First Korean university to give devices free to every freshman, linking VR/AR content with laboratory classes; MOU with Gyeongsangbuk-do Culture and Tourism Organization seeks joint regional development in education, tourism and industry.
POSTECH opened a new classroom combining virtual, augmented and mixed reality and introduced advanced-technology lectures and laboratory programs. At 14:00 on May 27, it demonstrated the lecture system and physics labs in the VR/AR/MR classroom on the first floor of the EE LG Research Building.
The AR/MR system allows students in the classroom and those connected remotely to learn with virtual objects. Students, teaching assistants and professors can conduct classes as if together even when geographically separated.
POSTECH began VR classes in April to maintain educational quality and encourage independent, creative learning during COVID-19 remote instruction. It built a 106-seat classroom supporting all three technologies and, in a first for a Korean university, provided Oculus Quest 2 headsets to all 320 incoming students for laboratory classes.
The first VR physics labs use software to virtualize actual experiments filmed with a 360-degree camera. Headset users can turn their heads to view apparatus from different angles and repeatedly watch the assistant's demonstration. Physics Professor Gunsu Yun said advanced remote labs could establish a new post-COVID educational paradigm, enabling self-directed study anywhere in the world without being bound to campus.
POSTECH plans to mail experiment kits to students' homes so they can perform experiments while following VR lessons and gradually expand from physics to chemistry and other required foundational laboratory courses.
EE Professor Wook-Sung Kim, who leads the project and is POSTECH's first integrated industry–university professor, said it allows firsthand-like experiences of dangerous, inaccessible or otherwise unreachable places without time or location constraints. He stressed that technological innovation can create greater value in fields beyond education.
POSTECH also signed an MOU that day with the Gyeongsangbuk-do Culture and Tourism Organization to establish a Gyeongbuk smart-tourism foundation. Beginning with this public-sector/university partnership, it will explore joint regional development across education, tourism and industry using VR, AR and MR.
Integrated industry–university faculty system: A company recommends personnel needed for collaborative research; the university evaluates and hires them as professors, with personnel costs shared by the company and university.
