VR for Peace Building Course Pilot
In spring 2022, the Office of Digital Learning (ODL) awarded a $5,000 Digital Innovation Sprint award to Prof. Lisa Schirch (Richard G. Starmann, Sr. Professor of the Practice of Peace Studies) along with co-author and doctoral student Fr. Joachim Ozonze (Peace Studies & Theology). Schirch and Ozonze set out to conceptualize how researchers might use cutting-edge 360-video and -photo technology to refine public and scholarly understandings of the plight of the oppressed.
The grant helped a cohort of masters and doctoral students in Shirch's popular "PeaceTech" course acquire GoPro Max equipment and receive intensive hands-on training through modular workshops. Learning to operate the GoPro cameras, record 360 footage, and familiarize themselves with professional editing software, the students were quickly up on their feet and ready to set out into the field. Intimidating at first, the technology got students excited about the potential for new avenues into discovery, analysis, and story-telling.
“We are preparing the next generation of policy influencers,” said Schirch. “We need to prepare them to use new technology, like VR, to document settings where research is taking place.”
Fr. Ozonze's doctoral research on drug addiction and recovery in Nigeria, albeit a separate project, has benefited from the new technology acquired through the grant. In return, his personal experience with recording in the field, especially in precarious contexts of poverty and violence, has helped inform the ways the workshop instructors handle the sensitive questions of "why" and "how" to leverage 360 footage for research and public engagement, where concerns of privacy, consent, and ethical research are paramount.
With facilitation from the Navari Family Center for Digital Scholarship’s Adam Heet and Arnaud Zimmern as well as the expertise of the ODL's KC Frye and Salonee Seecharan, the grant has successfully concluded its first year (2022-23). It is set to recur in 2024, with 360-video workshops becoming a staple of Schirch's PeaceTech course as well as of the offerings of the Navari Family Center for the broader scholarly community on campus.
Read the full story here.
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Director Academic Media & XR, Office of Digital Learning
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Immersive Technologies Program Coordinator, Hesburgh Libraries
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Director Office of Digital Learning, Office of Digital Learning
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Professor of the Practice, Joan B. Kroc Inst. for Int'l. Peace
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Prospect Research Analyst, Prospect Management
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