GSE IT produced two virtual tours for admitted students. Using 360° video, photospheres, and the virtual tour platform ThingLink, new Stanford students from around the world were able to experience campus life via their web browsers.
OBSTACLE
Admitted students to the GSE are welcomed by a special event, Admit Week. This event usually involves a campus visit and tour hosted by staff and peers. Due to travel and space restrictions during the pandemic, the Academic Services team had to create a virtual replica of this experience.
The project began by planning and scheduling the participants for each tour. Guides were selected and then toured the campus, capturing 360° video and photos along the way using a 360° camera or the Google Street View app on a smartphone.
The 360° videos were edited in Adobe Premiere, while interactive tours were built using Google Street View photospheres on ThingLink.
After finalizing, the tours were uploaded and shared. These publicly viewable 360° virtual tours were then used during live welcome events for newly admitted Stanford students.
Technologies used
Adobe Premiere
Google Street View
ThingLink
The Academic Services team successfully used the virtual tours in multiple events, leveraging screen-sharing and 360° views to “walk” students through campus alongside a peer. These sessions can be customized to reflect the “day in the life” of a graduate student in order to give a personal feel for campus life. In the end, the reception was positive -- students enjoyed the experience and have expressed excitement about visiting campus.
These experiences are also shareable outside of live events, allowing admitted students and other users to explore the GSE campus remotely at any time. The interactive tours are fully editable, so changes can be made as the campus evolves and as student experiences shift. The capacity to scale is built into the platform itself.
