Dr Sylvia Xueni Pan
This course will introduce you to Virtual Reality (VR). The course will teach you everything from the basics of VR– the hardware and the history of VR– to different applications of VR, the psychology of Virtual Reality, and the challenges of the medium. The course is designed for people who are new to VR as a medium. You may have experienced some virtual reality before, and may have some hardware– but this course is suitable to individuals who have never experienced VR and those who do not have much hardware– we will explain Mobile VR as well as devices such as the Oculus Rift and HTC Vive. Introduction to Virtual Reality is the first course in the Virtual Reality Specialisation. A learner with no previous experience in Virtual Reality and/or game programming will be able to evaluate existing VR applications, and design, test, and implement their own VR experiences/games using Unity by the end of the specialisation. The University of London is a federal University which includes 18 world leading Colleges. Our distance learning programmes were founded in 1858 and have enriched the lives of thousands of students, delivering high quality University of London degrees wherever our students are across the globe. …
Instructor Details
Courses : 5
Specification: Introduction to Virtual Reality
|
50 reviews for Introduction to Virtual Reality
Add a review
| Price | Free |
|---|---|
| Provider | |
| Duration | 18 hours |
| Year | 2017 |
| Level | Beginner |
| Language | Arabic ... |
| Certificate | Yes |
| Quizzes | Yes |
FREE
Olga –
Great course! You can learn a hole lot. But it will take some time in the end.
Chris S –
Awesome course! Learnt a lot about the context of the medium of virtual reality and now feel ready to put this knowledge into practise!
SK S A –
This is best VR introduction course. I learned a lot of about VR apps, hardware, VR illusions and many more. Teachers are great in explanation of the content.
Ivan C –
Being a non–techie, I find this course quite easy to understand. The required readings are academic papers and I took some time to understand them but it is good quality readings.
Jean V T d P –
Excelent content, there are so many interesting subjects about VR that I have not thought yet. Every lesson makes me fall even more in love to VR and its possibiilties to change our world for good.
Shirajul M –
this course helps me to understand the basic concept of Virtual reality . i am glad that i finished this course with some cooperative classmates .thank you
IJACHI O I –
I learn a lot from this course and would love to learn more.
Coursera’s T –
Coursera’s Test
Reinhardt F R –
So interesting! More in depth than I could have imagined. A absolute must to give you the necessary frame of mind.
Joshua S S –
I have been able to learn quite a bit from this specialization and apply it to my startup, within the first course. Makes it very easy to understand how to use the tools effectively. Thank you Coursera!
Hassan R –
This is really Awesome course , I have learned many things , I also like teaching methods . Keep it work
Miguel –
Absolutely Brilliant!
Pablo M –
Very nice intro to VR, I loved it.
ALKESH –
I love the course. The content is awesome. I want to give one message to coursera, that we are completing the course, so atleast give us one coursera T shirt. or the university t shirt from which we did the course
Pier L L –
Very good introduction to VR. Unfortunately, I had to stop for a month waiting for the incoming peer review feedback and this was quite stressful. I could not actually review other people works since there were none available so at the end it has been quite tiring and I lost momentum in my activity but the lecture are really interesting.
Thais A G G –
I learned lots of fundamental concepts in VR such as types of illusions and how to achieve them, immersion, hardware for VR and applications.
Nicole A –
Great! Very inspiring!
David K –
Great intro course!
Dionne H –
Gave me a great understanding of the history and fundamentals of VR.
Muhammad U Y –
I am really impressed the course material it gives you in–depth introduction of VR and develop a solid platform for ahead learning.
Brian S –
Enjoyed learning the history of VR and this course gave me a good foundation to build from
Matias N –
This introductory course on VR is awesome both for people without any previous knowledge of VR as well as for VR developers or content creators. The course introduces the very basics concepts of VR, ranging from its definition, going through its history, current VR hardware and software, the psychology behind VR and some of the challenges that the technology introduces. The lecturers Sylvia and Marco are great at teaching, making the lectures quite engaging and enjoyable overall. In addition, there are a few guests lecturers that makes the content to shine even more. That’s the case of Anthony Steed, which gives a great thoroughly description of the history of VR from the analog era to the current status, and in particular, all the lectures on the psychology of VR taught by Mel Slater. Really interesting information there, including concepts and some mind–blowing researches that Mel has done. So regardless your actual experience with VR, there is something new to learn in this course for sure. Good luck!
Anoop V –
Awesome Tutors and nice presentation !!
Steve A –
Probably OK as an introduction to VR for someone who has no knowledge of the subject at all. Otherwise the usefulness is greatly reduced. As this is part one of the specialization in is probably weighted correctly against the following courses (we shall see).
Alexander S –
I audited this course for Professional Development from February 1st, 2019 through February 7th, 2019. For reference, I have a Bachelor’s degree in Psychology and a Master’s degree in Communication Studies where I completed some research (though unpublished) in virtual reality. Overall, this course took me about three hours per completion week outside of some of the larger readings which took longer. I completed all activities available via audit (even if I couldn’t submit them) and read all readings except for a few journal articles that seemed to repeat themselves. I’ll complete a week by week breakdown and then provide my thoughts about the course overall. For week one, I thought it was a nice introduction to various head–mounted displays on the consumer market. Additionally, there was a nice overview of the history of virtual reality which included some research devices I had not seen previously. Fun fact, this is the only week you will see Dr. Gillies in this course. For week two, there is a breakdown of all the different ways virtual reality is helping in contemporary society today (from sports to science to medical improvements). The final reading in this week is a great piece by Mel Slater describing everything from the first two weeks and most content from the third week. While certainly not a ten minute read as described, I would recommend this week for this reading along. For week three, it is easily the most material of the entire course. Mel Slater comes as a guest professor to describe presence, immersion, embodiment, place illusion, and plausibility illusion. Dr. Slater seemed like a great fit, and the only complaint about this week was the fact that readings were academic research papers that had seemingly already been described (such as the one from week two). Additionally, these readings were described as ten minute assignments which was not the case. Lastly, for week four, there is a shift to the development side of virtual reality. There is a large focus on graphic development and issues one may face while programming for virtual reality today. Looking over the course as a whole, here are the positives: I found I had learned more than I knew coming into the course. This course specifically can be completed by those interested in social science as well as those interested in development as there is a larger focus on Psychology and theories in the field of virtual reality. I thoroughly enjoyed hearing from Dr. Slater and his thoughts on the psychology of virtual reality as well as the illusions he showed. Dr. Sylvia Pan had good content and was involved in almost every video. Here are the negatives: There were times I could see a large emphasis on CAVEs over other types of virtual reality, though I believe this to be due to the creator’s own expertise. Marco Gillies seemed to be very little involved with this particular course. There were some grammatical errors in questions provided during lecture videos, and the answers are not examined by instructors. It is an auto–generated response so that it feels as those you are not receiving actual feedback. Questions during lecture videos often pop up immediately after that information is covered, leading to parroting the answer back when asked about it. Readings are all described as ten minutes, but some take hours while others take three minutes or thirty seconds. It is very inconsistent. It appears most individuals audit this course, so those who are paying fill the discussion forums begging those who pay to review their work for the certificate completion before being charged again. Some videos focus on the specialization and do not describe the course as an individual unit making the content confusing. Overall, I would recommend this course. For those brand new to the subject, be aware there is peer–reviewed academic reading for this course. For some people, that alone can be a turn–off. For those fine with that content, I would spend about an hour a day on the content and you could have it completed within a few weeks time.
Laurence E M –
Decent info – lots of grammatical/spelling errors in the transcripts. Some of the question on the test were confusing with the way they were asked.
Borja J P –
Muy util para conocer la historia de la realidad virtual y los recursos de los que disponemos actualmente
Deleted A –
Muy buen curso y todo, pero seria bueno que se encontrar disponible en mas idiomas como el espanol
Lissa A –
really fun learning about the history and interaction design principles for VR. Great time imagining and working out your own vr app; I look forward to completing this specialization and applying the skills
husayn r –
Really thorough and well explained. All the instructor’s are assets to their institution. The course also has a quizzes nicely peppered into the different weeks so you can keep a track on your learning. Thanks again.
Andrew W –
This really is ally is one f the better VR courses to begin with. It doesn’t just jump straight in to VR design but gives a valuable understanding of things to consider for a really good VR experience.
Lotus –
not technical enough for a cs major…
Rodrigo –
It is a very good course to introduce yourself in the VR, to know its history, looks from different theories, future projection, current technology that supports it and current limitations.
Jeremy L –
The content and instructors are great and I’ve learned a lot already in this first course of the specialization. I personally would like the important issues re–visited and highlighted a bit more (bullet points, etc. at the end of each week). For the initial quizzes, the user is unable to see what incorrect answer they submitted which makes it hard to know which areas to revisit for review. However, this issue seems to have been corrected/improved with the later quizzes. In the bigger picture, I’m not entirely convinced on the balance of self–paced work and peer evaluation as I tend to find myself waiting for others to review my work so I can complete courses. Also, the discussion forums seem to need closer monitoring as important questions can go unanswered.
Nathal A D D –
Amazing teachers, and great content to learn about this fantastic world of building virtual reality projects.
Giselle A –
The instructors covered the basics in the first week, and moved on quickly to cover more in–depth topics throughout the course. I liked that I could speed up the audio for certain videos that covered what I already knew about VR. Overall, this course had a lot of material that is perfect for anyone looking to get into VR design and UX!
david m –
Vey comprehensive introduction to VR.
Ji E J –
This course help me to have basic understanding of VR.
Aymen A M A –
The course needs to be more exciting and I need to feel more enjoy during the course.
Nigel D –
Great introduction to VR.
Mengqi L –
5 stars for a very thorough introductory course with great examples, references and visuals! Great, well–organized videos that break mid–video to ask you a question (helped me pay attention). 3 stars for the sometimes frustrating quizzes: some information tested is not needed as practical knowledge for working in the VR industry. Why do we need to memorize what year something was invented? Sometimes the answer would be 3 answers instead of 1, but the phrasing is unclear, so it was difficult to choose. 0 stars for the graded peer assignment. I worked hard on my assignment, but all 3 peers I graded gave one–word answers or no answers to their assignment. This is very discouraging. Coursera, please have a minimum word count for people to submit their assignments, and match the people who submitted thorough answers with others who submitted thorough answers!
James S –
Good course! Great content. Concerned about the issues with getting the assignments peer reviewed! Took a lot of extra time waiting for the final assignment to be reviewed and caused an additional month charge/billing that would not have happened if the reviews were done in a timely fashion!
Abiodun S –
Excellent content and structure!
Mauricio F R –
the questions in the quiz were very tricky. They use different language and definitions than the one use in the lecture they slide should include diagrams and visuals. Having a talking head does not add much to understand the subject
Birkan K –
Great course for beginners. I like it.I think, this course have important infos about VR hardware, VR market.
Thelma N W –
Great couse! Deep content with excelent teatchers. The course is up–to–date, and keeps up with the technology evolution. I definetly recommend it!
Carlos R –
Great introduction to all the topics related to VR
Irvin S –
This is a very informative course and was instrumental in my basic understanding of virtual reality. It is a great foundation for anyone who is just curious about the technology or wish to specialize in the field. The delivery of content is wonderful as there is a good balance between listening, viewing, reading and assessing ones understanding. I highly recommend this course!
Anton A S –
I wish there could’ve been a one–and–one facetime for the “final project” or just a professional feedback for that last paper that we all did. Otherwise, overall a good course to take for beginners.
Callum W –
I loved this course. I have a lot of background in film, VFX, game development and I still gained a massive amount from it. I am trying to further my ability from 360 Video and this has definitely been a step in the right direction. The course brings aspects of VR that I had not initially considered from a development standpoint and a marketing standpoint. The psychology behind why certain choices are better than others, when it is better to use different technologies and even delving into the history of the technology and how it has grown into the beast it is today!