Unveiling the potential of Digital Twin technology for Higher Education

Abstract

The concept of the Digital Twin (DT), a digital replica of a physical object or process, is relatively new to the higher education context. The increase in the application of DT technology across many industries has prompted the call for greater exploration of the possibilities for DTs in education along with a consideration of the challenges to their implementation. There are also questions being raised about the opportunity to develop DTs of learners to extend the use of data to inform learning and teaching, which has been boosted by the recent rise of learning analytics and educational data mining. In this paper we will explore what DT technology is and offer a new definition of DTs that can be used in the educational context. Current uses and the potential future applications will be explored, as well as consideration of what is necessary to build DTs of learners (and educators). The use of DT technology also poses many challenges due to the complexity of DT design and application, and these will be outlined. The paper concludes with a discussion of future directions and areas where more research is needed to fully explore the potential of DT for higher education.