Deliverables Report

IST-2001-33310 VICTEC

November 2004

EXPLOITATION PLAN

AUTHORS: Lynne Hall

STATUS: Draft

CHECKERS:

Responsible author: Autor

Document Id:

Project: VICTEC (Virtual ICT with Empathic Characters)

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Date:

Access: public

Executive Summary

VICTEC EU IST-2001-33310 Project Deliverable D8.2.3

PROJECT MANAGER

Name: Ruth Aylett

Address: CVE, Business House, University of Salford, University Road, Salford, M5 4WT

Phone Number: +44 161 295 2922 Fax Number: +44 161 295 2925

E-mail:

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Executive Summary 4

Introduction 5

The Market 6

Information Technology penetration in schools 7

Educational software purchasing approach 7

ICT use in schools 7

Including ICT use in teacher training and development 8

Using ICTacross the curriculum 8

Personal and social education 8

Educational software sector 9

Exploring Bullying 9

Software for exploring bullying 9

Market research - teachers 10

The market and FearNot 10

Placing a prototypical FearNot into the classroom 11

Encouraging non-commercial take-up of FearNot 12

Towards a commercial exploitation 13

Exploitation Plan: Future R&D funding 13

Conclusion 14

References 15

Executive Summary

This document provides the Exploitation plan for the VICTEC project. The document begins with a brief discussion of FearNot, the prototypical application developed within the VICTEC project, and the generic framework used to develop it. The potential market for FearNot is then briefly described, focusing on the member countries of Germany, Portugal and the UK. The potential of FearNot is considered in terms of its current research prototype status and a non-commercial exploitation plan is provided. Proposals are made to permit further commercial and research exploitation to occur. An opensource exploitation path for the framework is discussed.

Introduction

The VICTEC (Virtual ICT with Empathic Characters) project (VICTEC, 2004) applied synthetic characters and emergent narrative to Personal and Health Social Education (PHSE) for children aged 8-12, in the UK, Portugal and Germany, through using 3D self-animating characters to create improvised dramas. FearNot (Fun with Empathic Agents to Reach Novel Outcomes in Teaching) the application developed within VICTEC, permits children to explore bullying issues and coping strategies in a virtual school populated by synthetic characters.

Extensive trialling with over 700 children in Germany, Portugal and the UK has highlighted the robust potential of FearNot for engaging children in exploring bullying issues and coping strategies. These results have been widely disseminated, both through research publications and events aimed at the academic community (see appendix 1 for a summary of academic dissemination) and through events and promotional material focused at education staff, children and the general public (see appendix 2 for a summary of stakeholder dissemination).

Although FearNot has been evaluated successfully, it remains at a prototypical stage and needs considerable enhancement to enable it to enter the marketplace as a commercial product. The prototypical nature of FearNot relates not only to the unexplored potential of the synthetic character architecture (see deliverable D5.3.1) and to the lack of media content available for the improvisation of dramas relating to bullying, but also to the implementational framework using the WildTangent games engine. At this stage, the FearNot exploitation strategy is not primarily commercial exploitation, with a shipped product emerging into the market place, rather, the exploitaiton plan recognises the relative immaturity of FearNot and explores potential approaches for gaining maturity and ultimately productisation.

As a separate issue, the generic architectural framework (henceforth The Framework) used to develop the FearNot! demonstrator is felt to be exploitable within the research community as an opensource release. This embodies a very general approach to the integration of AI and graphics components of relevance to other groups researching synthetic characters and intelligent graphical systems.

The Market

Currently, the geographical scope of VICTEC’s market is Europe, with project partners coming from Germany, Portugal and the UK. The following diagram highlights the key factors relating to the market in educational software and these are further discussed below.

Strengths / Weaknesses
Large, stable sector
Significant investment made in provision of hardware and IT infrastructure
Teacher training highlighting need for classroom-based IT use
Continuing Professional Development including IT use as one of the key skills [ref] / Low computer pupil ratios
Different levels of IT penetration, with low penetration at the primary school level particularly in Germany
Teacher lack of skills in some areas
Diversity of educational approaches
Classroom computers with little graphic capability
Opportunities / Threats
Increasing computer pupil ratios
Strategy and policy supports increased use of e-learning and classroom-based IT use
Recognition of the need for alternative approaches to study personal and social education
Niche market
Alternative intervention strategies needed for exploring bullying in classroom-based situations / Different educational policies and practices throughout Europe
Growth in high quality educational software sector
Diverse distribution mechanisms
Teacher resistance

Figure 1: Market SWOT Analysis

Information Technology penetration in schools

All European countries have different educational systems with significant variations. However, information relating to the educational sector of Europe (Eurydice, 2003a, 2003b, 2003c), identifies that all three countries have made significant efforts, along with most European member states, to increase the use of Information Technology in schools. Whilst penetration and the resultant pupil computer ratios differ, there has been significant improvement since 2000, when Portugal had an average of 67.4, UK of 7 and Germany of 21.

The intention is to improve this ratio and exposure, with growing numbers of schools, particularly in the UK, having computer suites. Although there are no central recommendations specifying number of pupils per computer or number of computers per school (Eurydice, 2004b), in Portugal the intention is to attain the ratio of 10 pupils per computer by 2006. In Germany, there has been the trend to invest more heavily in vocational schools, however, there has been a considerable increase in the provision of IT at the primary school level, with 77% of primary schools having access to IT in 2002.

Whilst the UK has considerably more penetration than either Germany or Portugal, all 3 countries are increasing classroom-based IT use supported with high calibre hardware and infrastructure, offering considerable potential for sophisticated IT product incorporation.

Educational software purchasing approach

In most European countries, including the UK, Portugal and Germany, the purchasing of equipment, software and support is achieved at the local level, possibly by different authorities depending on the level of education (as in Portugal) or type of expense. This may actually devolve to the school level as is seen in England and Wales, where schools and local authorities are supported by government grants for expenditure on ICT infrastructure, services and content.

ICT use in schools

The increase in the use of ICT and multimedia in schools is one of the European priority objectives for 2010 (Eurydice, 2004b). The importance of IT use in the classroom has prompted strategic level policy decisions that support and finance increased IT use and highlight the need for IT products to support a diverse set of educational experiences and domains.

However, ICT use is still at a lower level than would be expected, with 62% of German Grade 4 children (9-10 years old) identifying that they use a computer in school less than once a month, whilst in the UK 67% of children used a computer in school several times a week. (No data available for Portugal) (Eurydice, 2004b).

Including ICT use in teacher training and development

The need for teachers to be able to use and incorporate ICT into their practices has been recognised (Eurydice, 2004b), and some teacher training programmes in all 3 countries incorporate the use of IT within the classrooms, and increasingly, teachers are urged to use IT in supporting all aspects of the curriculum (Eurydice, 2002). This is most evident in the UK with a national programme with ICT is a compulsory component. In both Germany and Portugal not all training programmes do include IT use and there is a recognition of the need to improve this situation (Eurydice, 2004b).

Continuing Professional Development (Eurydice, 2004a) has different levels across the 3 countries and within the countries themselves, particularly in Portugal, where most IT budget is focused on equipment and facilities rather than human resources (e.g. training). In some areas, virtually no CPD is offered to established teachers, however, increasingly there is additional training available for IT incorporation, particularly in the UK with the advent of the IT co-ordinator.

Whilst there is still some resistance to using IT, the growth in high quality educational software has resulted in an increasingly IT literate teacher work force, who willingly engage with and incorporate IT into the classroom. Evidence clearly supports the use of ICT as a tool for exploring non-ICT studies (Eurydice, 2004b).

Using ICT across the curriculum

There is a strong policy trend in the all of the countries to involve IT throughout the curriculum, in the UK IT-based learning is emerging as an important pedagogical tool for a wide range of subjects from literacy to health education. However, the majority of ICT based activities for 9-10 year old children in schools throughout Europe focuses on writing and searching for information (Eurydice, 2004b). There is an increasing move to e-learning (e.g. the support of non-IT focused studies with IT products) particularly in the UK. Significant investments have also been made Germany in the 2000- 2004: € 300.000.000 program “Neue Medien in der Bildung” that aimed to ensure integration of IT technology in the curriculum by providing suitable software for all schools/universities

Personal and social education

There is an awareness in all three countries of the need to have facilities and tools to study personal and social education. In the UK, this is embedded within the national curriculum and in Portugal there has been the recognition of the need to focus on citizenship, including issues related to personal and social education (Machado de Araujo, Maia, Coragem, & Sequeira, 2003).

Educational software sector

The stability and size of the educational sector has resulted in considerable growth in the software sector, with a wide range of companies producing educational software. The purchasing power of the market offers considerable potential, for example in Germany in 2002, the sales volume for educational software was about €35.000.000 with schools having raised 5-10 millions of this amount. The total sales volume of the industry (including books, educational software, etc.) in the year 2002 was 490.000.000 Euro. The industry comes out with 3000-4000 new products per year with a total range of about 40000 products and employs about 3000 people. Both Portugal and the UK also have healthy educational software sectors, particularly in the UK.

There are considerable numbers of educational software competitors both in Europe and the rest of the world, however, the focus tends to be on the support of traditional subjects, such as literacy and numeracy. Whilst an increasing number of applications aim to support science, languages and humanities, there is relatively little support for personal and social education.

Exploring Bullying

A wide range of different bullying interventions have been tried, with the consensus that further approaches are needed to ensure that bullying can be studied constructively by all children. A wide range of approaches have been tried using theatre, storytelling, interviews, buddy schemes, negotiation, etc. Bullying is ever increasingly on the agenda, with studies highlighting the serious consequences of bullying both during school and adult life. There is a defined need for additional tools to be made available for teachers to enable them to study bullying issues and explore coping strategies.

Software for exploring bullying

The potential for software to support personal and social education is considerable, with many studies indicating that within the sensitive subject niche, privacy and individual interaction may be essential for children to thoroughly engage with educational software focused at such studies.

Whilst the UK appears to offer the greatest potential for commercial exploitation, due to the national strategy for schools to have anti-bullying policies and the incorporation of the studying of bullying issues into the curriculum, there are significant competitors to FearNot already existing within the market. In Germany and Portugal, whilst there is a less extensive market, current trends identify a growing use of ICT and the need for software to cover the spectrum of school issues and subjects. There are virtually no examples of software focusing at exploring bullying issues in Germany or Portugal, identifying a clear market advantage for a pre-competitive product in gaining commercial interest from national software developers.

Several software applications that focus on exploring bullying issues are commercially available, including Ace Monkey’s Let’s Stop Bullying (Birchfield Interactive PLC, 2004). Typically tasks within these applications involve watching scenarios (often using video footage) and then working through interactive exercises to explore the issues raised in the scenarios. Alternative approaches exist, such as storyboard generation and exploration as provided by Kar2ouche (Immersive Education, 2001). There is increasing take-up of such software in the UK, with teachers readily willing to supplement traditional approaches to exploring bullying.

Market research - teachers

Market research gathered from teachers and stakeholders who have participated in either the FearNot evaluations or in dissemination activities have identified that there is a market opportunity for an innovative approach to exploring bullying. Teachers who watched their pupils interact with FearNot during the Herts evaluation in June 2004 were significantly far more positive towards FearNot than teachers who had seen the trailer for FearNot but had not had an interactive experience. Teachers were far less positive towards FearNot than children when asked about their views of FearNot. However, workshops with teachers and discussions have identified that many of their reservations relate to the learning curve required to incorporate this product into their teaching, rather than a negative response to the product itself.

The market and FearNot

The educational market is stable and large, and there is clear market potential for FearNot, with schools increasingly using ICT within the classroom and exploring alternative approaches to those traditionally used for all aspects of education. Increasingly schools are recognising the need for personal and social education, with growing programmes in citizenship and interpersonal activities, within which FearNot would readily find a role. Although some educational software focusing on bullying does exist, FearNot offers something significantly different to the market, with a focus on empathic interaction to stimulate interest and engagement, providing the basis of an innovative bullying intervention strategy.