Beginning with the 2021-2022 academic year, Babeș-Bolyai University in Cluj-Napoca (UBB) will be using a HighTech technology to deliver academic education, thus changing the paradigm towards a new university pedagogy, presented on 14th July at the UBB Centre for Creative Industries within the Cluj Innovation Park (CREIC).
Months ago, together with the American company EON Reality, UBB founded an academic centre called UBB-EON-XR Centre for Higher Education (https://news.ubbcluj.ro/ubb-introduce-in-tara-standardul-educatiei-viitorului-infiintand-ubb-eon-xr-center/), the first such centre (and meant to be the biggest) around Romania and neighbouring countries, having two fundamental components: (1) an educational one, introducing a new teaching/learning standard, based on a new university pedagogy in virtual/augmented/mixed reality, and (2) a research-development-innovation (RDI) component – both of which will contribute to generating innovative products and services towards society (e.g., VR Mind – https://news.ubbcluj.ro/noua-structura-academica-ubb-eon-xr-center-lanseaza-in-romania-formula-comerciala-a-vr-mind/).
The UBB Rector, Prof. Daniel David, said that so far, a few hundred UBB teaching and research staff (approx. 500) are enrolled in the first training modules organised by EON Reality, with the view to implementing virtual/augmented/mixed reality into the teaching/learning process, beginning with the 2021-2022 academic year. This new „university pedagogy” – combining innovative education strategies with advanced technologies – will be introduced on 14th July 2021, with concrete examples, within th eUBB-EON-XR Center for Higher Education of the UBB Cnetre for Creative Industries at Cluj Innovation Park. In fact, these developments that alter acaedemic paradigm will allow UBB students to enter a new educational age.
The UBB-EON-XR Centre for Higher Education also collaborates and is coordinated with the new Institute for Artificial Intelligence, Virtual Reality and Robotics at UBB (established based on the centres for Computational Intelligence, Machine Learning, Data Minig, Metaheuristics for Complex Systems, Virtual Reality, Modelling and Simulation – from the UBB Faculty of Mathematics and Computer Science) and with the already well-known Matrix Platform of the Institute for Advanced Studies of Psychotherapy and Applied Mental Health (Robotherapy and Virtual Reality Therapy Platform – UBB Faculty of Psychology and Educational Science).
Sequences of the educaitonal act within the new paradigm (https://eonreality.com/platform/)
