Abstract
Leaders seek models of healthy ecosystems to better foster systemic, predictable performance improvement for their learning enterprises. Ecosystems may be viewed narrowly, involving information technology architecture, content, and standards for interoperability or expansively where stakeholders connect to seek next-generation, transdisciplinary learning opportunities across society. Ecosystem stewardship is a responsibility of community/societal leaders and citizens who must collaborate to shape and harness forces and drivers of emerging technology. Mass collaboration is needed to push open simulation into an enterprise capability that monitors and models what was, what is, and can be. This chapter frames academic need and United States military use of open simulation suitable for exploring new ways to steward ecosystem wealth in the interest of learning enterprises and beyond.
TopHigher Educations Need For Open Simulation
Three primary sources were used to obtain the most recent trends and issues in higher education related to learning online in the United States. These sources include Grajek & Grama (2018) an EDUCAUSE Center for Applied Research (ECAR) report; the Babson Survey Research Group (2018); and Seaman, Allen & Seaman, J. (2018). “Grade Increase: Tracking Distance Education in the United States”, also produced by the Babson Survey Research Group. The word ‘simulation’ does not appear in these reports.
As of fall 2016, there were 6,359,121 students taking at least one distance education course, comprising 31.6% of all higher education enrollments. “The majority of students taking distance courses (3,356,041 of the total 6,359,121, or 52.8%) also took at least one course on campus. These students may take their “distance” courses while sitting in their dorm room or in the campus student center, and are just as likely to be on the institution's physical campus as students taking only on-campus courses (Seaman et al., 2018, p. 16). Faculty have held mixed views of online learning due to a variety of factors such as inexperience and unfamiliarity with emerging technology. In order to engage in using, creating, and shaping the evolution of open simulation, faculty will need assistance from centers of academic technology whose maturity comes from more constant, cross-institutional collaboration using simulation technologies.
Key Terms in this Chapter
Extended Reality (XR): Current and future virtual reality (VR), augmented reality (AR), mixed reality (MR), and other XR technologies for supporting and enhancing learning and human performance in evidence-based and research-grounded ways.
Learning Engineering: An effort to combine learning science with engineering to improve the design of environments using multiple media and applications to improve learning outcomes.
Open Simulation: Computer-based simulation that is built upon open source software and open standards enabling users to co-create content simultaneously while the software operates.
Persona: An individual’s image or personality that makes up a social façade that someone projects to others.
Internet of Things: Networked/embedded physical objects that collect and exchange data across devices, society that make up smart cars, homes, cities, communities, etc.
Ecosystem: An interconnected, complex system that represents multiple elements that combine to form a holistic environment.
Constructive Simulation: Social, virtual environments/worlds that allow users to create and interact with content in the world.
Identity: The distinguishing characteristics that make up a person’s qualities, values, and beliefs.
Avatar: An electronic image that represents the embodiment of a person in a virtual world that can be manipulated in appearance, movement, and gesture.