The convergence of immersive technologies and next-generation communication networks offers new potential for advancing surgical training. This paper presents the Magos Bakri Balloon Placement Training (MBBPT) system, a Virtual Reality (VR) simulation platform integrated with haptic feedback and 5th Generation (5G) Open Radio Access Network (O-RAN) connectivity. The system enables realistic and interactive medical training, leveraging submillimeter-precision hand tracking and kinesthetic feedback from Magos gloves. To evaluate the feasibility and performance of network-assisted VR training, MBBPT was tested across a disaggregated O-RAN-based private 5G testbed at University College Dublin (UCD), a standalone private 5G testbed at Patras, and a cross-site setup linking both. The setup assessed Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) and Key Value Indicators (KVIs) to show the system supports responsive, multiuser VR interactions across geographically distributed sites, with consistent performance. These findings highlight the role of 5G O-RAN as an enabler for scalable, collaborative, high-fidelity immersive medical education.

Women remain underrepresented in science, technology, engineering, arts and mathematics (STEAM) subjects and careers in higher education. This literature review explored the current state, challenges, strategies and best practices related to encouraging women's participation in STEAM fields in the context of Ireland and the UK. Database searches identified 21 relevant studies from the past decade (2013–2023). Results indicate that despite increasing enrollment, fewer women pursue STEAM degrees and careers compared to men. Key barriers faced by women include stereotypes, lack of sense of belonging and confidence, difficulty shaping a STEAM identity, and lack of institutional support. Strategies to boost engagement include outreach programs, peer learning, mentoring with female role models, and flexible career paths. While mentors can enhance women's self-efficacy, few studies have investigated this. Recommended best practices emphasize early interventions, visibility of female role models, leadership commitment to inclusion policies, and approaches accommodating women's lives. However, gender inequality in STEAM persists. Further research is needed to understand how evidence-based strategies can be effectively implemented. This review highlights the need for multifaceted initiatives spanning all educational levels and career stages to create a supportive ecosystem enabling women to reach their full potential in STEAM fields.

This study examines the potential of Augmented Reality (AR) to enhance and complement educational experiences within an extended theoretical framework of the Technology Acceptance Model (TAM). Given AR’s capacity for providing immersive, interactive learning beyond traditional classroom settings, we aim to understand the cognitive and emotional factors influencing students’ attitudes towards integrating these tools into their learning environments. Our investigation analyzes student responses to AR technologies, focusing on their perceptions of usefulness, ease of use, enjoyment, and anxiety. Employing a quantitative methodology, we gathered diverse student perspectives on AR. This was to gain deeper insights into its educational significance and impact on student engagement and learning outcomes. In our study, we found that students value AR’s ability to enhance learning experiences when implemented appropriately. High levels of perceived usefulness, ease of use, and enjoyment, coupled with low anxiety, indicate that students are more inclined to adopt AR technologies that are beneficial, user-friendly, engaging, and minimally stressful. It is critical to foster wider acceptance and effective integration of AR into educational frameworks to support this positive reception. AR effectiveness in education depends on both functional and emotional aspects. By ensuring AR applications are purposely designed to be useful, accessible, and enjoyable, educators can provide a more welcoming environment for the adoption of these innovative tools as complementary aids to traditional pedagogical practices. Furthermore, educators should strive to create learning experiences that foster creativity, collaboration, and critical thinking. This can be done by integrating AR into existing lesson plans or creating entirely customized activities. The study emphasizes AR’s potential benefits in improving educational outcomes when integrated holistically. To ensure equitable and engaging AR experiences for all students, further research is needed.

Abstract The spread of Augmented Reality (AR) and the recent technological developments, provide innovative techniques and tools that show a growing potential in education. One of the pilots of the European Horizon 2020 project ARETE (Augmented Reality Interactive Educational System) aims to investigate and evaluate for the first time the introduction of an AR solution to support a behavioral lesson in schools where the Positive Behaviour Intervention and Support (PBIS) methodology is adopted. Specifically in this paper, we describe the architectural design and implementation of a PBIS-AR application as a component of the ARETE ecosystem. It describes the functionality of the system and the teaching process that the AR solution will support.

Teacher attitudes and technology acceptance towards Augmented Reality (AR) are important constructs because their development has an impact on the teachers’ use of AR applications in classroom practice. The present study focusses on these two constructs and analyses them from a theoretical and empirical perspective. In this context, results from a pre-test from the European H2020 project ARETE are introduced. In this study, n=129 teachers from 13 countries responded to an online survey which included questions on demographic data as well as two scales to measure teacher attitudes towards AR and teacher technology acceptance towards AR. The results show a mostly highly motivated sample and very positive attitudes towards AR among the participating teachers. An analysis of correlations and predictors was performed by calculating the Pearson Correlation coefficient and a regression analysis, which indicated that teacher attitudes and technology acceptance towards AR are highly correlated. Additionally, the teachers’ previous experience with AR and, in case of technology acceptance, the self-assessed expertise in using digital media for teaching and learning are significant predictors for the two constructs in question.

Due to the global pandemic, heavily practical based teaching in veterinary education has been hugely impacted. Even before the crisis, an innovative way to provide an assessment that could simulate the examination of a cadaver has been a long-standing dream for veterinary schools and faculty. We designed and implemented a summative assessment system using touchless interaction head-mounted display (HMD) Virtual Reality (VR), and presented a user study that was an initial exploration of the proposed system designed to replace traditional spatial multiple choices questions (MCQs) for veterinary students. The performance relating to the score and time spent of 24 veterinary students was measured in online MCQ and VR MCQ. Questionnaires were sent out to gather demographic data and opinions. Manipulation time in the VR environment was tracked. The results showed that the time spent was significantly shorter using VR as an assessment tool compared to online MCQ. Participants revealed that the VR assessment outperformed the traditional method in terms of satisfaction, distinctiveness, concentration, and nervousness levels. However, they underperformed in the VR examination significantly. The summative assessment in VR has the potential to further support veterinary education, and the usage of HMDs and touchless interaction will boost the process. This evaluation illustrates the gap between students’ perception of VR examination and their MCQ performance that will require future research to untangle if this technology is to be adopted in the anatomy classroom.

During the last decade, there has been a surge in research studies exploring the adoption of Augmented Reality (AR) in educational settings. Within these multiple research studies, AR's capability to extend the teaching and learning environment with augmented 3D learning objects with enhanced interactive capabilities have been demonstrated. This new technology has not been widely adopted in the mainstream but with the recent unprecedented circumstances of COVID-19, there has been an increasing societal willingness to adopt these technologies. AR has been a desirable technology due to its inherent touchless nature which facilitates social distancing at this time but AR applications crucially offer so much more. They can provide interactive functionality through augmentation of the teaching and learning environment within an immersive user experience including 3D interactions with learning objects, gestures, hand interaction, tangible and multi-modal interaction. This paper presents the results of a review of touchless interaction studies in educational applications and proposes the implementation of real-time touchless hand interaction within kinesthetic learning and utilization of machine learning agents. The architecture of two AR applications with real-time hand interaction and machine learning agents are demonstrated within this paper enabling engaged kinesthetic learning as an alternative learning interface.

In the last few years there has been a steady release of XR-based tools to enhance the learning experience. Until now the focus of researchers has been on the creation of content, but there is currently a lack of tools facilitating the creation of XR experiences for education. The objective of this workshop is to present the work fulfilled in the H2020 ARETE project (www.areteproject.eu) and to stimulate the discussion around what has been done and what is still left to do to enable researchers and enterprises to easily create XR experiences.

Augmented Reality (AR) is a powerful tool for supporting students' learning processes, but sound research findings regarding the systematic evaluation of AR-enhanced teaching and learning processes are scarce especially with regards to literacy attainment. Hence, against the background of a systematic literature review the evaluation approach in the European H2020 ARETE project is introduced. The effects of Augmented Reality (AR) on fourth to sixth grade primary school students' literacy skills acquisition are assessed. The evaluation approach has been designed systematically to respond to important research desiderata such as the development of multimethod and multi-perspective evaluation approaches combining different target groups and measurements. The aim of this paper is the design clarification and the provision of the research desideratum of evaluation design and metrics that are suitable for systematically assessing students' literacy attainment when utilising AR.

ARETE (Augmented Reality Interactive Educational System) is a European project, which aims to develop an interactive toolkit for Augmented Reality (AR) content. In this work in progress paper, we describe the system which is currently being developed. The ARETE system follows human-centered interaction design practices and has a strong focus in interactive, multi-user and multi-lingual technologies. On completion, the system will be evaluated across three pilot studies. The three pilots will involve more than 3000 students across ten European countries and they will assess the impact of usage of the ARETE system and the educational value of AR for English literacy skills, STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Math) skills and in the implementation of Positive Behaviour Support in Schools (PBIS). ARETE will also be involved in the implementation of new standards for the creation of cross platform content and services as well as the creation of learning experience data repositories.

Educational technology plays an important role in the life of a medical student. The potential for virtual reality (VR) to enhance medical education has been discernible for more than 40 years; however, it has not been available due to the associated high costs [1]. With the advancement and affordability of three-dimensional (3D) technology, the introduction of virtual and augmented reality has the potential to change the way in which medical students learn today. Currently, teaching tools consist of a multitude of materials, from traditional resources such as books to more modern web-based videos, which provide students with extra study material in an effort to promote self-directed learning [2]. 3D learning objects have the potential to provide an alternative immersive learning tool for medical students to comprehend complex structures found within the medical education curricula [3], [4]. Furthermore, we can take this one step further by introducing 3D learning objects into virtual reality learning environments (VRLE's) [5]. VRLE's can assist in self-directed learning by providing an enhanced learning and understanding of invisible concepts, such as those found within the obstetrics and gynaecology curriculum. This study is based on the aforementioned concepts, which are used to develop an immersive 3D learning tool. This work-in-progress paper focuses on outlining the workflow process of the development of VR Baby, in which 3D learning objects are created for implementation into a VRLE, for future use within the medical education setting.

During the last decade, there has been an increase in the development of training systems based on Virtual Reality (VR) and Augmented Reality (AR). This paper describes work in progress on exploring the challenges in the creation of anatomy simulators for professionals such as Doctors and Veterinarians. Given the current limitations of workstation powered VR headsets which are primarily their lack of mobility both for a given machine and the Head Mounted Display (HMD) which is commonly tethered. This lack of mobility limits the efficiency of communications between the lecturers and students. This work explores using AR-based smartphone version and mobile VR HMD as an alternative. This work-in-progress paper describes the comparison between the mobile platform AR and mobile immersive headset VR in different aspects of Veterinary Education.

Advances in virtual immersive and augmented reality technology, commercially available for the entertainment and gaming industry, hold potential for education and clinical use in medicine and the field of radiology. Radiology departments have begun exploring the use of these technologies to help with radiology education and training. The purpose of this article is to address how skills have been developed in the gaming world and how these can be adopted for radiology education. Radiology is rapidly evolving with the use of AI for more effective diagnostic and prognostic clinical assessment. Advances in computing technology have enabled widespread availability of simulated reality technologies, including virtual reality (VR) and augmented reality (AR). This work in progress paper describes VR and AR technologies as novel means to communicate and have potential for supplementing radiology training; communicating with colleagues, referring clinicians, and patients; and aiding in interventional radiology procedures.

This paper outlines the objectives of the working group on developing a model Augmented Reality curriculum for higher education. We motivate the need for the model curriculum by the growing Augmented Reality industry and subsequent demand for trained professionals. While the industry is growing, the educational offers that train the required skills remain limited and fragmented. The working group will address this challenge by surveying the state of the art in Augmented Reality education are reviewing available data on industry requirements. Based on the results, the group will develop a new model Augmented Reality curriculum. The working group will also develop future work recommendations for the design of teaching materials and integration of Augmented Reality in computing curricula.

The future of surgical training is changing. One of the bottlenecks in the training of surgeons is the availability of either real patients while being supervised or cadavers. Both these resources can be in limited supply. Surgical trainers have been a common solution to this problem but can be expensive thus limiting their use in the developing world. This paper will examine how using Augmented Reality (AR), Virtual Reality (VR) and inexpensive 3D printing can act as a replacement to expensive training devices for sole purposes. For the work described in this paper, the EndoVascular Aneurysm Repair (EVAR) operation will be examined to explore whether medical training for young surgeons can be improved with the integration of VR/AR. EVAR operation is an innovative, less invasive procedure used to treat problems affecting the blood vessels, such as an aneurysm, which is a swelling or “ballooning” of the blood vessel. The surgery involves making a small incision near each hip to access the blood vessels. The paper will outline an approach as a proof of concept, in order to create a mixed reality training tool that through the use of 3D printing can give tactile feedback to the trainee during training.

This paper outlines a framework for an info-symbiotic modelling system using cyber-physical sensors to assist in decision-making. Using a dynamic data-driven simulation approach, this system can help with the identification of target areas and resource allocation in emergency situations. Using different natural disasters as exemplars, we will show how cyber-physical sensors can enhance ground level intelligence and aid in the creation of dynamic models to capture the state of human casualties. Using a virtual command & control centre communicating with sensors in the field, up-to-date information of the ground realities can be incorporated in a dynamic feedback loop. Using other information (e.g. Weather models) a complex and rich model can be created. The framework adaptively manages the heterogeneous collection of data resources and uses agent-based models to create what-if scenarios in order to determine the best course of action.

Condition monitoring, within the power industry, is essential to ensure continuous operation and health of electrical plans. This is a complex activity that requires the combination of different artificial intelligence techniques. This article describes a multiagent framework to support such a condition-monitoring approach. The resulting condition monitoring multiagent system (COMMAS) was applied to two different case studies, to monitor the start-up sequences of industrial gas turbines and identification of partial discharge signal defects in gas insulated substations.