iVisit-Collaborate: Online Multiuser Virtual Site Visits Using 360-Degree Panoramas and Virtual Humans

Construction professionals need to understand collaboration within the context of jobsites. Consequently, many construction programs utilize learning activities to enable student learning of collaboration. One of those key learning activities used by construction programs is site visits. Although site visits are greatly beneficial for students, these present several challenges to be completed. This study centers on developing and testing a multiuser online system to support student learning of collaboration within the context of site visits. A case study virtual site visit was completed with 14 student dyads to understand collaboration in terms of teamwork perception, spatial visualization, and knowledge retention. It was found students perceived iVisit-Collaborate as a medium that supported effective teamwork with scores greater than five on a 7-point Likert scale. Furthermore, it was noticed the average student score 42% in spatial visualization and 64% in knowledge retention. However, it was observed that spatial visualization was not correlated to knowledge retention.