Team collaboration - Real Stories - OVA - Virtual, augmented and mixed reality for real-world impact

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Team collaboration

Safer communities ❤ There’s no ‘I’ in team

Public Safety and Security professionals are dedicated to keeping our communities safe and we all know that crisis situations call for immediate action and efficient cross-functional team collaboration. As such, Police Officers, Firefighters, and Paramedics undergo countless hours of training, which is quite costly and logistically complicated to organize.

To improve response times and cross-functional collaboration, we worked with the City of Quebec to develop life-like training Spaces that simulate the crisis management situations faced by Firefighters, Paramedics, and Police Officers every day.

Using StellarX, we were able to create an interoperable Virtual Reality experience that allowed the interdisciplinary teams to train more often and from anywhere, in a more cost-efficient manner. The authentic hands-on immersive experiences exposed the teams to high-risk environments and crisis situations that are otherwise difficult to replicate or access, and helped professionals work cohesively and efficiently as a team all while improving their crisis management skills.

Immersive skill-building

Right on site

The outcome of this project resulted in a collaborative simulation for cross-functional emergency response teams composed of Police Officers, Paramedics, and Firefighters. Through this Virtual Reality experience, the teams were exposed to various crisis situations, which they were called upon to effectively manage in a public environment. As such, we created various virtual environments that were life-like and contextually adaptive.

Working together

In addition, we designed scenarios that replicate the day-to-day crisis situations they are faced with in the field. For example, one scenario involved collaboration between Police Officers, Firefighters, and Paramedics who were faced with managing a threat in a public parking lot.

Augmenting performance

To measure the performance of the trainees, we collaborated with Isabelle Turcotte, a Cognitive Sciences Expert at the Co-DOT Research Lab, to implement objective learning evaluations to the training situations. Combining immersive technology, behavioral analysis, and biometric tracking of the eyes, allowed us to measure the responsiveness and stress management abilities of individuals in the heat of the action. With additional data, teams get a better understanding as to the areas of improvement, and get a real picture of the progress being made over time while keeping learners in the loop and accountable of their progression.

RESULTS & BENEFITS

After 12 months of training, the City of Quebec team saw a significant improvement in terms of cross-functional collaboration. The team also noted higher information retention rates and higher engagement levels since the training was hands-on.

In short, the cost-efficient solution allowed for the teams to get more hands-on training time, which naturally honed their skills and improved response times in the field. Decreasing the existing emergency response times has helped the City of Quebec keep communities safe, allowing its citizens to have peace of mind.

It’s also worth noting that this experience allowed us to take home the highly-coveted 2017 Brandon Hall Group Silver Award for Excellence in Technology for Best Advance in Unique Learning Technology.

JOURNAL DE QUÉBEC BRANDON HALL GROUP ARTICLE