2017 Provost’s Learning Innovations Grants 2017 PROVOST’S LEARNING INNOVATIONS GRANTS APPLICATION INSTRUCTIONS 1. Complete this Application Form, in its entirety, and save as “Lastname_Firstname_APP” (using your name). 2. Complete the Budget Worksheet and save as “Lastname_Firstname_BUDGET” (using your name). 3. Ask your Department Head to complete the Department Head Certification, scan and save as, “Lastname_Firstname_SIG” (using your name). 4. Email all documents to [email protected], no later than 11:59pm EST, January 25, 2017.

If you have any questions about completing this application, please email [email protected], or contact Michael Starenko at 585-475-5035 or [email protected].

APPLICANT INFORMATION This application is for a: Exploration Grant x Focus Grant

Principal Applicant name: Jennifer Poggi

Faculty title: Assistant Professor Email: [email protected] Phone: (202)510-1079 (Full-time only) College: CIAS Department: SPAS /

Department Head name: Therese Mulligan ______Email: [email protected]

Others involved in the project (if any): Nitin Simpat, Josh Meltzer, Susan Lakin, Juilee Decker, Joe Geigel

Project name: Exploring VR/360 Video Through Interdisciplinary Experiential Student Learning

Total funds requested (as calculated on the budget worksheet): $5000.00 (requests of $1,000 to $5,000 will be considered)

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BUDGET

There is a fillable PDF worksheet to calculate your budget. You can download the worksheet at rit.edu/ili/plig. • The total shown on this worksheet must match the “Total funds requested” in the Applicant Information section of this application form • If awarded, additional funds will be provided to cover any benefits and ITS expenses associated with the salary budget requested • Note that any equipment or other materials purchased with grant funds are the property of your department and revert to the department after your project is completed

TIMELINE

Please indicate any variances to the planned PLIG 2017 schedule and your reasons. If you do not intend to deviate from the schedule, you may leave this section blank.

Task Date Proposed Variance and Reason

Full project plan submitted August 23, 2017

Preliminary findings submitted January 10, 2018

Summary of final findings submitted August 22, 2018

Final budget accounting submitted August 22, 2018

Teaching and Learning Commons submission due (posting a summary of October 3, 2018 findings, examples of teaching designs or materials, etc.)

Participation in Teaching and Learning Services PLIG dissemination event November 2018 (e.g., PLIG Showcase)

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STATEMENT OF UTILITY (two pages maximum)

Using the evaluation criteria outlined in the Proposal Evaluation section of the PLIG website, please provide an overview of the project you are proposing, including: • Project objectives • An explanation of the teaching/learning problem(s) it is designed to address • An explanation of the significance of the project to student outcomes and/or the student experience. • A brief description of how the project integrates with activity already underway at RIT in a priority area and/or how this approach has been successfully used at RIT already.

Project Objectives:

Virtual Reality and 360 video have quickly become the most talked about new media, with the application of these technologies currently impacting a wide array of fields, spanning education, entertainment, healthcare, manufacturing and beyond. There are already burgeoning efforts to utilize this technology in departments across campus. The faculty cohort involved in this application has formed with the intention of combining our individual VR/360 video research and development efforts to more effectively innovate in the areas of equipment development and performance, enhanced storytelling capabilities and audience engagement. Our current students are intricately involved in the effort and we expect this to be the case as we progress through each stage of our plan. The cutting edge nature of this project makes an active learning environment a necessity, as there is very little in the way of traditional learning resources available.

Virtual Reality/ 360 video is on the cusp of becoming a widely adopted technology. Both lo and high-tech companies are already searching for interns and full time employees who understand how to successfully deploy VR/360 technology. Perhaps more important, these organizations demand a workforce that has learned how to learn. The learning environment we have created offers students a set of 21st century skillsets that will prepare them to problem solve current technology, but also to anticipate the future needs of industry and innovate accordingly. After all, it is the student who displays the level of agility and grit necessary to successfully navigate this fluid learning experience who will become the future leaders in their respective fields.

An increasing number of professional content creators desire to make and share their work in 360 degrees. We at Rochester Institute of Technology want to lead the way in this field. Our Institute has been a leader in photographic education for over 100 years. We educate professional photographers, cinematographers, directors, as well as scientists and engineers in the imaging space. Specifically, the School of Photographic Arts and Sciences spans majors in photographic sciences as well as photographic arts. Using the Facebook Surround 360 , as well as other professional equipment, we can build, test, and create content. Faculty and student creators will aid in exploring and pioneering the opportunities offered to professionals in creating VR/360 video content.

We feel strongly that RIT faculty and students should not only be improving the technology behind VR/360 video and using this medium at its highest possible level, but also be applying this knowledge in innovative ways while helping the larger community figure out how and when this medium is most appropriately used. Therefore, this proposal seeks to formally introduce VR/360 video into the RIT program, and expand its use in the Museum Studies and other departments’ curriculum over the next two years. As such, our research and development efforts will ultimately address the larger challenges of integrating emerging technologies into the classroom.

The following work is already taking place in semester 2165.

Professor Nitin Sampat is working with students in the Photographic Sciences program to build the Facebook Surround 360 to Facebook’s open source specifications. They will conduct tests to quantify the performance and image quality of the camera. They also propose to design, build and test a lower cost alternative to this camera, as well as conduct research on the many challenges audio engineering presents when deployed with 360 visual content.

This work will involve practical application methods of the technology and align with research and development of successful methods for creating, editing and experiencing VR/360 video content, which Professor Susan Lakin and Assistant Professors Josh

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STATEMENT OF UTILITY (continued)

Meltzer and Jenn Poggi are doing in the CIAS Advertising and Photojournalism programs, Associate Professor Juilee Decker is pursuing in the COLA Museum Studies program, and Professor Joe Geigel’s work in GCCIS Computer Science Department. Subsequently, the camera(s) built by Sampat’s students will be deployed for students to use for content generation in nonfiction documentary storytelling, commercial and advertising applications, and the creation of immersive audience experiences in personal and public spaces.

Lakin is working with students to examine how approaches to traditional storytelling can be explored in commercial applications, allowing marketers to grab the complete attention of their target audience. This semester, she and Geigel are introducing VR/360 video in Music Video Production, an interdisciplinary course that brings together students from computer science and to work collaboratively on an interactive music video experience with professional musicians in our community.

Meltzer and Poggi are facilitating the use of VR/360 equipment in three courses, beginning in the third year Foundations of Photojournalism course, when students pitch and begin work their senior capstones, a year-long documentary projects. Students, in consultation with their committees, who determine VR/360 video to be an appropriate medium to tell their story, will use part of the Foundations and Senior Project courses to experiment with the camera. This will include learning its operation, limitations and, most importantly, how it will be a crucial tool to produce their project. A team of students in Picture Editing II will focus specifically on how to edit and produce narratives in this medium, while students in the Interactive Nonfiction Storytelling class will explore best practices for displaying this content in online storytelling platforms.

Students in Decker’s Visitor Engagement & Technologies class, among others, explore answers to two key questions: 1) How does technology provide a platform for contribution, collaboration, co-creation, and co-opting of experiences among all visitors? and 2) Can technology mediate the best possible experience for visitors? They will serve as user-testers in a variety of contexts, including database and CMS development, app prototyping and iterative design, exhibition design, and UI/UX. They will provide valuable consultation about visitor engagement (in museums, galleries, and sites of cultural heritage tourism) and the role of visitors as “participants” who curate their own experiences. These students will be key components of student teams that will work together on content development and shared project design for each respective course.

Project significance:

Virtual Reality has been pursued for quite some time, but only in recent years have advances in content creation and display made its use more widely applicable and accessible to mainstream audiences. The technology is now evolving at a rapid pace creating a demand for engaging 360/VR content that is outpacing current production. As educators preparing students for current and future industry needs, we must do more than keep pace with this demand but also be thoughtful and innovators. Rapidly evolving technologies means course material must be updated at an accelerated rate, and students must master more material in an equivalent amount of time. This is a daunting need but one that, together, we are working meet.

This grant proposal is directly linked to the focus on active learning techniques, as expressed by those in leadership at RIT. We seek to engage and involve students in the kind of research and scholarship activities that will challenge them to have agency in their educational pursuits and directly impact their respective industries.

Specifically, the funds from this grant will help subsidize the purchase of equipment that would provide technology-based learning tools to the students that give them an iterative design/rapid-fire feedback/evaluative environment geared toward the creation of methodologies and approaches. This equipment will also offer a lower barrier of entry than the Facebook Surround 360 camera in development.

A list of equipment being requested includes: Keymission 360 4k, Kodak PixPro SP360 4K Action Camera Dual Pack, Samsung Gear 360, SanDisk Memory Card 64gb MicroSD (x4), Nikon Keymission Extra battery, Kodak Extra Battery (x2), Samsung Extra Battery, Tripods, Brahma Standalone (ambisonic microphone), Free Space 3DIO Binaural Microphone, Tascam DR-701D 4-track Recorder, XLR cables (x4).

Funds will also be used to offset the expenses associated with updating the cohort’s collective knowledge of current approaches industry standards in best practices and teaching methods.

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STATEMENT OF CREATIVITY (three paragraphs maximum)

Provide a brief description of how this is a novel approach, or a new application of an existing mode or model of teaching and learning, and/or research about how teaching and learning represents a new paradigm. (Please note that special consideration will be given to proposals that demonstrate a new use/application of a model, system, or technology already in use at RIT.)

Virtual Reality/360 video storytelling is still in its infancy, but it is quickly becoming the newest form of advertising and non-fiction content creation. RIT prides itself in not only keeping up with, but also helping to lead the latest "next step" into the future. New technology has always been a field that has interested the RIT photographic community, especially new technology related to capturing a scene.

This proposal offers active and blended learning opportunities for students, while updating curriculum to reflect current industry demands. Our project is unique in that it builds on core principles and skills taught in foundational classes while injecting substantial professional experience through a hands-on approach to education. We are combining a scientific understanding of the technologies that go into making something like the Facebook Surround 360 work, with the artistic sensibility and boundless creativity needed when employing that technology to make engaging narrative content. Additionally, a more sophisticated use of audio remains a mystery to many working with VR/360 video content. Our cohort has an opportunity to break significant ground if we can figure out how to use audio in a way that matches the immersive experience of the visuals.

We firmly believe this is going to be that “next step” in creative content production. The multi-disciplinary approach will bring together disparate groups of students to each contribute knowledge from their areas of expertise, and thus learn from each other. Our faculty cohort and teams of students from various programs are excited to engage in this VR/360 video endeavor.

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STATEMENT OF EFFICACY (two pages maximum)

Provide a brief description of the experiment/research design, methodology, and methods of data collection you will use to gauge efficacy.

The influence of a diverse group of practitioners working across a variety of fields will foster new ways of thinking about VR/360 video technology and ensuing content creation. This faculty cohort will use a combination of traditional pedagogy, flipped classroom practices, distance learning and student driven course design, to create a learner-centered environment in which students achieve an enhanced level of understanding of VR/360 video from a multi-disciplinary perspective.

This project will encourage learning through creation and iteration, which will require students to apply analytical and critical thinking in order to successfully navigate the fluid nature of this project. Faculty will provide opportunities for student-led discussions to share research results, help one another trouble shoot technical and creative issues and encourage ownership in the larger VR/360 video project. Students will benefit from small group experiences with faculty within their majors, as well as the opportunity to work collaboratively with professors and students in other programs, schools and colleges.

The photographic science students, lead by Sampat, will investigate issues of image quality in VR photography/videography – designing and making test targets/”rigs” to evaluate the performance of the Facebook 360 camera. Advertising and photojournalism students, lead by Lakin, Meltzer and Poggi, first use other video and audio equipment supported by this PLIG grant, and eventually the tested Facebook 360 system, to explore best practices for capture and editing of VR/360 video content. The content creators, along with Museum studies students, lead by Decker, will experiment with the issues in sharing material on various platforms, including social media, and in curated spaces like museums.

Together, all of these students will pursue innovation in the VR/360 audio experience. We seek to develop realistic audio recording and playback abilities in order for audiences to fully engage with 360/VR storytelling capabilities. Focus in this area will open up further collaborative opportunities with additional faculty from the Photography, Photographic Sciences and Museum Studies programs, as well as our colleagues from other schools like SOFA.

All of these activities will be framed around key facets of active learning: synthesis and evaluation. Collaborations might take shape in the form of shared visits to one another’s classes among the cohort, student teams from course working on shared project design and content development for each respective course, and discussions among students and faculty to facilitate agile planning methodology (working iteratively and capturing thoughtful feedback for rapid-fire piloting and improvement).

The results of this work will be shared openly and enthusiastically with interested RIT colleagues. Findings and best practices would also be disseminated via published articles and white papers and through presentations at conferences and workshops. They will also inform future modifications to curriculum, perhaps resulting in a future interdisciplinary course.

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STATEMENT OF EFFICACY (continued)

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DISSEMINATION PLAN (optional)

Provide details about the journal, conference, show, or other external vehicle with strong potential for dissemination of your results. Include supporting documentation, such as preliminary interest or acceptance, with your application, if available. (Please note that special consideration will be given to proposals that have a defined opportunity for external dissemination, such as an academic journal or professional conference.)

ILI/TLS will assist with arranging channels for disseminating results within RIT (e.g., annual PLIG Showcase).

The following are an initial list of outlets that offer strong potential for dissemination of our research and development results. • Society for Photographic Education (SPE) • ACM SIGGRAPH • Society for Imaging Science and Technology • Online News Association (ONA) • Visual Communication Quarterly • Communication Arts • National Press Photographers Association (NPPA) • Multimedia Immersion Workshop • The Kalish Visual Editing Workshop • The Poynter Institute

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ADDITIONAL CONSIDERATIONS Please address these questions, if needed.

Will your project require assistance for extensive or unusual media, multimedia, simulation, and/or software development? If so, please explain?

All courses offered by RIT must be accessible to students with disabilities, according to Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973 and Title II of the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990 (rit.edu/studentaffairs/disabilityservices/info). Is your proposed teaching approach accessible to all students, with reasonable accommodation? If not, please explain.

RIT abides by the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act of 1974 (FERPA), which prohibits instructors from making students' identities, course work, and educational records public without their consent (rit.edu/xVzNE). Will any data gathering or sharing for your project raise any FERPA issues? If so, please explain.

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DISSEMINATION AGREEMENT

By completing this grant application, I agree to provide the materials described here, in support of disseminating what is learned from this project to other faculty at RIT.

I also agree to return all/a portion of the funds that I receive for this project to RIT if I fail to complete or provide the materials described here. • Full project plan (including roles and responsibilities, milestone dates, and pertinent project details) • Overview of preliminary findings (may include experiment/study design, lessons learned, initial data collection, and/or literature review summary) • Final summary of findings (including data collection, lessons learned, implications for further study, and which may be in the form of an article abstract, conference presentation outline, or short report) • Final budget accounting (reconciliation of budget provided with your application and the actual project expenses) • Teaching and Learning Commons posting (a summary of findings and examples of teaching designs or materials) • Participation in an ILI/TLS dissemination event (e.g., PLIG Showcase)

By submitting this application, I accept this agreement. _____ (applicant, please initial here)

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DEPARTMENT HEAD CERTIFICATION

I support this PLIG application and budget, and verify that the principal applicant is a full-time faculty member in good standing in my department.

Principal Applicant name: Jenn Poggi______

Department Head Name (PRINT): __Michael Peres______Email: [email protected]

Department Head Signature:_ Date: February 1, 2017

NOTE: When signed, please scan and email to: [email protected]

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