Open University secures almost £6m funding to build 'reality studio' in Milton Keynes to help students learn from home

The Open University has been granted funding of £5.8m to develop extended reality studios to expand its teaching and learning with augmented and virtual reality.

The leading supported distance-learning university plans to use state-of-the-art equipment to capture, reproduce and render 4D imagery.

Called Open XR Studios, it will deliver immersive and reality-embedded learning to students in their homes.

The facilities will be applied first to nursing, science and sport. Students will be able to engage with practice scenarios in high-risk situations that would otherwise be unavailable, such as patient simulation.

They can gain access to impossible-to-reach learning environments, such as the heart of a volcano.

The studio will also serve as a research platform to better understand how to engage students across a range of extended reality learning scenarios. This will create partnership opportunities with the wider higher education sector, placing the OU at the forefront of utilising these technologies in a responsible and equitable manner.

Tim Blackman, Vice Chancellor at the OU, said: “The Open XR Studios and reality-based learning are the next logical place for The Open University to take digital education. This is a very exciting and innovative venture for us, and we hope it will lead to significant collaboration opportunities within the education sector and more widely with public and private sectors.”

The Open University is the largest academic institution in the UK and a world leader in flexible distance learning. Since it began in 1969, the OU has taught more the OU has taught more than 2.2 million students worldwide and currently has over 205,000 students.