Recruitment

Cardboard Goggles Help Potential Students Visit Campus Virtually

• By Dian Schaffhauser
• 03/06/15

Using smartphones and virtual reality headsets, thousands of students worldwide are getting a virtual feel for a Georgia-based school. The Savannah College of Art and Design (SCAD) is in the process of shipping out 10,000 pairs of the specially designed cardboard goggles to recruit and engage potential and current students. Eventually, the college hopes to use the technology to pull its multiple locations and online learning program closer together by allowing users to participate virtually in events at campuses other than their own.

The college has developed a microsite that takes students through virtual tours of its locations in Savannah, Atlanta, Hong Kong and Lacoste, France. Users are able to move through the facilities to view each program.

Eventually SCAD expects to create "spherical videos" that capture the experience of attending events, galleries and exhibitions in 360-degree immersion. That content will work with internal sensors in the smartphone to create a unique view for each person. The college is working with virtual reality company YouVisit on the project.

The first batch of people to receive the headsets are students already admitted for study at SCAD who may not have made up their minds yet about which school to attend. However, anyone with access to a virtual reality headset, including those from Oculus and Samsung, can view the content.