1. Project presentation Name - Institution The ImREAL project is supported by the European Commission, in the theme ICT-2009 Digital Libraries and technology-enhanced learning, as a Specific Targeted Research Projects (STREP), under the 7th Framework Programme, Grant agreement No:ICT-257831 internal

2. Project goal The key challenge addressed in ImREAL is: How to effectively align the learning experience in the simulated environment with the ‘real’ world context and the ‘day-to-day’ job practice where the skills are deployed. ImREAL’ s goal is to develop a novel conceptual framework and innovative semantic-enhanced intelligent services to augment existing simulated environments with adaptive meta-cognitive scaffolding in a cost- effective way. 2/9 www.imreal-project.eu Milano, 22-04-2012

3. Rationale of the project The creation of effective Virtual reality training simulation tools that adapt to trainees’ past experiences or preconceptions is extremely challenging. Researchers working on the ImREAL project are aiming at closing the gap between the ‘real-world’ and the ‘virtual-world’ by developing a simulated learning environment focusing on simulation systems for interpersonal communication in multicultural environments that responds to users’ behaviour and adapt accordingly to the user model. 3/9 www.imreal-project.eu Milano, 22-04-2012

4. To validate the conceptual framework, examine the pedagogical value of the new technological solutions, facilitate exploitation and dissemination, and enable the realisation of the project impact, ImREAL will implement a robust services demonstrator which will be trialled in a representative domain with high societal and economical importance, namely: interpersonal communication focusing on multi-cultural awareness. Domain and Use cases 4/9 Initial Scenarios: medical environment buddy programs job interviews www.imreal-project.eu Milano, 22-04-2012

5. Business: training managers and employees to deal with cultural diversity in key activities. The main goal of this use case is to show language/simulator independence, considering cultural contexts in the business sector. Academic: training students or student advisers. The main goal of this use case is to have a low risk high impact use case based Target Sectors 5/9 on already existing instances of the simulators, including interpersonal communication training of medical students or training student advisers. Volunteer: training volunteers how to deal with people in distressed situations. The main goal of this use case is to illustrate dealing with extreme emotional cases. www.imreal-project.eu Milano, 22-04-2012

6. Project type: Small or medium-scale focused research project (STREP) Funding body: European Commission, ICT, Framework 7 Funding scheme: Collaborative project Start date: 01 October 2010 Duration: 36 months Total value: € 4,189,261 EU funding: € 3,220,000 Join ImREAL on LinkedIn: ImREAL Twitter: ImREAL_project Facebook: ImREAL Facts and Figures 6/9 www.imreal-project.eu Milano, 22-04-2012

7. Reality modelling: develop a methodology and innovative services to model ‘real’ world activities and capture semantically-enhanced collective content of job-related experiences; Alignment between reality and simulated environment: develop novel services to derive an extended model of the simulated situation context and a model of the learner; Meta-cognitive scaffolding: develop a pedagogically-driven technological solution to generate adaptive affective meta-cognitive activities in simulated environments; Tuning: provide a flexible way to tune the augmentation services by using feedback from learners, trainers, and tutors; Integration: develop an integrated architecture of services for augmented simulated experiential learning and implement robust demonstrators to augment existing simulated experiential learning environments; Evaluation: evaluate how augmented simulated experiential learning affects learning efficacy in the representative domain; Readiness for the market: assess how ready the innovative approach is for commercialisation and deployment in practice. Project Objectives 7/9 www.imreal-project.eu Milano, 22-04-2012

8. The consortium 8/9 The ImREAL project is supported by the European Commission, in the theme ICT-2009 Digital Libraries and Technology- Enhanced Learning, as a Specific Targeted Research Project (STREP), under the 7th Framework Programme, Grant agreement No: ICT-257831. www.imreal-project.eu Milano, 22-04-2012

9. Contacts: Project coordinator: Vania Dimitrova University of Leeds, United Kingdom Phone: +44 113 343 1674 Email: V.G.Dimitrova@leeds.ac.uk Thank you Name presenter institution Phone: xxxx Email: xxxxx www.imreal-project.eu Milano, 22-04-2012