The Challenges for skillful training In The Industry 4.0 Era

Short Description and Goals

The outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic has affected all life aspects and mostly education. This special session aims to present the advances on Immersive technologies, the requirements, and their potential in the new era of broadening distance learning and their applicability in the Industry 4.0 environment. Immersive technologies are the core of novel educational tools, methodologies, and approaches that have risen recently.

Educators teaching all levels are exploring the potential of Virtual Reality, Augmentative Reality, Mixed Reality, Blended Learning practices, Gamification, Learning Analytics and various other approaches. These techniques have a crucial role in all STEM disciplines as they are bound to ‘hands-on’ activities for knowledge comprehension and advancement. The research on the afore mentioned technologies can help educators to use immersive, scenario-based, experiential learning methodologies for utilizing the 4th generation of industrial environment by increasing its productivity due to human error reduction , shorten training time, minimising training cost, boosting innovation in training, embedding new skill practices with short response times  and adapting training to critical emergency operations.

On the hand, Virtual and Augmented Reality Technologies allow the opportunity to design collaborative working environments for Cyber-physical systems (CPS) empowered by AI, which is the core of Industry 4.0. VR and AR advances have gained the visualization part of I4.0 and they are providing new solutions and more effective possibilities for an innovative working environment. The Following research topics could help learning procedures to shorten the cycle between the education needs identification and the distribution of a skilful experience and they can lead to new promising learning methodologies for the reduction of time, complexity, and computational costs of the production line of the new industrial paradigm Industry 4.

This special session will include but not restricted to the following topics :

  • Virtual Reality
  • Augmentative Reality
  • Mixed Reality
  • Internet of Thinks
  • Safety/security awareness
  • Blended Learning
  • Gamification
  • Games/Mobile Educational games
  • Mobile Learning
  • Learning Analytics
  • Web 2.0 learning technologies
  • e-pedagogy
  • e-learning
  • Online Discussion Platforms
  • MOOCs / VOOCs
  • Animation and Simulations
  • Multimedia educational tools
  • Virtual Learning Environment
  • Virtual worlds for Education purposes
  • Industry 4.0

 

Submission Guidelines

Authors are invited to submit their original work that has not previously been submitted or published in any other venue. Each paper length should not exceed 8 pages. All papers need to be in IEEE CS format and submitted via the dedicated Easychair submission site according to the instructions on the Initial Submissions page.

Extended versions of selected papers will be included in three Special Issues in Telecom (100% APC-waived), Signals (discount or 100% APC-waived) and Information (50% APC-waived) MDPI journals.

 

Special Session Organizers

Dr. Chrysostomos Stylios, University of Ioannina

Prof. Chrysostomos Stylios is Director of the Laboratory of Knowledge & Intelligent Computing, Department of Informatics and Telecommunication, University of Ioannina, Greece (www://kic.uoi.gr/?lang=en) since 2006. Based on his pioneering research on Fuzzy Cognitive Maps (FCMs), FCMs are applied in discipline research areas.   He has published over 200 journals, conference papers and book chapters. His research work has been acknowledged by the scientific community, while he has received more than 5500 citations and he has h-index 28 (based on Scopus) and h-index 36 (based on Scholar google). His main scientific interests include:  Fuzzy Cognitive Maps, Artificial Intelligence, Big Data, Data Mining, Soft Computing, Computational Intelligence Techniques, Biosignal processing & analysis, Modeling and Decision Support Systems, Support Vector Machines, Knowledge-based systems, Simulation and Modeling Complex Systems, Intelligent Systems, Hierarchical Systems & Supervisory Control, Intelligent Manufacturing Systems, Open Innovation, Technology Transfer, Educational Methodologies and Tools, Virtual and Augmentative Reality. Prof. Stylios has been scientific coordinator in more than 30 R&D projects funded by EU and national funds.  Prof.  Stylios is senior member of IEEE and member of the TC 8.2 and TC 5.4 of IFAC.

Dr. Vasiliki Liagkou, University of Ioannina

Vasiliki Liagkou is assistant Professor at  Department of Informatics and Telecommunication, University of Ioannina, Greece since 2020. She holds a B.Sc. in Computer Engineering & Informatics, a M.Sc. in Foundations of Computer Science and a PhD in Cryptography and Cryptanalysis of Secure and Trust communication protocols from the University of Patras, Department of Computer Engineering and Informatics.. She is research partner of security sector of Computer Technology Institute and Press “Diophantus”. She participated in several national and EU funded projects, such as the IST Projects Cybercer4eu, ABC4Trust, FLAGS and AEOLUS, the national HYPERGEN project (development of the EXTRA5 and SUPER3 electronic lotteries). She has published several works in international conferences and journals and has served as an external reviewer for international conferences. Her main research interests include system cryptanalysis, vr training, e-learning, privacy exchanging technologies, system security, trust management, pseudorandom generators, algorithm engineering, number theory, wireless sensor networks.

Dr. Dario Antonelli, Politechnico di Torino

Dario Antonelli is Associate Professor of Manufacturing in the Department of Management and Production Engineering of Politecnico di Torino since 2001. His research activity is mainly focused on process simulation and collaborative robotics. He has 30 years of experience in teaching in master courses of manufacturing and production systems and process simulation. He is POLITO’s contact person in the Erasmus+ project Tiphys. He directs the professional master in Hierarchical open manufacturing for Industry 4.0, HOMI4.0. He teaches the PhD course on Smart Manufacturing.