NDLI: STEM collaboration in virtual world academy

Content Provider	IEEE Xplore Digital Library
Author	Divine, L. Williams, R.
Copyright Year	2013
Description	Author affiliation: Tec^Edge Innovation & Collaboration Center, AFRL Discovery Lab., Dayton, OH, USA (Williams, R.) \|\| Tec^Edge Innovation & Collaboration Center, Virtual Reality Acad., Dayton, OH, USA (Divine, L.)
Abstract	There is general agreement about the importance of increasing the number of students choosing career fields in Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM). However most of the initiatives designed to get students interested in STEM fields are constrained by floor space, budget, or driving distance. These factors, in combination, act to limit the affordability and accessibility of research opportunities in STEM fields to students in schools faced with increasingly limited budgets or lacking access to experienced STEM teachers. Since a trained STEM workforce is crucial to tackling research challenges of importance to the Air Force and the nation, the Air Force Research Laboratory (AFRL) Discovery Lab program has developed a Virtual Reality Academy (VRA) program utilizing open source virtual reality software, Open Simulator, to create a virtual collaboration environment called Virtual (reality) Discovery Center (VDC). This 16-region VDC is the key to the Discovery Lab's 1,000 Student Outreach initiative designed to greatly expand the Discovery Lab's ability to make project-based “hands-on” research experience accessible to students across the country via the Open Simulator collaboration technologies. This paper highlights many of the successful efforts to establish VDC Virtual Learning Academies in areas such as Biology, Nanotechnology, Computer Vision, and Mobile Computing (smartphone apps). This paper is not a scientific study of Open Simulator as a collaboration tool for STEM but rather a descriptive overview of its successful implementation locally and nationally - suggesting its potential as a game-changer in STEM education and research.
Sponsorship	IEEE Aerosp. Electron. Syst. Soc.
Starting Page	569
Ending Page	575
File Size	586457
Page Count	7
File Format	PDF
ISBN	9781467364034
e-ISBN	9781467364041
DOI	10.1109/CTS.2013.6567288
Language	English
Publisher	Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, Inc. (IEEE)
Publisher Date	2013-05-20
Publisher Place	USA
Access Restriction	Subscribed
Rights Holder	Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, Inc. (IEEE)
Subject Keyword	Dinosaurs Solid modeling Avatars Collaboration Space shuttles Educational institutions
Content Type	Text
Resource Type	Article

Sl.	Authority	Responsibilities	Communication Details
1	Ministry of Education (GoI), Department of Higher Education	Sanctioning Authority	https://www.education.gov.in/ict-initiatives
2	Indian Institute of Technology Kharagpur	Host Institute of the Project: The host institute of the project is responsible for providing infrastructure support and hosting the project	https://www.iitkgp.ac.in
3	National Digital Library of India Office, Indian Institute of Technology Kharagpur	The administrative and infrastructural headquarters of the project	Dr. B. Sutradhar bsutra@ndl.gov.in
4	Project PI / Joint PI	Principal Investigator and Joint Principal Investigators of the project	Dr. B. Sutradhar bsutra@ndl.gov.in Prof. Saswat Chakrabarti will be added soon
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