In July 2023, Universität Hamburg hosted 24 students from seven of the member universities of the European University for Global Health (EUGLOH) during the EUGLOH Summer School “Immersive Media for Health and Well-being”. Co-created by academics from the University of Porto, the University of Novi Sad, Lund University, and Université Paris-Saclay, the summer school welcomed students from different disciplines such as medicine, informatics, design and social sciences. After several days of on- and offline lectures, tutorials and input, interdisciplinary teams of students designed their own immersive applications related to health and well-being topics and tested them in the XR-Lab of Universität Hamburg.
Frank Steinicke, professor for human-computer interaction at the Department of Informatics (UHH), António Coelho, professor at the Faculty of Engineering (UPorto), Michael Doggett, professor for computer science at the Faculty of Engineering (LU), Huyen Nguyen, professor for computer science at the Faculty of Sciences (UPSaclay) and Marko Jovanovic, Professor at the department of Architecture and Urban Planning (UNS) were involved in the organization of the summer school. Professor Steinicke, professor Coelho and professor Doggett talked about their experiences.
How was it to work with other professors from EUGLOH universities?
Prof. Coelho: If I am being honest, it has exceeded my expectations. I think we complemented each other very well.
Prof. Steinicke: It was very interesting to see the different perspectives on a very similar topic, as we all work in the area of immersive media but from slightly different angles: computer graphics, human-computer-interaction, design. I am looking forward to continuing to work together.
Prof. Doggett: We joined forces to work out a schedule to create a coherent story for the students. It was great to finally spend time with the other professors in person and to talk about potential collaborations in the future.
What are your thoughts on the prototypes developed by the students?
Prof. Steinicke: Everything we have seen was built in more or less two days of “hacking” and agile programming. If you consider the fact that many students have never worked with this technology before, the results are way above our expectations. It was great to see how well the students evolved and how creative they were.
Prof. Coelho: I would also like to highlight the creativity of these prototypes. The students were really engaged and were able to create innovative solutions, especially in view of the very short time for the development.
What was the highlight of the summer school for you?
Prof. Doggett: The main highlight for me is working with the students, it is always one of the most interesting things to see: how much they learn, the questions they ask, to see them apply the concept they’ve learned.
Prof. Steinicke: I really liked the diversity of students and how well they worked together. So, it was very exciting to see that all teams were set up by students from different universities with different backgrounds, different expertise etc. and how well they worked together to tackle all the challenges in their way.
Professor Steinicke, Professor Coelho, Professor Doggett, Prof. Nguyen and Prof. Jovanovic initially met at the EUGLOH matchmaking workshop organised by Universität Hamburg. Following their successful summer school, they are currently working on a joint course. It is planned to be followed by a joint Master’s programme in extended realities.