EG 2024 - Education Papers

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Approaches to Nurturing Undergraduate Research in the Creative Industries - a UK Multi-Institutional Exploration
(The Eurographics Association, 2024) Anderson, Eike Falk; McLoughlin, Leigh; Gingrich, Oliver; Kanellos, Emmanouil; Adzhiev, Valery; Sousa Santos, Beatriz; Anderson, Eike
Undergraduate students aspiring to pursue careers in the creative industries, such as animation, video games, and computer art, require the ability to adapt and contribute to emerging and disruptive technologies. The cultivation of research skills fosters this adaptability and innovation, which is why research skills are considered important by employers. Promoting undergraduate research in computer graphics and related techniques is therefore necessary to ensure that students graduate not only with the vocational but also with the advanced research skills desired by the creative industries. This paper describes pedagogical approaches to nurturing undergraduate research across teaching, learning and through extracurricular activities - pioneered at three UK Higher Education Institutions. Providing observations, we are sharing educational strategies - reflecting on pedagogic experiences of supporting undergraduate research projects, many of which are practice-based. With this paper, we aim to contribute to a wider discussion around challenges and opportunities of student-led research.
Bridging the Distance in Education: Design and Implementation of a Synchronous, Browser-Based VR Remote Teaching Tool
(The Eurographics Association, 2024) Pehlic, Abdulmelik; Augsdörfer, Ursula; Sousa Santos, Beatriz; Anderson, Eike
The rapid shift to remote education has presented numerous challenges for educators and students alike. Virtual Reality (VR) has emerged as a promising solution, offering immersive and interactive learning experiences. We design and implement a synchronous, browser-based VR teaching tool. The tool is compatible with budget VR equipment and enables meaningful engagement between teachers and students in a virtual setting, as well as active participation and interaction across a range of platforms, thus solving a range of disadvantages of current approaches.
Can GPT-4 Trace Rays
(The Eurographics Association, 2024) Feng, Tony Haoran; Wünsche, Burkhard C.; Denny, Paul; Luxton-Reilly, Andrew; Hooper, Steffan; Sousa Santos, Beatriz; Anderson, Eike
Ray Tracing is a fundamental concept often taught in introductory Computer Graphics courses, and Ray-Object Intersection questions are frequently used as practice for students, as they leverage various skills essential to learning Ray Tracing or Computer Graphics in general, such as geometry and spatial reasoning. Although these questions are useful in teaching practices, they may take some time and effort to produce, as the production procedure can be quite complex and requires careful verification and review. From the recent advancements in Artificial Intelligence, the possibility of automated or assisted exercise generation has emerged. Such applications are unexplored in Ray Tracing education, and if such applications are viable in this area, then it may significantly improve the productivity and efficiency of Computer Graphics instructors. Additionally, Ray Tracing is quite different to the mostly text-based tasks that LLMs have been observed to perform well on, hence it is unclear whether they can cope with these added complexities of Ray Tracing questions, such as visual processing and 3D geometry. Hence we ran some experiments to evaluate the usefulness of leveraging GPT-4 for assistance when creating exercises related to Ray Tracing, more specifically Ray-Object Intersection questions, and we found that an impressive 67% of its generated questions can be used in assessments verbatim, but only 42% of generated model solutions were correct.
CS2023: An Update on the 2023 Computer Science Curricular Guidelines
(The Eurographics Association, 2024) Reiser, Susan L.; Sousa Santos, Beatriz; Anderson, Eike
In early 2024, the 2023 Computer Science Curricular Guidelines (CS2023) were endorsed by their sponsoring organizations: the Association of Computing Machinery (ACM), IEEE Computing Society, and the Association for the Advancement of Artificial Intelligence (AAAI). The CS2023 effort spanned four years and was the collaborative work of over 100 volunteers from six continents. The Eurographics' education community provided valuable feedback on the guidelines in its draft phase. In this session we would like to present a summary of the guidelines and seek feedback on its adoption and goal of being a living curriculum. The session is geared to anyone interested in computer science education. (see https://csed.acm.org/ cs2023-report-with-feedback/)
EUROGRAPHICS 2024: Education Papers Frontmatter
(The Eurographics Association, 2024) Sousa Santos, Beatriz; Anderson, Eike; Sousa Santos, Beatriz; Anderson, Eike
Gaming to Learn: A Pilot Case Study on Students Acceptance of Playing Video Games as a Learning Method
(The Eurographics Association, 2024) Nisiotis, Louis; Sousa Santos, Beatriz; Anderson, Eike
This paper presents a case study on playing video games as a method to support the delivery of a game development University module, describing the teaching methodology and presenting details on a 'gaming' for learning approach to support the module's learning objectives. It presents the formulation of a theoretical framework to evaluate students acceptance of playing video games as a learning method, and the results of a pilot study using a modified Technology Acceptance Model. The results revealed that gaming as a learning activity was positively perceived by students, finding this method engaging and relevant to their learning curriculum, playful, enjoyable, useful, easy to use, with positive attitudes and behavioural intentions to use. This pilot case study serves as a practical example of implementing video games to support learning, preparing the methodology for further research to understand students acceptance, and the effect on learning outcomes and knowledge acquisition.
Holistic Approach to Modular Open Educational Resources for Computer Graphics
(The Eurographics Association, 2024) Diller, Florian; Püschel, Fabian; Stockemer, Julian; Böhm, Klaus; Wiebel, Alexander; Sousa Santos, Beatriz; Anderson, Eike
In this paper, we present a novel holistic approach to open education resources (OER) in computer graphics (CG). Holistic on the one hand refers to the diversity and the interlinked integration of the materials we included in the devised educational modules, on the other hand, it corresponds to the public availability of our work, which manifests in various aspects. Each of our three-part educational modules consists of slides, an experiential education web application (''exploratory''), and a quiz for knowledge assessment. These materials are closely interlinked, as they each teach the same topic from different perspectives and refer to each other. Yet, the resources can be used independently to add additional value to various teaching styles and programs. This modularity and the overall public availability were one of the primary goals of our project. Consequently, every resource is licensed under Creative Commons and developed using open standards or freely usable tools, so that teaching staff from universities and schools can modularly include, adapt, and build upon our resources. The OER aspect is not only reflected by licensing; the complete publishing, design, and development process was formed to serve the general public. Our work is based on an experiential learning approach and does not analyze the pedagogical methodology. Instead, in addition to presenting the devised learning materials, the present paper investigates to what extent the learning materials can support teaching and learning computer graphics. We took several measures to evaluate our approach: 1) teaching staff was interviewed regarding the usability and acceptance of the technologies we used; 2) a usability expert was consulted to assess our system; 3) the developed resources were integrated into existing lectures and the performance of students with and without the assistance of the interactive education applications was compared. The responses to our approach were exclusively positive
An Overview of Teaching a Virtual and Augmented Reality Course at Postgraduate Level for Ten Years
(The Eurographics Association, 2024) Marques, Bernardo; Santos, Beatriz Sousa; Dias, Paulo; Sousa Santos, Beatriz; Anderson, Eike
In recent years, a multitude of affordable sensors, interaction devices, and displays have entered the market, facilitating the adoption of Virtual and Augmented Reality (VR/AR) in various areas of application. However, the development of such applications demands a solid grasp of the field and specific technical proficiency often missing from existing Computer Science and Engineering education programs. This work describes a post-graduate-level course being taught for the last ten years to several Master's Degree programs, aiming to introduce students to the fundamental principles, methods, and tools of VR/AR. The course's main objective is to equip students with the necessary knowledge to comprehend, create, implement, and assess applications using these technologies. This paper provides insights into the course structure, the key topics covered, assessment, as well as the devices, and infrastructure utilized. It also includes a brief overview of various sample practical projects, along the years. Among other reflections, we argue that teaching this course is challenging due to the fast evolution of the field making updating paramount. This maybe alleviated by motivating students to a research oriented approach, encouraging them to bring their own projects and challenges (e.g. related to their Master dissertations). Finally, future perspectives are outlined.
Preserving Cultural Heritage: An Outstanding Students Digital Game Project On Lusíada Art
(The Eurographics Association, 2024) Ribeiro, Roberto Aguiar; Gonçalves, Alexandrino; Sousa Santos, Beatriz; Anderson, Eike
This paper presents an outstanding undergraduate project that resulted from the development of a digital game focusing on cultural heritage and the value of works of art. This topic is addressed through the interaction with reliable representations of Portuguese Lusíada Art, a product of the cultural exchange between Portugal and many countries in Asia, during the Age of Exploration, during the 16th and 17th centuries. The resulting project provides an interactive and entertaining means to learn about the History of Art, by distinguishing different types of Lusíada Furniture.
A Research Methodology Course in a Game Development Curriculum
(The Eurographics Association, 2024) Hu, Yan; Sundstedt, Veronica; Goswami, Prashant; Sousa Santos, Beatriz; Anderson, Eike
Research methodology courses can often be considered part of a computer science curriculum. These basic or advanced-level courses are taught in terms of traditional research methods. This paper presents and discusses a research methodology course curriculum for students studying programs focusing on digital game development (more specifically, focusing on game engineering). Our research methodology course prepares students for their upcoming thesis by encouraging a research-oriented approach. This is done by exploring new research areas in game engineering as a basis for research analysis and by applying research methods practically in a smaller project. This paper presents the course structure, assignments, and lessons learned. Together with existing literature, it demonstrates important aspects to consider in teaching and learning game research methodologies. The course evaluation found that the students appreciated the interactive lectures, close staff supervision, and detailed feedback on the scientific writing process.
Tackling Diverse Student Backgrounds and Goals while Teaching an Introductory Visual Computing Course at M.Sc. Level
(The Eurographics Association, 2024) Silva, Samuel; Sousa Santos, Beatriz; Anderson, Eike
Visual Computing entails a set of competences that are core for those pursuing Digital Game Development and has become a much sought competence for professionals in a wide variety of fields. In the particular case presented here, the course serves a diverse audience from Multimedia and Design students without previous knowledge in the field and low programming competences, to students that have a previous BS.c in Game Development and have already covered the basic concepts in a previous course. Additionally, the course is also offered as an elective for Computer Science M.Sc. students. This diverse set of background competences and goals motivated designing an approach to the course where each student can build on previous knowledge and have a say on its personal learning path. This article shares the overall approach, presents and discusses the outcomes, and reflects on future evolutions.
Teaching Game Programming in an Upper-level Computing Course Through the Development of a C++ Framework and Middleware
(The Eurographics Association, 2024) Hooper, Steffan; Wünsche, Burkhard C.; Denny, Paul; Luxton-Reilly, Andrew; Sousa Santos, Beatriz; Anderson, Eike
The game development industry has a programming skills shortage, with industry surveys often ranking game programming as the top skill-in-demand across small, mid-sized, and large triple-A (AAA) game studios. C++ programming skills are desired, however, educators can perceive C++ as too difficult to teach due to its size and complexity. We address the challenges of teaching C++ in an upper-level Game Programming course and demonstrate how learners are up-skilled in C++ game programming, providing insights and reflections on the course. We show how through careful educational-design choices, combined with scaffolding a C++ framework and contemporary middleware, it is possible to transition learners to C++ for game programming.
The Use of Photogrammetry in Historic Preservation Curriculum: A Comparative Case Study
(The Eurographics Association, 2024) Kepczynska-Walczak, Anetta; Walczak, Bartosz M.; Zarzycki, Andrzej; Sousa Santos, Beatriz; Anderson, Eike
Computer graphic techniques have emerged as a key player in digital heritage preservation and its dissemination. Photogrammetry allows for high-fidelity captures and virtual reconstructions of the built environment that can be further ported into virtual reality (VR) and augmented reality (AR) experiences. This paper provides a comparative analysis of historic details and building documentation methods in heritage preservation in the context of architectural education. Specifically, it compares two educational case studies conducted in 10-year intervals documenting the same set of historic artifacts with corresponding state-of-the-art digital technologies. The methodology for this paper is a qualitative comparative analysis of two surveying projects that utilized distinct emerging digital technology while sharing the same study subjects and similar tool-driven curricular framework. The research also incorporates a student survey, offering perspectives on teaching strategies and outcomes within this dynamic educational context. The outcomes demonstrate that the technological (tool-driven) shift impacts the way students interact with the investigated artifacts and the changing role of the interpretative versus analytical skills needed to delineate the work. It also changes what are considered primary and secondary knowledge sources.

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