Virtual Crime Scene
Specialistic Criminalistics Laboratory was opened at the Faculty of Law, Administration and Economics of the University of Wrocław (WPAiE UWr) on 16 November. It was built with the use of VR technology. The virtual crime scene is an educational site where law and criminology students will learn how to carry out crime scene examinations as well as gather, analyse and secure evidence. The simulator co-created by Asseco is one of the most modern solutions of this kind worldwide.
Virtual reality is a technology that even now revolutionises the world of entertainment and education. The best universities in the world, such as Harvard or Stanford, use VR simulators. Virtual reality solutions allow to create environments that would be either difficult, dangerous or very costly to create in reality. Thanks to this laboratory, law or criminology students can learn how to examine and analyse traces left on a crime scene. Simulators allow to create a modern and attractive learning environment, increase availability and effectiveness of education and constitute an excellent addition of theoretical knowledge.
The Specialistic VR Criminalistics Laboratory is an ensemble of technological and methodical solutions implemented into an education process. Simulators using VR technology that support and enhance the attractiveness of education processes are its core. They are a perfect tool to execute practical tasks in a situation when the real environment is unavailable, costly or dangerous. They are useful in teaching medicine, criminalistics, architecture, technology and many other disciplines at the best universities worldwide.
The simulator designed and built within a project of the University of Wrocław and Asseco allows to reconstruct different variants of murders, suicides and accidents with diverse traces. In the simulated reality, a student has to uncover and properly secure evidence at the crime scene. An advantage of VR in the education process is the possibility to develop special cognition, perceptivity and motor/manual skills of students. VR means improvement of the quality and effectiveness of classes as well as the development of students’ practical abilities.
This type of education significantly lowers the costs of obtaining specific skills necessary on the job market. It also provides an opportunity to repeatedly recreate and train practical skills in conditions approximate to reality.
The aim of the currently developed solutions is to equip students training in this system with manual abilities of conducting complex examination procedures (the static phase and the dynamic phase, marking the evidence, photographing, uncovering the evidence, securing the evidence) simultaneously by four people, that is exactly how many make up a crew that secures a crime scene.
Thanks to the implemented solutions, the students of WPAiE UWr analyse gathered evidence and try to solve the “mystery” in the VR world, mirroring a crime scene, as a part of Criminalistics classes. Simulative scenarios give an opportunity to use actual tools and accessories in VR in order to document and gather all the evidence that could be developed during a hypothetical crime. The solution provides situational realism and safety of the trainees at the same time. From the technological side, the system consists of server-building elements, a system of cameras with markers that follow players, specialised computers, a headset, motion controllers, manipulators and software, as well as developed methodology of teaching with the help of VR.
Combining science, simulation and artificial VR environments with education in reality, that is applying the method of hybrid education (teacher supported by tools), is a beneficial solution. By the use of VR in didactics we eliminate damaging and wearing out of equipment and we enable students and to recreate occurrences they, and sometimes even professors, normally cannot take part in, such as crime scene examinations.
The formal opening of the Virtual Crime Scene is a recapitulation of the first part of the complex project of employing modern VR technologies at the University of Wrocław. The Centre of Virtual Reality Technology at the Faculty of Law, Administration and Economics of the University of Wrocław carries the project through. The project “Integrated Development Programme of the University of Wrocław II 2019-2023” of a total value of 7,675,267.60 PLN received funding as a part of the Operational Programme “Knowledge Education Development,” Priority Axis No. 3 “Higher Education for the Economy and Development,” Measure 3.1 “Competences in Higher Education.”
Translated by Jakub Dziubek (student of English Studies at the University of Wrocław) as part of the translation practice.
