XRLabs: Extended Reality Interactive Laboratories

Chairi Kiourt

1 a

, Dimitris Kalles

2 b

, Aris Lalos

3 c

, Nikolaos Papastamatiou

4 d

Panayotis Silitziris

3 e

, Evgenia Paxinou

2 f

, Helena Theodoropoulou

3 g

Vasilis Zafeiropoulos

2 h

, Alexandros Papadopoulos

4 i

and George Pavlidis

1 j

Institute for Language and Speech Processing, Athena-Research and Innovation Center in Information,

Communication and Knowledge Technologies, Greece

School of Science and Technology, Hellenic Open University, Greece

Industrial Systems Institute, Athena-Research and Innovation Center in Information,

Communication and Knowledge Technologies, Greece

Omega Technology, Greece

Keywords:

Extended Reality, Virtual Reality, Augmented Reality, Mixed Reality, Gamiﬁcation, Interactive Technologies,

STEM Education, Educational Laboratories.

Abstract:

One of the most challenging tasks in Extended Reality based environments is the creation of realistic, interac-

tive and attractive simulation with personalised content, without overlooking the main purpose of the system,

which, in our case, is education. This paper introduces the XRLabs platform, which is an Extended Reality

platform to assist in the training of students in all educational levels, focusing on the use of simulation for wet

laboratories. Within this framework, the proposed systems are based on cutting-edge Virtual, Augmented and

Mixed Reality (Extended Reality) technologies. We adopted gamiﬁcation methods and simulation to enhance

the conventional educational practices in laboratories. The highly interactive platform will allow students to

enjoy sustainable edutainment experiences, especially in distance/online learning contexts for Science, Tech-

nology, Engineering, and Mathematics.

1 INTRODUCTION

Science laboratory instruction is a key pillar of sci-

ence teaching. To achieve effective learning in sci-

ence courses some fundamental requirements should

be met, including basic knowledge and understand-

ing of the experiment tasks and the use of different

types of equipment. Information and Communication

Technology (ICT) systems are very useful as comple-

mentary educational tools, especially in the context of

conducting scientiﬁc experiments in a wet lab – with

https://orcid.org/0000-0001-8501-8899

https://orcid.org/0000-0003-0364-5966

https://orcid.org/0000-0003-0511-9302

https://orcid.org/0000-0002-9319-1103

https://orcid.org/0000-0003-4102-3260

https://orcid.org/0000-0002-9910-8569

https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5896-0739

https://orcid.org/0000-0003-0120-0488

https://orcid.org/0000-0003-3805-6037

https://orcid.org/0000-0002-9909-1584

the term “wet lab” usually associated with biology

and chemistry (Karakasidis, 2013; Bonde et al., 2014;

Heradio et al., 2016; Paxinou et al., 018a). Merg-

ing virtual reality technologies with interaction has

shown to be rather rewarding in laboratory training

(Zafeiropoulos et al., 2014).

Several studies reveal the potential beneﬁts of

the use of Virtual/Augmented/Mixed Reality in a

variety of educational contexts, with such beneﬁts

encompassing improvement of users’ achievements

(Estapa and Nadolny, 2015), learning experience (Bo-

gusevschi. and Muntean., 2019), motivation (Ferrer-

Torregrosa et al., 2015), knowledge retention, engage-

ment, and guiding targeted behaviour change to im-

prove the way that various activities are undertaken.

The objective is to allow involved learners to begin

to take the desired actions in a different context while

they experience more fun, enjoyment, and pleasure

in their tasks. These technologies are breathing life to

the notion that edutainment can be accomplished any-

where, and not just within the conﬁnes of a classroom

environment. Digital reality is enabling users to bene-

Kiourt, C., Kalles, D., Lalos, A., Papastamatiou, N., Silitziris, P., Paxinou, E., Theodoropoulou, H., Zafeiropoulos, V., Papadopoulos, A. and Pavlidis, G.

XRLabs: Extended Reality Interactive Laboratories.

DOI: 10.5220/0009441606010608

In Proceedings of the 12th International Conference on Computer Supported Education (CSEDU 2020) - Volume 1, pages 601-608

ISBN: 978-989-758-417-6

601

ﬁt from immersive experiences and Extended Reality

(XR) is undoubtedly poised to change the way users

deliver and acquire new information, knowledge, and

skills, in several playful learning environments (Pena,

2016).

Playful learning environments focusing on educa-

tional purposes is a signiﬁcant and active research do-

main (Brown and Vaughan, 2010; Nicholson, 2011).

This has taken either the form of Game-Based Learn-

ing (GBL) or Serious Gaming (SG). Gamiﬁcation

(Seaborn and Fels, 2015) is the result of applying

game mechanics into diverse domains, in order to en-

gage users and enhance their knowledge and perfor-

mance. The importance of the playing activity has

been emphasized in many studies from various do-

mains. Gamiﬁcation is essentially the use of speciﬁc

game design approaches and techniques in various

environments, in order to attract people in problem

solving and to enhance their contribution (Nicholson,

2011). As an important tool in educational processes,

gamiﬁcation has been exploited widely in VR sys-

tems(Becerra. et al., 2017; Shin. et al., 2019), with

many future promising results for XR applications.

Extended Reality Interactive Laboratories (ERIL)

are playful, user-friendly, pleasant, safe, convenient,

economic and ﬂexible educational tools, which can

challenge, engage and prepare students for their real

scientiﬁc experiment (Lalos et al., 2020). While phys-

ical lab activities offer unique elements in lab learn-

ing, nowadays, educational institutions also design

learning activities with Virtual Reality (VR), Aug-

mented Reality (AR) and Mixed Reality simulations

(de Vries and May, 2019). VR differs fundamentally

from AR; in VR the learners experience a computer-

generated virtual environment whereas, in AR, the ac-

tual environment is enhanced by computer-generated

information.

The main motivation for our work draws on the

investigation and the development of an educational

system for Science, Technology, Engineering, and

Mathematics (STEM) education, for all levels of edu-

cation. We focus on the development of an integrated

system that is not affected by geographical, ﬁnancial

and time constraints (Reigeluth, 1999), as would be

the case with conventional educational procedures,

which require laboratory equipment.

The main contribution of this paper is the presen-

tation of the idea and the development of a dynam-

ical educational XR platform for wet laboratory in-

struction. With regard to this framework, the pro-

posed platform aims to enhance the educational prac-

tice through a powerful integrated system, encourag-

ing certain activities through dynamically synthesized

and gamiﬁed interactive elements, not as a single en-

capsulated event, but through a series of stages, in

which user experience develops gradually as famil-

iarity with interactive features and structure is gained.

The rest of this paper is structured in ﬁve sections.

The next section provides a brief background. The

third section describes a high-level system architec-

ture and the adopted technologies as well as the sys-

tems under development. The fourth section provides

a brief introduction to the educational aspects and the

assessment methods for XRLabs. Finally, the last sec-

tion summarizes the key points and sets out future

work.

2 BACKGROUND

Onlabs is a standalone 3D virtual reality biology lab-

oratory that provides a high-level realistic environ-

ment. It is developed by the Department of Science

and Technology of the Hellenic Open University

Onlabs simulates biology experiments like the mi-

croscopy procedure, the preparation of aqueous so-

lutions and the protein electrophoresis. When using

Onlabs the learner navigates in the virtual environ-

ment, operates various instruments and conducts bi-

ology experiments (Zafeiropoulos et al., 2014). On-

labs has been used as a supplementary educational

material for students to be prepared for experiments

in their real wet lab. The incorporation of Onlabs into

the educational process already resulted in improve-

ment in student learning outcomes, in terms both of

subject understanding and laboratory skills acquisi-

tion (Paxinou et al., 2019). It is an educational appli-

cation for users of different educational level and pro-

fession, which provides the opportunity to repeat the

process of a laboratory experiment without any spa-

tial, temporal and ﬁnancial constraints, offering com-

plete safety and privacy. The current version of On-

labs comes with three modes: the Instruction Mode,

the Evaluation Mode and the Experimentation Mode.

The combination of these tree modes offers the user

a complete learning experience. A screenshot of the

Onlabs’ environment is presented in Figure 1.

3 XRLabs

In this section we describe the features of the XR-

Labs platform by highlighting the capabilities of the

dynamic management of the educational content, the

adopted mobile extended reality technologies and the

https://sites.google.com/site/onlabseap/

CSEDU 2020 - 12th International Conference on Computer Supported Education

602

Figure 1: Screenshot of Onlabs-Experimentation Mode.

Figure 2: Architecture of the XRLabs Platform.

human-computer interaction based on hand gestures

motion sensing system.

3.1 Integrated System Structure

Open linked data technologies (d’Aquin, 2016) pave

the way towards the semantic Web of the future edu-

cation by exploiting the abundance in data availabil-

ity and enhancing the ongoing systems developments

on the Web and computer technologies that bridge

STEM laboratories and education with gaming. The

XRLabs platform combines three main research areas

of Semantic Web, namely: knowledge management

in education, gamiﬁcation and educational systems.

In order to manage dynamically the content

(Kiourt et al., 2016) of the XR-reality environment,

a web-based interface is being developed, based on

link data technologies (de Vries and May, 2019). Fig-

ure 2 depicts the architecture of the XRLabs platform.

Figure 3: XRLabs Cutting-Edge Technologies/methods.

In this approach, all users (authenticated or not) have

a basic limited access to the systems of the platform.

On the other hand, authenticated users, like students

and teachers, are provided with additional services.

The data interoperability of the platform is guar-

anteed by the open data technologies (Mouromtsev

and d’Aquin, 2016) utilised by the repositories of XR-

labs. The data transfer between the systems of XR-

Labs and the external Web resources is being imple-

mented using the JSON data-interchange format.

The main structure of XRLabs includes cutting-

edge technologies and methodologies focusing on a

user-friendly playful educational platform. For this

reason, several innovative elements are combined to

produce this environment, as shown in Figure 3.

3.2 Extended Reality Laboratory

One of the biggest challenges in XR applications de-

sign is ﬁnding the balance of mixing two totally dif-

ferent dimensions, the virtual and the physical. The

challenge of merging virtual and physical worlds is

has been addressed from different points of view and

various disciplines, such as computer science, psy-

chology, sociology and even science ﬁction, among

others. XR allows the merging of physical and virtual

worlds creating environments where physical and dig-

ital objects co-exist and interact in real-time (Tamura

et al., 2001), and has been applied in various applica-

tions, ranging from entertainment and health to mili-

tary training.

XR may have several similar deﬁnitions with few

variations, but its main concept can be described as a

form of “mixed reality environment that comes from

the fusion of . . . ubiquitous sensor/actuator networks

and shared online virtual worlds”, to encompass all

the possibilities of reality warping technology (Par-

XRLabs: Extended Reality Interactive Laboratories

603

adiso and Landay, 2009). Simply put, one may de-

scribe XR technologies as a combination of all reality

technologies, such as VR (Burdea and Coiffet, 1993),

AR (Azuma, 1997) and MR (Milgram and Kishino,

1994), including some additional physical tools (hard-

ware, such as cameras, sensors, glasses etc.) (Paxi-

nou et al., 018a; Mann et al., 2018) that enrich the

interactivity. Within this framework users have the

opportunity to interact with each other within a vir-

tual world and get information from the real world,

receiving thus an enhanced experience.

The name of the XRLabs platform

derives from

the acronym XR (Extended Reality) and the word

Labs (Laboratories). The platform enriches the On-

labs virtual environment with XR technologies, el-

evating the experience offered by the original sys-

tem. XRLabs is an innovative platform that combines

web technologies, XR technologies and educational

approaches for the remote preparation of students in

laboratory experiments with realistic simulation in-

struments and environments. XRLabs enhances the

learning process by combining:

• the power of a digital literacy system,

• the pedagogical beneﬁts of game-based learning,

• the interaction provided through the XR system

with multiple users in a collaborative and/or com-

petitive environment and

• the VR, AR and MR beneﬁts that can contribute

to on the job training.

XRLabs aims to be an integrated solution for stu-

dents or professionals who want to be trained in lab-

oratory exercises privately and at their own pace, as

well as being able to interact with others. As any

laboratory instrument, such as a microscope, has sev-

eral manipulation functionalities, through which users

take measurements, detailed descriptions of these

functionalities can be effectively presented through

AR technologies. Figure 4 presents a screenshot of

the AR elements of XRLabs, where a real microscope

augmented with digital descriptive data is shown.

3.3 Motion Sensing System

Real-time interaction with XR environments using

motion sensors’ technologies is one very active ﬁeld

and often included in educational processes (Bratitsis

and Kandroudi, 2014; Liang et al., 2019) as well as in

many other ﬁelds such as the industry (Nousias et al.,

2019; Lalos et al., 2018; Gardelis. et al., 2018), health

etc. Realistic interaction is achieved through a variety

of input devices (Bekele et al., 2018). An example of

http://xrlabs.eu

Figure 4: AR Applied on a Real Microscope.

Figure 5: Interaction with Motion Sensing Controllers.

the XRLabs platform equipped with motion sensing

controllers (tangible input devices) is shown in Fig-

ure 5, where youngsters interact with an object of a

virtual laboratory.

Tangible input devices, such as gloves, gamepads,

joysticks, mice, touch screens, wearables and wands

are very effective interaction interfaces, with impor-

tant positive impact on education (O’Malley and Stan-

ton Fraser, 2004). On the other hand the utilization of

contact-free motion sensing controllers (motion track-

CSEDU 2020 - 12th International Conference on Computer Supported Education

604

Figure 6: XRLabs in Action through a Smartphone.

ing systems) (Bachmann et al., 2014), input devices

such as gesture sensors (e.g. Leap Motion), haptic

sensors and cameras, instead of tangible motion sens-

ing controllers, can be much more effective, since

users feel more comfortable when their hands are free.

In addition, the handling of virtual objects (in our

case laboratory equipment) with bare hands is much

more realistic and allows to encounter higher qual-

ity immersive experiences (Pavaloiu, 2016; Ebner and

Spot, 2016). Camera-based motion tracking methods

are popular and widely exploited, despite their lack

of high accuracy, due to the low-cost of the required

equipment.

In order to increase the wide acceptance and ex-

ploitation of the XRLabs platform, the XR elements

of the system are based on mobile device capabilities,

such as those offered by modern smartphones. Fig-

ure 6 depicts the XR elements during a microscopy

training session, in which a 3D model of a microscope

is shown on a real desk; additional descriptive data

are superimposed over each part of the instrument.

Each interactive component of the instrument has two

states. The ﬁrst is the description state during which

information about the component is displayed and the

component is highlighted with red colour, as shown

in Figure 6 top-right. The second state is the ma-

nipulation part, during which the component is high-

lighted with green colour and can be interacted with,

as shown in Figure 6 top-right. During the manipu-

lation stage, two virtual buttons are placed on the op-

posite sides of the instrument, which enables to han-

dle the active component with simple hand gestures.

The real-time interaction is based on the smartphone’s

hardware. Figure 6 bottom-left, shows an example

of a stereoscopic view, displayed by the system. The

user just needs to insert a smartphone in a low-cost

VR headset (like the Google cardboard – see Figure 6

bottom-right), install the appropriate application, and

automatically experience the AR/MR content over the

appropriate marker on the desk. By using hand ges-

tures over the virtual buttons, the user interacts with

the laboratory instrument.

4 EDUCATIONAL ASPECTS AND

ASSESSMENT

Simulations and gamiﬁcation are extensively applied

in higher education as an attempt to improve students’

learning experience in Biology, Chemistry, Astron-

omy, Geometry, Cultural Heritage, etc. (Garz

on et al.,

2017; Sypsas et al., 2019). Based on the relevant lit-

erature, virtual laboratories demonstrate a positive ef-

fect on students’ cognitive load, skills development

and motivation (Xu et al., 2018).

4.1 Educational Activities through

Gamiﬁcation

The gamiﬁcation aspects of XRLabs are offered by

the development of educational scenarios, playful and

educational rules, storytelling, content personaliza-

tion elements, strategies, timers, rewards, badges,

leaderboards and many other elements that increase

the engagement and the motivation of the learners,

without overlooking the main purpose of the system,

which is education. Within this concept the XR en-

vironment is obtaining the sense of a playful educa-

tional system. For the purpose of representing the

meaning and the value of gamiﬁcation, an interest-

ing formula has been presented in (Nicholson, 2012)

to show the association between the terms game, play,

goals and structure:

Game = Play + Goals + Structure (1)

By following the main idea and the principals of

gamiﬁcation XRLabs aims to address the following

challenges:

• learner engagement

• remote practice in laboratory equipment

• performance and skill assessment

The features that provide dynamical content

management, provide trainers important capabili-

ties for the customization of the educational scenar-

ios/procedures or the development of new ones. Addi-

tionally, trainers may exploit the XR system as a lab-

oratory procedure presentation that offers enhanced

experience through a screen sharing plugin of the mo-

bile device. This leads to a worldwide real-time con-

nection among trainers and learners. On the other

hand, the exploitation of XRLabs in educational pro-

cesses focuses on four different stages:

XRLabs: Extended Reality Interactive Laboratories

605

• Home practicing: as a preparation tool before

the interaction with the physical laboratory instru-

ments.

• Instrument usage enhancement: during the real

experiment in the laboratory with the help of the

supervisors.

• Learners’ assessment: evaluation in laboratory

procedures or instrument usage through auto-

mated evaluation modes.

• Continuous knowledge update/lifelong learning:

without any restrictions, out of courses or train-

ing sessions.

4.2 Learners Evaluation

The evaluation of learners by non-automated methods

(systems), is a very challenging and multidimensional

procedure (Wang, 2018), usually relating to learning

analytics. In order to ensure the high quality in sci-

ence teaching, educational XR applications are being

assessed based on the learners’ ability to respond to

the requirements of science courses. Learners in this

context are evaluated by real-time evaluation algo-

rithm using conceptual tests, practical examinations,

questionnaires and combinations. The conceptual

tests are based on Web-based assessment technolo-

gies, for fast collection and analysis of data, or class-

room written paper tests. Both are to grade learners’

improvement regarding a speciﬁc science topic, based

on a pre-test, which sets the baseline knowledge and

preset criteria (Makransky et al., 2016). The practi-

cal examinations intent on evaluating the learners’ ob-

tained experimentation skills. Through the question-

naires, that usually have a 5 or 7-point Likert scale,

the learners’ express their opinion on satisfaction, in-

terest, conﬁdence and understanding regarding the in-

troduction of the XR educational application in the

teaching procedure (Paxinou et al., 018b).

In order to assess XRLabs, a combination of the

above strategies will be used to compose a specially

designed educational scenario adapted to XR technol-

ogy. Students with previous knowledge or students

with minimum or zero training in the scientiﬁc prin-

ciples and techniques will join the control and exper-

imentation groups. Main objective is to investigate

whether students, who use XRLabs as a complement

to more traditional learning methods, gain easier sci-

ence knowledge and experimentation skills or they are

cognitively overloaded by the large amount of infor-

mation, the multiple technological devices they are re-

quired to use, and the complex tasks they have to deal

with.

5 CONCLUSIONS

The aim of this paper is to introduce a dynami-

cal interactive Extended Reality environment as an

open technological framework to allow the easy cre-

ation of educational procedures with simulated STEM

laboratories for all levels of education. Interactive

XR laboratories, are convenient, safe, economical,

rapid, ﬂexible and user-friendly educational tools that

challenge, engage and prepare students for their real

scientiﬁc experiments. Apparently, they are an in-

evitable component of remote education and distance

learning.

The expected societal impact of XRLabs is rather

signiﬁcant. The students are developing a positive at-

titude towards the laboratory education. Also, their

safety is improved, and also their awareness of the

laboratory hazards (including equipment and consum-

ables). The laboratory equipment is protected from

misuse and malfunctioning due to the multiple educa-

tional repetitions of the experiments. In addition, the

cost reduction in terms of the usage of consumables

can be signiﬁcant. All these beneﬁts give educational

institutions the opportunity to invest on new educa-

tional products and scientiﬁc directions towards the

improvement of the quality of life.

In the future we plan to develop a suite of tac-

tile and visual experience optimization for mobile and

standalone XR educational systems. More specif-

ically, the suite will comprise of: (i) an AR SDK

for supporting illumination consistency and device-

perspective rendering mechanisms, which will be in-

tegrated with a smart sensing module in order to allow

robust pose estimation against sensing drifts and oc-

clusions that occur in complex motion patterns and

(ii) novel ultrasonic based hardware solutions and a

novel software SDK for offering emerging haptics to

virtual objects, developing touchable holographic in-

terfaces, and augmenting gesture control with natural

tactile feedback. In addition, development of an up-

grade system exploiting markerless XR techniques to

eliminate the need of special printed image markers is

also in the future plans.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

This work is supported by the project XRLABS -

Virtual laboratories using interactive technologies in

virtual, mixed and augmented reality environments

(MIS 5038608) implemented under the Action for the

Strategic Development on the Research and Techno-

logical Sector, co-ﬁnanced by national funds through

the Operational programme of Western Greece 2014-

CSEDU 2020 - 12th International Conference on Computer Supported Education

606

2020 and European Union funds (European Regional

Development Fund)

REFERENCES

Azuma, R. T. (1997). A survey of augmented reality. Pres-

ence: Teleoper. Virtual Environ., 6(4):355–385.

Bachmann, D., Weichert, F., and Rinkenauer, G. (2014).

Evaluation of the leap motion controller as a new

contact-free pointing device. Sensors, 15(1):214–233.

Becerra., D. A. I., Quispe., J. A. H., Aceituno., R. G. A.,

Vargas., G. M. P., Zamora., F. G. F., Mango., J. L. H.,

Figueroa., G. P. A., Vizcarra., A. A. P., and Chana.,

J. W. T. (2017). Evaluation of a gamiﬁed 3d vir-

tual reality system to enhance the understanding of

movement in physics. In Proceedings of the 9th Inter-

national Conference on Computer Supported Educa-

tion - Volume 1: CSEDU,, pages 395–401. INSTICC,

SciTePress.

Bekele, M. K., Pierdicca, R., Frontoni, E., Malinverni, E. S.,

and Gain, J. (2018). A survey of augmented, virtual,

and mixed reality for cultural heritage. J. Comput.

Cult. Herit., 11(2).

Bogusevschi., D. and Muntean., G. (2019). Water cycle in

nature – an innovative virtual reality and virtual lab:

Improving learning experience of primary school stu-

dents. In Proceedings of the 11th International Con-

ference on Computer Supported Education - Volume

1: CSEDU,, pages 304–309. INSTICC, SciTePress.

Bonde, M. T., Makransky, G., Wandall, J., Larsen, M. V.,

Morsing, M., Jarmer, H., and Sommer, M. O. (2014).

Gamiﬁed laboratory simulations motivate students

and improve learning outcomes compared with tra-

ditional teaching methods. Nature Biotechnology,

32(7):694–697.

Bratitsis, T. and Kandroudi, M. (2014). Motion sensor tech-

nologies in education. EAI Endorsed Transactions on

Serious Games, 1(2).

Brown, S. and Vaughan, C. (2010). Play: How it Shapes

the Brain, Opens the Imagination, and Invigorates the

Soul. J P Tarcher/Penguin Putnam.

Burdea, G. and Coiffet, P. (1993). Virtual Reality Technol-

ogy. NY: John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

d’Aquin, M. (2016). On the Use of Linked Open Data in

Education: Current and Future Practices, pages 3–

15. Springer International Publishing, Cham.

de Vries, L. E. and May, M. (2019). Virtual labora-

tory simulation in the education of laboratory tech-

nicians–motivation and study intensity. Biochemistry

and Molecular Biology Education, 47(3):257–262.

Ebner, M. and Spot, N. (2016). Game-Based Learning

with the Leap Motion Controller, pages 555–565. IGI

Global.

Estapa, A. and Nadolny, L. (2015). The effect of an aug-

mented reality enhanced mathematics lesson on stu-

dent achievement and motivation. Journal of STEM

Education, 16(3):40.

Ferrer-Torregrosa, J., Torralba, J., Jimenez, M. A., Garc

ıa,

S., and Barcia, J. M. (2015). Arbook: Development

and assessment of a tool based on augmented reality

for anatomy. Journal of Science Education and Tech-

nology, 24(1):119–124.

Gardelis., K., Lalos., A. S., and Moustakas., K. (2018). De-

velopment of an eco-driving simulation training sys-

tem with natural and haptic interaction in virtual re-

ality environments. In Proceedings of the 13th Inter-

national Joint Conference on Computer Vision, Imag-

ing and Computer Graphics Theory and Applications

- Volume 3 IVAPP: HUCAPP,, pages 94–101. IN-

STICC, SciTePress.

Garz

on, V., Carlos, J., Magrini, M. L., and Galembeck, E.

(2017). Using augmented reality to teach and learn

biochemistry. Biochemistry and Molecular Biology

Education, 45(5):417–420.

Heradio, R., de la Torre, L., Galan, D., Cabrerizo, F. J.,

Herrera-Viedma, E., and Dormido, S. (2016). Virtual

and remote labs in education: A bibliometric analysis.

Computers & Education, 98:14 – 38.

Karakasidis, T. (2013). Virtual and remote labs in higher ed-

ucation distance learning of physical and engineering

sciences. In 2013 IEEE Global Engineering Educa-

tion Conference (EDUCON), pages 798–807.

Kiourt, C., Koutsoudis, A., and Pavlidis, G. (2016). Dyna-

mus: A fully dynamic 3d virtual museum framework.

Journal of Cultural Heritage, 22:984 – 991.

Lalos, A. S., Nousias, S., and Moustakas, K. (2018).

Gamecar: Gamifying selfmanagement of eco-driving.

ERCIM News 115 (Oct. 2018): 46-47.

Lalos, S., Kiourt, C., Kalles, D., and Kalogeras, A. (2020).

Personalized interactive edutainment in extended real-

ity (xr) laboratories. ERCIM News, Educational Tech-

nology, 120:29–30.

Liang, J., Su, W., Chen, Y., Wu, S., and Chen, J. (2019).

Smart interactive education system based on wearable

devices. Sensors, 19(15).

Makransky, G., Thisgaard, M. W., and Gadegaard, H.

(2016). Virtual simulations as preparation for lab ex-

ercises: Assessing learning of key laboratory skills

in microbiology and improvement of essential non-

cognitive skills. PLoS One, 11(6).

Mann, S., Furness, T., Yuan, Y., Iorio, J., and Wang, Z.

(2018). All reality: Virtual, augmented, mixed (x),

mediated (x,y), and multimediated reality.

Milgram, P. and Kishino, F. (1994). A taxonomy of mixed

reality visual displays. IEICE TRANSACTIONS on In-

formation and Systems, 12:1321–1329.

Mouromtsev, D. and d’Aquin, M. (2016). Open Data for

Education: Linked, Shared, and Reusable Data for

Teaching and Learning. Springer.

Nicholson, S. (2011). Making gameplay matter : Design-

ing modern educational tabletop games. Knowledge

Quest, 40(1):60–65.

Nicholson, S. (2012). Strategies for meaningful gamiﬁca-

tion: Concepts behind transformative play and partic-

ipatory museums. In Presented at Meaningful Play

2012. Lansing, Michigan.

XRLabs: Extended Reality Interactive Laboratories

607

Nousias, S., Tselios, C., Bitzas, D., Amaxilatis, D., Mon-

tesa, J., Lalos, A. S., Moustakas, K., and Chatzi-

giannakis, I. (2019). Exploiting gamiﬁcation to im-

prove eco-driving behaviour: The gamecar approach.

Electronic Notes in Theoretical Computer Science,

343:103 – 116. The proceedings of AmI, the 2018

European Conference on Ambient Intelligence.

O’Malley, C. and Stanton Fraser, D. (2004). Literature re-

view in learning with tangible technologies. Working-

paper, FutureLab. Report 12 ID number: 0-9548594-

2-1.

Paradiso, J. A. and Landay, J. A. (2009). Guest editors’

introduction: Cross-reality environments. IEEE Per-

vasive Computing, 8(3):14–15.

Pavaloiu, B. (2016). Leap motion technology in learning.

In The 7th International Conference Edu World 2016.

Paxinou, E., Karatrantou, A.and Kalles, D., Panagio-

takopoulos, C., and Sgourou, A. (2018b). A 3d vir-

tual reality laboratory as a supplementary educational

preparation tool for a biology course. European Jour-

nal of Open, Distance and E-Learning.

Paxinou, E., Panagiotakopoulos, C. T., Karatrantou, A.,

Kalles, D., and Sgourou, A. (2019). Implementation

and evaluation of a three-dimensional virtual reality

biology lab versus conventional didactic practices in

lab experimenting with the photonic microscope. Bio-

chemistry and Molecular Biology Education.

Paxinou, E., Zafeiropoulos, V., Sypsas, A., Kiourt, C., and

Kalles, D. (2018a). Assessing the impact of virtualiz-

ing physical labs. In Proceeding of the 27th EDEN An-

nual Conference, European Distance and E-Learning

Network, pages 17–20.

Pena, Rios, A. (2016). Exploring mixed reality in dis-

tributed collaborative learning environments. (Doc-

toral dissertation): School of Computer Science and

Electronic Engineering, University of Essex.

Reigeluth, M. C. (1999). Instructional-design theories

and models: An overview of their current statues.

Lawrence Erlbaum Associates Inc.

Seaborn, K. and Fels, D. I. (2015). Gamiﬁcation in the-

ory and action: A survey. International Journal of

Human-Computer Studies, 74:14 – 31.

Shin., J., Jin., K., and Kim., S. (2019). Investigation and

evaulation of a virtual reality vocational training sys-

tem for general lathe. In Proceedings of the 11th Inter-

national Conference on Computer Supported Educa-

tion - Volume 2: CSEDU,, pages 440–445. INSTICC,

SciTePress.

Sypsas, A., Kiourt, C., Paxinou, E., Zafeiropoulos, V., and

Kalles, D. (2019). The educational application of vir-

tual laboratories in archaeometry. International Jour-

nal of Computational Methods in Heritage Science,

3(1):1–19.

Tamura, H., Yamamoto, H., and Katayama, A. (2001).

Mixed reality: future dreams seen at the border be-

tween real and virtual worlds. IEEE Computer Graph-

ics and Applications, 21(6):64–70.

Wang, T. (2018). Developing a web-based assessment sys-

tem for evaluating examinee’s understanding of the

procedure of scientiﬁc experiments. Eurasia Journal

of Mathematics, Science and Technology Education,

14(5):1791–1801.

Xu, X., Allen, W., Miao, Z., Yao, J., Sha, L., and Chen,

Y. (2018). Exploration of an interactive “virtual and

actual combined” teaching mode in medical develop-

mental biology. Biochemistry and Molecular Biology

Education, 46(6):585–591.

Zafeiropoulos, V., Kalles, D., and Sgourou, A. (2014).

Adventure-style game-based learning for a biology

lab. In 2014 IEEE 14th International Conference on

Advanced Learning Technologies, pages 665–667.

CSEDU 2020 - 12th International Conference on Computer Supported Education

608