Dr Irwyn Shepherd

Voices of the Alliance

We invited researchers, staff, students and graduates to share their views of the Monash Warwick Alliance.

What motivated you to work with the Monash Warwick Alliance?

I was initially employed in June 2016 by Professor Kris Ryan, Pro Vice-Chancellor (Academic), Portfolio of the DVC & Vice President (Education) as an Education Technology Advisor in the then Office of Learning and Teaching. However, with an extensive background in medical and nursing simulation in healthcare, I was approached in December 2018 by Mr Cliff Ashford, Director, Academic & Data Technology Services (ADTS) in eSolutions to consider development of a role in promoting the use of Augmented Reality and Virtual Reality from an academic (teaching and learning) perspective out of eSolutions. I agreed and took on that role in February 2019 and commenced as an Academic Lead and Senior Simulation Specialist working with colleagues, such as Dr Paul McIntosh, Innovation Lead, to develop the profile and activities of Virtual and Augmented Reality Services (VARS).

Since then, we have reached out to many Heads of School, Directors, Department Heads, and academics, researchers, professionals and clinical champions plus potential external partners. We have developed relationships and projects in diverse areas such as education, anatomy, psychology, nursing, physiotherapy, paramedicine, information technology, engineering, pharmacology, arts (language and interpreting) and medicine. Of course, the pandemic has impacted on many projects preventing activities central to finishing them, such as filming scenarios or research with students. However, we did successfully transition to online developments and have developed a strong relationship working with Work Integrated Learning and Industry Based Learning students.

What are your top 3 collaboration achievements so far?

The initial Monash Warwick Alliance activity to which I was invited to be part of, involved the development of a Taxonomy for Extended Reality in Engineering. As Project Lead here at Monash I encouraged Engineering faculty members at Clayton and in Malaysia to collaborate while my counterparts at Warwick, Dr Robert O’Toole and Graeme Knowles engaged with their manufacturing engineering group. The project was successful in that the Taxonomy was designed, developed, distilled and reported on and presented at a conference in the UK. A case study from each engineering area using the Taxonomy was also reported on. A publication is currently under review. The second Monash Warwick Alliance activity where I and eSolutions were requested to offer technical support has been development of the HeARtbeat Augmented Reality App.

This project involved Professor Kevin Moffatt and others from Warwick, VARS in Monash Clayton and Dr. Chooi Yeng Lee in Monash Malaysia. An Honors student from Warwick and a number of Clayton IBL students have been involved also. This App is currently in Beta state as we wait to have students try it and provide feedback through a questionnaire, pending changes in Covid rules. The main motivation in being involved in these Alliance activities was to seek strategic opportunities to further the development of AR or VR projects in efforts to raise its profile at Monash University and beyond. The main positives that have evolved out of these Alliance activities is that significant networking occurred, we all got to work with a number of academics, professionals and students, and collaborate on interesting and novel projects. Recurring exposure to others' ideas and suggestions allowed for the best material to be developed.

This was reinforced with site visits and workshops by many of us here, Malaysia and Warwick. Key to achieving project outcomes was ensuring the project guidelines were adhered to, ensuring effective communications remain in place and having inordinate levels of patience in dealing with the challenges of different hemisphere schedules, time zones and calendar availabilities.

What do you hope to ultimately achieve through your collaboration?

Such collaborations have been important milestones in the maturation of VARS. We now have a stronger project and quality management structure in place, which has allowed further local developments to benefit. Both I and VARS look forward to identifying, supporting and collaborating with other future Alliance projects.