{"status":"ok","message-type":"work","message-version":"1.0.0","message":{"indexed":{"date-parts":[[2026,4,7]],"date-time":"2026-04-07T20:42:13Z","timestamp":1775594533946,"version":"3.50.1"},"reference-count":56,"publisher":"MDPI AG","issue":"11","license":[{"start":{"date-parts":[[2022,11,3]],"date-time":"2022-11-03T00:00:00Z","timestamp":1667433600000},"content-version":"vor","delay-in-days":0,"URL":"https:\/\/creativecommons.org\/licenses\/by\/4.0\/"}],"funder":[{"name":"Erasmus+ KA203","award":["2019-1-EE01-KA203-051571"],"award-info":[{"award-number":["2019-1-EE01-KA203-051571"]}]}],"content-domain":{"domain":[],"crossmark-restriction":false},"short-container-title":["Information"],"abstract":"<jats:p>Higher educational institutions in Western Balkan countries strive for continuous development of their teaching and learning processes. One of the priorities is employing state-of-the-art technology to facilitate experience-based learning, and virtual and augmented reality are two of the most effective solutions to providing the opportunity to practice the acquired theoretical knowledge. This report presents (apart from the theoretical introduction to the issue) an overall picture of the knowledge of AR and VR technology in education in Western Balkan universities. It is based on a semi-structured online questionnaire whose recipients were academic staff and students from universities in Albania, Kosovo, and North Macedonia. The questionnaire differed for each target group; the version for academics comprised 11 questions for 710 respondents, and the version for students comprised 10 questions for 2217 respondents. This paper presents and discusses the results for each question with the aim to illustrate Western Balkan countries\u2019 current state of VR and AR application in education.<\/jats:p>","DOI":"10.3390\/info13110525","type":"journal-article","created":{"date-parts":[[2022,11,3]],"date-time":"2022-11-03T03:53:07Z","timestamp":1667447587000},"page":"525","update-policy":"https:\/\/doi.org\/10.3390\/mdpi_crossmark_policy","source":"Crossref","is-referenced-by-count":5,"title":["The Trends and Challenges of Virtual Technology Usage in Western Balkan Educational Institutions"],"prefix":"10.3390","volume":"13","author":[{"ORCID":"https:\/\/orcid.org\/0000-0002-3416-5554","authenticated-orcid":false,"given":"Dorota","family":"Kami\u0144ska","sequence":"first","affiliation":[{"name":"Institute of Mechatronics and Information Systems, Lodz University of Technology, 90-924 Lodz, Poland"}],"role":[{"role":"author","vocabulary":"crossref"}]},{"ORCID":"https:\/\/orcid.org\/0000-0002-6100-2654","authenticated-orcid":false,"given":"Grzegorz","family":"Zwoli\u0144ski","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"Institute of Mechatronics and Information Systems, Lodz University of Technology, 90-924 Lodz, Poland"}],"role":[{"role":"author","vocabulary":"crossref"}]},{"given":"Hena","family":"Maloku","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"Faculty of Electrical and Computer Engineering, University of Prishtina, 10 000 Prishtin\u00eb, Kosovo"}],"role":[{"role":"author","vocabulary":"crossref"}]},{"given":"Mimoza","family":"Ibrani","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"Faculty of Electrical and Computer Engineering, University of Prishtina, 10 000 Prishtin\u00eb, Kosovo"}],"role":[{"role":"author","vocabulary":"crossref"}]},{"ORCID":"https:\/\/orcid.org\/0000-0002-5161-7751","authenticated-orcid":false,"given":"Jo\u017ee","family":"Guna","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"Faculty of Electrical Engineering, Univeristy of Ljubljana, 1000 Ljubljana, Slovenia"}],"role":[{"role":"author","vocabulary":"crossref"}]},{"given":"Matev\u017e","family":"Poga\u010dnik","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"Faculty of Electrical Engineering, Univeristy of Ljubljana, 1000 Ljubljana, Slovenia"}],"role":[{"role":"author","vocabulary":"crossref"}]},{"given":"Rain Eric","family":"Haamer","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"iCV Lab, University of Tartu, 50090 Tartu, Estonia"}],"role":[{"role":"author","vocabulary":"crossref"}]},{"given":"Gholamreza","family":"Anbarjafari","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"iCV Lab, University of Tartu, 50090 Tartu, Estonia"},{"name":"PwC Advisory, It\u00e4merentori 2, 00180 Helsinki, Finland"},{"name":"Insititute of Higher Education, Yildiz Technical University, Be\u015fikta\u015f, \u0130stanbul 34349, Turkey"}],"role":[{"role":"author","vocabulary":"crossref"}]},{"given":"Lejla","family":"Abazi-Bexheti","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"Faculty of Contemporary Sciences, South East European University, 1200 Tetovo, North Macedonia"}],"role":[{"role":"author","vocabulary":"crossref"}]},{"given":"Kristel","family":"Bozhiqi","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"Faculty of Information Technology, Aleksander Moisiu University, 2001 Durres, Albania"}],"role":[{"role":"author","vocabulary":"crossref"}]},{"given":"Albana","family":"Halili","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"Faculty of Information Technology, Aleksander Moisiu University, 2001 Durres, Albania"}],"role":[{"role":"author","vocabulary":"crossref"}]}],"member":"1968","published-online":{"date-parts":[[2022,11,3]]},"reference":[{"key":"ref_1","first-page":"032155","article-title":"Virtual reality and its application in military","volume":"Volume 170","author":"Liu","year":"2018","journal-title":"IOP Conference Series: Earth and Environmental Science"},{"key":"ref_2","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"93","DOI":"10.1016\/j.compbiomed.2019.03.012","article-title":"Augmented and virtual reality in dental medicine: A systematic review","volume":"108","author":"Joda","year":"2019","journal-title":"Comput. 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