STEDUS, a new educational platform for Augmented Reality applications

Augmented Reality (AR) is a technology that has drawn the attention of educators in the recent years. The technology combines virtual worlds with the real environment, creating an immersive and interactive experience for the students and trainees. Several experimental works have shown that the use of AR for learning and training purposes provides good results. However, there is no common method or practice for using AR for learning purposes. Some years ago, the creation of AR applications was possible only by means of programming. Due to this fact, it was difficult to implement the technology in the learning environment, as programming skills were needed and creating the applications was time consuming. In the recent years, researches have realised about this problem and they have been trying to cope with it. Nowadays, as a result of research work, there are some already available authoring tools that enable educators to create their own applications. However, this process is still time consuming (and sometimes also still difficult) for the educator as the applications need to be created individually and they usually stay on the creator’s computer only. They can be reused by the educator and even by the educator’s institution, but other institutions cannot take advantage of the work. In this paper we present STEDUS, a new platform that enables schools and universities to have a common access to a growing number of AR applications for learning purposes. The applications are created on demand and offered to all subscribed customers. In this platform, the creation process is carried out by technical workers, while the educational work relies on the educators. The platform contains a common engine for Augmented Reality and enables the educators to download the available applications that they may need. Therefore, institutions from the whole World can benefit of the work that has been carried out in other places, thus creating a collaborative environment.