Bringing Industry into the Classroom: Virtual Learning Environments for a New Generation

Engineers need to be practical, but potential litigation, cost and logistics all act to frustrate efforts to provide undergraduate student engineers with practical experience of industrial facilities. The long timeframes of major engineering projects also mean that students often see only a snapshot of the entire project life cycle. A partial solution is to attempt to bring industry into the classroom through virtual learning environments. This study aims to measure student perceptions of the effectiveness of virtual reality environments in enhancing their understanding of the design and operation of industrial facilities. The six virtual learning environments developed by the authors to date are briefly described. They are all created around a linked collection of high-resolution spherical photographs, and the plants include an oil refinery, a water recycling plant and a tank farm. Significantly, three of the environments are 4D, meaning that they capture some aspect of the evolution of the plant over time. The typical activities that students undertake within the learning environments are discussed and linked to CDIO attributes. Qualitative and quantitative assessment techniques were used to measure student perceptions of the usefulness of the virtual environments in two chemical engineering subjects, 2nd year Process Heat Transfer and 4th year Risk Management. In Risk Management, a pre/post test showed that students identified significantly more hazards when using the virtual environment compared to an engineering drawing. For both subjects, students gave very positive responses, 85% agreement or above, about the usefulness of the environment in enhancing their knowledge of industrial plants, having a helpful effect on learning, and enriching their learning through linking plant images with corresponding technical diagrams. Significant differences in the perceptions of the two student groups were observed for the ease of use, enjoyment, and ability to visualise the size and positioning of industrial equipment. Analysis of free text comments identified areas in need of further development.