ACCELERATE has a simple but ambitious aim: to improve the teaching of art and design at higher education in a post-pandemic Europe through the development of innovative methodologies, tools, platforms, and resources for accessible immersive learning. It will do so by bringing together art and design lecturers, educational researchers, and learning technologists from the UK, Ireland, Poland, and Ukraine to reflect on the impact of COVID-19 and to explore new possibilities for pedagogy and digital innovation. In March and April 2020, 95% of European universities moved to online distance learning. The shift was as deliberate as it was profound—despite the enormous social upheaval, university teaching carried on—but impact was unevenly distributed, varying by country, university, and subject. Practice-based subjects such as art and design were particularly hard hit with a fifth of European students reporting that their university had not been able to move practical classes online (as opposed to less than 4% who reported that lectures had not been moved online). Nonetheless, as the experiences of art and design institutions and faculties across Europe testify, practice-based lecturers and students demonstrated remarkable ingenuity in adapting existing online platforms and tools to ensure a continuity of learning amidst tremendous uncertainty. These experiences in turn informed preparations for 2020/21, with practice-based subjects currently offering a 'blended' learning approach mixing in-person and virtual teaching or, once again, delivering their learning entirely online. ACCELERATE will draw on the spirit of practice-led creative innovation that art and design lecturers have been invoking since March. It will focus on the potential transformative role of immersive technologies (that is, augmented, virtual, and mixed realities, also known as extended reality (XR)) in the teaching of art and design while recognising that many learners face significant challenges in engaging effectively with XR technologies: disabilities; complex personal circumstances; low quality devices; poor and unreliable internet access. It proposes to create a new prototype platform (Intellectual Output 4) for accessible immersive teaching in art and design that aims to democratise XR technology rather than limit to those with the best equipment and the fastest connections. The collaborative development of this immersive ecosystem—open-source, scalable, sustainable—as a gateway for art and design lecturers and students with little or no previous experience of XR technologies will be informed by a considered evaluation of the impact of COVID-19 on art and design teaching at the partner universities (Intellectual Output 1), the co-drafting of a methodological guide (Intellectual Output 2) and the co-designing of a standalone online training course aimed at lecturers (Intellectual Output 3); it will be populated by teaching materials including co-created case studies (Intellectual Output 5) that will draw on the shared expertise and perspectives of the project partners. By engaging with the layered complexities of XR accessibility and immersive learning, ACCELERATE has the capacity to be genuinely pioneering in its pedagogical and technological outcomes and to find new ways of engaging with art and design students from disadvantaged and underrepresented groups. All the intellectual outputs will be shared publicly. The immersive ecosystem and case studies will maintained well beyond the end of the project, allowing lecturers and students from other universities across Europe and beyond to experience the benefits of immersive learning as well XR developers to use, enhance, and extend the immersive ecosystem itself.
'ACCELERATE: Accessible Immersive Learning for Art and Design' aimed to improve the teaching of art and design at higher education in a post-pandemic Europe through accessible immersive learning, with the support of six partners in UK, Ireland, Poland, and Ukraine — Bath Spa University (BSU); University of the Arts London (UAL); Institute of Art, Design and Technology (IADT); SWPS University; Chernivtsi National University (CHNU); Sumy State University (SSU). Specifically, the project would (1) evaluate the impact of the shift to online and blended learning for art and design lecturers, technical staff, and students during 2020-21; (2) assess the potential impact of immersive technologies in teaching art and design; (3) train art and design lecturers in the principles and practices of accessible immersive teaching; (4) create inclusive pedagogies, resources, and guides to support lecturers in using immersive technology in art and design courses; (5) identify the key 3D tools and platforms most suitable for art and design pedagogy; (6) develop an accessible, immersive prototype extended realities/XR platform for art and design teaching.
The pivot to online teaching by European universities during the pandemic was particularly difficult for practice-based subjects, revealing the limitations of existing technologies and pedagogies. But it also highlighted the possibilities for digital technology to enhance student learning and creativity. Immersive technology in particular has the potential to transform practice-based teaching but practice-based lecturers often lack the skills, resources, and confidence to embed this into their courses while the technology itself can be challenging for students, especially those with disabilities, complex personal circumstances, low quality devices, and poor and unreliable internet access. There is a need, therefore, to develop a new model of 'accessible immersive learning' that could be implemented in practice-based teaching at higher education.