would like to acknowledge in particular the excellent work of Rafael Lorenz, Gian-Andrea Gottini and Daniel Kwasnitschka of my team, and the continued backing of Erik Jentges, LET, and Innovedum. We also have to thank the Hilti team for their fantastic support and for welcoming us to their factory in Thüringen, Austria. We are co-creating a teaching innovation that will not only be useful in higher education, but will also help Hilti improve their internal training. The global COVID-19 pandemic effectively hinders field trips to factories, but FactoryVR solves this problem.”
FactoryVR is funded by Innovedum and is a further development of the project “CaseVR,” in which Professor Netland and his team used available VR material from YouTube and five ABB factories. CaseVR won the Gianluca Spina Award for Teaching Excellence and Innovation in 2018, and was shortlisted for the 2020 ETH KITE Award by D-MTEC. That FactoryVR was shortlisted for a Reimagine Education Award is testimony to the world-class innovative teaching that takes place at D-MTEC.
Reimagine Education
external page Reimagine Education is hosted by QS, a Leading Global Education Network, and the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania. Reimagine Education is a global conference and competition, open to educational innovators from all around the world.
The Reimagine Education Awards – the “Oscars of Education” – reward innovative approaches that enhance student learning outcomes and employability, offering $50,000 in funding to the overall winners. Bronze, Silver and Gold Reimagine Education Winners will be given the opportunity to showcase their innovations at the virtual external page Reimagine Education Conference on 9–11 December 2020.