A Modularity Approach in Design Science Research for Mixed Reality Learning Artifacts

To investigate the complex topic of technology-enhanced learning, the design science research process suggests iteratively creating many separate artifacts. This time-consuming process leads to repeated implementations of similar features in parallel artifacts. We deduced that common requirements exist in the learning scenarios which can, thus, be fulfilled as reusable modules. In this paper, we identified these requirements and present our open-source toolkit with solutions for identifying learners in a login, importing 3D content from the Web and managing this downloaded content, automation of interactions with mixed reality agents as mentors, integration in existing learning infrastructures and collecting data for learning analytics. With this modular design science research approach, multiple artifacts can be developed in parallel to investigate separate use case environments and other researchers can build upon the technical solutions to concentrate on the learning concept of their own mixed reality artifact.