UNIVERSITY OF GLASGOW

How mixed reality transformed teaching and attracted investment at the University of Glasgow

When the University of Glasgow used mixed reality to overcome teaching challenges, they soon saw an improvement in student confidence and experience, and attracted major investment for their research.

People wearing Meta Quest headsets for a mixed reality learning experience

Image courtesy of Martin Sheilds

The challenge

Traditional teaching faces multifaceted challenges – it's physically constrained and limited by what is affordable and safe. Teachers often have to use 2-dimensional materials – textbooks, presentations and print-outs – to teach 3D subject matter, such as chemistry, archaeology, anatomy and 3D engineering.

Solutions are often considered too big, too expensive or too impossible to implement. The university was looking for a single-platform build that would solve challenges for an extremely broad range of subjects.

About the company

Established in 1451, the University of Glasgow has 43,000 students from over 140 countries. Its Advanced Research Centre or ARC hosts ambitious, cross-disciplinary, projects pushing the boundaries of extended reality applications.

Industry

Education

Professor Neil McDonnell,
Philosophy and XR Technology

“

What MR allows us to do in general is to break the laws of physics, not to be physically constrained.

WHY MR

Why Meta Horizon managed solutions?

For Professor Neil McDonnell the choice to go with Meta Quest was an easy one, for a number of reasons:

Excellent Pass-through – The ability to see the real world clearly while wearing a headset was key. Pass-through on Meta Quest 3 helped to overcome the sense of detachment that some new users experience while fully immersed.

Visual fidelity – High-quality visuals were a must, especially as University of Glasgow set out to improve teaching options across a broad range of subjects.

Intuitive controls – Accurate hand tracking and intuitive controls made Meta Quest the best choice on the market for University of Glasgow.

The solution

University of Glasgow held a competition, asking teachers what they would do if they weren't limited by physical constraints. They were invited to propose teaching interventions that would use mixed reality to achieve something that couldn't be achieved otherwise – something that changes teaching outcomes for students.

A wide selection of initial ideas were selected and developed for MR with the University of Glasgow's software partner Edify. These included sessions on battling a salmonella infection in the gut, printing your own page on the Gutenberg press, a field trip to the Isle of Arran and a comparison of protein structures. Around 12 applications were developed in total, either by or in close collaboration with the university.

In tandem, the university created a super-functional teaching lab equipped with Meta Quest headsets, where 30 students can be taught at a time.

Thousands of students are now taught using MR each semester. The university has also used its experience with MR to write a highly influential policy distilling its learning and thinking on the foundations of teaching and learning in mixed reality, from headset deployment to classroom management.

The university is now working on validating the efficacy of its apps so that it can simulate funding to build more, improve what it has and make them easier to deploy.

Professor Neil McDonnell,
Philosophy and XR Technology

“

On the teaching front, we want to take what we know is good, get it to more people and get greater integration with the rest of university teaching.

The results

Thousands of students are now more engaged and confident in their subjects. Meta Quest has added a vast range of teaching approaches and reinforced traditional and experience based learning.

Other achievements include:

£1M of UK government investment
Establishing a set of standards for mixed reality in education, producing guidelines influencing institutions across the world
12 learning apps developed by University of Glasgow, spanning a broad range of subjects
Recognition in The Times Higher Education Awards 2021

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