Evaluation of the potential impact of fully-immersive virtual reality on production engineering curricula

Virtual Reality, or VR, is a family of technologies defined in the 60s that aims at mimicking reality through computers with different purposes. VR is usually classified according to the level of user immersion achieved. VR has attracted increasing attention between academic and practitioners during the last decade due to technological progresses that achieved high reliability and relatively low cost. VR potential to visualize information, replace physical presence and stimulate interaction make of this technology an essential part in the toolbox of future engineers. Higher Education Institution must align their curricula to fulfill this purpose. At the same time VR can be a support to enhance the learning process itself. This work analyses the impact of fully-immersive VR technology on an average production engineering curricula based on the educational offer at KTH Royal Institute of Technology in Stockholm, Sweden. The results show that VR has a great potential to shape the production engineering curricula in the coming years both in term of content and design of the learning experiences.