AR educational systems and Ethics
The ARETE H2020 project consortium appreciates from the outset that interactive technologies, such as Augmented Reality (AR) are set to transform the ways in which people communicate, interact and share information on the internet and beyond. Therefore important ethical questions are posed, in particular the ethics within the emerging educational community. The challenge within ARETE project is to ensure that the AR solutions are conducted in an ethically approved way while forging a competitive and sustainable ecosystem for educational providers in interactive technologies. Given the pilot needs of the ARETE project, all ethics considerations have been taken into account at early design stage and issues related to access, privacy, consent to all pilot scenarios have been addressed in detail.
Given the society educational needs for access to educational content in 3D interactive format, especially in situations where physical presence in the classroom has been interrupted, immersive technologies can expand the sphere of teaching and learning and cultivate academic innovation but we must ensure that ethical standards are maintained, protect human subjects involved from harm and observe fully formed consent.
The ARETE project consortium is working closely with the IEEE Global Initiative on Ethics of Extended Reality, to address the issues rising within further implementation of the IEEE Ethically aligned design, and in particular within AR systems for education. Some of the issues to be addressed within the future of educational interactive systems include XR ethical framework; standards of metadata for ethically designed and implemented educational 3D content; sustainable educational XR platforms through Open Educational Resources.
On 14 October, 2021, the IEEE’s Global Initiative for Ethical Extended Reality will host a policy-focused digital event that brings together expert voices to explore issues surrounding extended reality in education. The event will look into “AR in the classroom” and “VR as the classroom” and will highlight work from the multidisciplinary ethics initiative addressing various policy aspects of XR-and-education, and will feature expert voices and practitioner commentary.
It is a free event but registration is required at the link below:
https://engagestandards.ieee.org/XR-In-The-Classroom-Registration.html
