Human-Centered Innovation in Water Resources Management Education: A Co-Creation Approach to Developing VR Learning Experiences

Abstract

Virtual Reality (VR) adoption in higher education is hindered by development costs and producing curriculum aligned educational contents that meet learners´ needs. Whilst co-creating VR educational experiences with learners can mitigate these challenges - as it ensures content relevance and reduces development time and costs - involving learners as co designers is challenging, especially if they lack coding expertise. This study contributes a practice-based approach to the co-creation of immersive learning experiences, that involved a design thinking workshop with learners, teaching staff and developers. The findings illustrate how a layered prototyping approach can support co-creation participants in progressing from scenario content design with detailed storyboards to immersive prototypes. The study concludes that integrating no-code immersive tools and generative Artificial Intelligence (AI) into the co-creation workflow can make VR pre-production accessible, efficient and shaped by learners´ needs – opening up potential for greater VR adoption in higher education.