@article{3033821,
    title = "How Academics and the Public Experienced Immersive Virtual Reality for
Geo-Education",
    author = "Bonali, Fabio L. and Russo, Elena and Vitello, Fabio and Antoniou, and Varvara and Marchese, Fabio and Fallati, Luca and Bracchi, Valentina and and Corti, Noemi and Savini, Alessandra and Whitworth, Malcolm and Drymoni, and Kyriaki and Mariotto, Federico Pasquare and Nomikou, Paraskevi and and Sciacca, Eva and Bressan, Sofia and Falsaperla, Susanna and Reitano, and Danilo and van Wyk de Vries, Benjamin and Krokos, Mel and Panieri, and Giuliana and Stiller-Reeve, Mathew Alexander and Vizzari, Giuseppe and and Becciani, Ugo and Tibaldi, Alessandro",
    journal = "Bulletin of Geosciences",
    year = "2022",
    volume = "12",
    number = "1",
    publisher = "MDPI",
    doi = "10.3390/geosciences12010009",
    keywords = "immersive virtual reality; geology; photogrammetry; education; Iceland;
Santorini; Etna",
    abstract = "Immersive virtual reality can potentially open up interesting geological
sites to students, academics and others who may not have had the
opportunity to visit such sites previously. We study how users perceive
the usefulness of an immersive virtual reality approach applied to Earth
Sciences teaching and communication. During nine immersive virtual
reality-based events held in 2018 and 2019 in various locations (Vienna
in Austria, Milan and Catania in Italy, Santorini in Greece), a large
number of visitors had the opportunity to navigate, in immersive mode,
across geological landscapes reconstructed by cutting-edge, unmanned
aerial system-based photogrammetry techniques. The reconstructed virtual
geological environments are specifically chosen virtual geosites, from
Santorini (Greece), the North Volcanic Zone (Iceland), and Mt. Etna
(Italy). Following the user experiences, we collected 459
questionnaires, with a large spread in participant age and cultural
background. We find that the majority of respondents would be willing to
repeat the immersive virtual reality experience, and importantly, most
of the students and Earth Science academics who took part in the
navigation confirmed the usefulness of this approach for geo-education
purposes."
}