Collaborative Research: CCRI: Grand: Virtual Experience Research Accelerator (VERA)

合作研究：CCRI：盛大：虚拟体验研究加速器（VERA）

• 批准号: 2235066
• 负责人: Gregory Welch
• 金额: $ 419.25万
• 依托单位: The University of Central Florida Board of Trustees
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Continuing Grant
• 财政年份: 2023
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2023-04-15 至 2027-03-31
• 项目状态: 未结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=2235066&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: Collaborative; Research; CCRI; Grand; Virtual

Researchers conducting lab-based human subject research in XR (Virtual Reality, Augmented Reality, and Mixed Reality) typically find themselves working very hard, over considerable time, to run studies that end up producing very narrow findings for a limited population. With extensive interactions with the XR community, the Virtual Experience Research Accelerator (VERA) project will develop a transformative new CISE community research infrastructure in the form of a human-machine system (hardware, software, and people) that combines and extends aspects of distributed lab-based studies, online studies, research panels, and crowdsourcing, into a unified system for carrying out XR-based research. VERA was designed with and for the XR community to tackle this field’s research needs, supplying the demand for big data from diverse subjects at high scalability. The system will enable researchers to conduct XR user studies online, concurrently across a very large, carefully curated, diverse, dedicated standing pool of XR study participants. Access to the infrastructure will fundamentally change the way XR researchers develop and conduct research, enabling them to break free from the intractability of the lab-based study paradigm, and to dramatically accelerate the quality and quantity of new knowledge. Access will also increase equity by providing opportunities for XR researchers (including students) from all parts of the nation to do high-impact research even if they do not have access to XR labs and equipment at their local university. It will enable innovative research with large and diverse participant samples, longitudinal and replication studies, as well as large diverse data set generation for machine learning and other purposes. As part of this effort, the VERA team will implement and publish mechanisms to make studies more accessible and inclusive.The project includes a significant community-engaged approach to development of the platform through strategic partnerships with industry and community-based organizations who will help in building the platform and disseminating the work throughout the XR community. The infrastructure will provide a transformational tool for XR researchers by leveraging the large and rapidly growing base of XR systems in the homes of the general public, and the abilities of the owners to use them. With consent from these users, VERA will enable CISE researchers to conduct very high-quality studies very quickly. VERA is also designed to tackle this field’s research agenda, supplying the demand for big data from diverse human subjects at high scalability. It will enable innovative research with large and diverse participant samples, longitudinal and replication studies, as well as large diverse data set generation for AI, machine learning and other purposes.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.

研究人员在 XR（虚拟现实、增强现实和混合现实）领域进行基于实验室的人类主题研究时，通常会发现自己需要花费相当长的时间才能开展研究，但最终会在与有限人群的广泛互动中得出非常狭窄的结果。 XR 社区中，虚拟体验研究加速器 (VERA) 项目将以人机系统（硬件、软件和人）的形式开发一种变革性的新 CISE 社区研究基础设施，该基础设施结合并扩展了基于分布式实验室的各个方面。 VERA 是与 XR 社区一起设计并为 XR 社区设计的，旨在满足该领域的研究需求，满足不同学科对大数据的需求。该系统将使研究人员能够在线进行 XR 用户研究，同时在一个非常大的、精心策划的、多样化的、专门的 XR 研究参与者池中进行。对基础设施的访问将从根本上改变 XR 研究人员开发和进行研究的方式。他们要挣脱基于实验室的研究范式的棘手性，以及大幅提高新知识的质量和数量，还将通过为来自全国各地的 XR 研究人员（包括学生）提供进行高影响力研究的机会来增加公平性。如果他们无法使用当地大学的 XR 实验室和设备，它将能够进行大量且多样化的参与者样本、纵向和复制研究以及用于机器学习和其他目的的大量多样化数据集的创新研究。对于这项工作，VERA 团队将实施并发布该项目包括通过与行业和社区组织的战略合作伙伴关系来开发平台的重要社区参与方法，这些组织将帮助构建平台并在整个 XR 基础设施社区中传播工作。 VERA 将利用普通大众家庭中庞大且快速增长的 XR 系统基础以及所有者使用这些系统的能力，为 XR 研究人员提供变革性工具。在获得这些用户的同意后，VERA 将使 CISE 研究人员能够进行研究。非常高质量的研究非常VERA 还旨在解决该领域的研究议程，以高可扩展性满足对来自不同人类受试者的大数据的需求，它将支持对大量且多样化的参与者样本、纵向和复制研究以及大量多样化数据进行创新研究。该奖项反映了 NSF 的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的智力价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。