Overview
Immersive and Virtual Media MA aims to develop the creative, critical and technical skills required for practitioners to develop, craft, perform, co-create and share immersive arts experiences.
You will gain practical experience, creating and sharing immersive works across a broad range of mixed-reality technologies, including Virtual Reality (VR) and Augmented Reality (AR). The course takes a broad interdisciplinary interpretation of what we mean by immersive practices, including performance capture and networked performance, spatial and volumetric filmmaking, installation, projection and site-specific working, immersive sound design and music composition, animation, play and games design.
Why Coventry University?
An award-winning university, we are committed to providing our students with the best possible experience. We continue to invest in both our facilities and our innovative approach to education. Our students benefit from industry-relevant teaching, and resources and support designed to help them succeed. These range from our modern library and computing facilities to dedicated careers advice and our impressive Students’ Union activities.
To ensure an optimised and continual student experience, the university may deliver certain contact hours and assessments via emerging online technologies and methods across all courses.
Global ready
An international outlook, with global opportunitiesEmployability
Career-ready graduates, with the skills to succeedStudent experience
All the support you need, in a top student cityRelated Links
Building Redevelopment
We are currently in the process of a major redevelopment of our Faculty of Arts and Humanities buildings. The building will be open to the public as well as students, and will feature an expansive gallery space.
Creative Community Hub
We hope that you are all staying safe in these uncertain times. Creative activities can really help fill the days, while we are spending more time at home and we have some ideas to keep you busy.
Virtual experience
Visit our online degree show where we have brought together the work of over 500 students.
Course information
The MA Immersive and Virtual Media course has been designed to prepare you for working at the forefront of the rapidly evolving, emergent immersive creative industries. You will build upon your prior experience and/or learning in creative practice. Plus, you will consider how technical and non-technical means of immersive practice might enable you to create work that encourages more emotionally rich practices of participation, adopts increasingly dynamic and interactive modes of storytelling, and traverses a progressively hybrid post-digital range of creative forms.
The course will explore the use of a range of immersive techniques and technologies in contemporary creative practice including but not limited to:
- Headset Technologies: Virtual Reality (VR) / Augmented Reality (AR) / Mixed Reality (MR) .
- Narrative Forms: Interactive Storytelling / Hypertext / Choose your own adventure
- Play: Role Playing Games / Escape Rooms / Street Games
- Performance: Immersive Theatre / Performance Capture / Digital Dance
- Leisure: Theme parks / Outdoor and “Secret” Cinema / Heritage Settings
- Sonic experiences: Multichannel Audio / ASMR / Spatial Composition
- Site-responsive Working: Projection Mapping / Real-time Mobile Technologies / 5G and IoT
Modules
In more detail...
The course has been structured to allow students opportunities for breadth of experience and also depth in a chosen specialism with the aim of producing dynamic and agile graduates who are prepared for an evolving, creative-critical discipline, not tied to the limitations of any one particular technology or approach. Graduates from the course should be able to excel across the realisation and actualisation of live projects with partners across communities and industries, digital, cultural, creative and 3rd sectors.
- High levels of student satisfaction in Media Studies, 92% compared with the sector average of 84% (Postgraduate Taught Experience Survey 2016).
- We work alongside the University’s Office of Teaching and Learning, the Disruptive Media Learning Lab and Centre for Global Engagement, delivering high quality projects and learning experiences.
- Opportunity to participate in a range of exciting field trips and industry visits – previous postgraduate media students have visited the Ai Weiwei Exhibition in London; ESL Games in Leicester; the Ikon gallery in Birmingham; Somerset House in London; and the National Media Museum in Bradford (subject to availability and additional costs may apply).
- Access to Media Loans Shop – which has state-of-the-art equipment including GoPro Camera kits, Cannon and Nikon Photographic and Video cameras (inc. DSLR), Blackmagic Ursa Mini 4.6K EF camera collection Edirol recorders, and a range of photographic lenses, lighting and filters (terms and conditions apply).
- Coming to study in a hugely diverse city which has been awarded the title of City of Culture 2021, meaning huge local investment and the chance to capitalise on the vibrant range of opportunities which this status will present in the run up, during and after the event, epitomised in the ten-year Cultural Strategy for Coventry.
The course takes a broad interdisciplinary interpretation of what we mean by immersive practices. Rather than focusing solely on headset immersive technologies, you will work across disciplines, producing hybridised post-digital work that challenges the conventions of media disciplines and encourages students to operate at the forefront of the rapidly expanding immersive sector. The curriculum will be thematic and enquiry-led and by examining immersive working under three lenses - bodies, spaces and play –you will be challenged to apply the conceptual, narrative and thematic ideas underpinning the production of your own immersive work and that of others.
The course builds upon extensive faculty expertise in the research and practice of immersive forms including performance, motion capture and networked performance; spatial, 360 and volumetric filmmaking; interactive media arts, installation, projection and site-specific working; immersive sound design and multichannel music composition; animation and games art; and play and games design.
You will engage with a rich variety of teaching and learning activities which are post-digital, playful, and creative, building upon existing research expertise and bringing this directly into the classroom. You will experience small and large group teaching, including opportunities to work and collaborate across progression stage within MA Immersive and Virtual Media and across the Media postgraduate cluster of courses. Traditional lectures, seminars and tutorials will be augmented with more dynamic and participatory teaching modes including hacklabs, sprints, field trips and remote learning. The approach is built upon co-creational principles, allowing you to become active participants in your own learning and contribute to the development of our courses and delivery in line with the CU education strategy.
This course will be assessed using a variety of methods which could vary depending upon the module. Assessment methods include practical projects and portfolios, artefacts and dissertations.
The Coventry University Group assessment strategy ensures that our courses are fairly assessed and allows us to monitor student progression towards the achieving the intended learning outcomes.
Upon successful completion of the course, you will be equipped with the creative critical skills to successfully realise a range of multisensory, interactive and immersive artistic products. You will have worked independently and collaboratively to produce work in a range of professional contexts, including working to live briefs developed in partnership with industry. Graduates will have developed key transferable skills that enable them to operate at the forefront of the emerging immersive sector. Some may choose to progress into technical roles, but the course also supports those interested in developing agile skills as writers, performers, directors, producers, designers and facilitators of immersive work. Most importantly, the course will emphasise the interdisciplinary nature of immersive ways of working and the sector’s demand for flexible, ambitious, dynamic and self-aware practitioners.
In a typical week you will have approximately 8 ‘contact’ hours of teaching. This generally breaks down into a mixture of lectures, seminars and practical workshops each week with focused tutor contact.
The contact hours may be made up of a combination of face-to-face teaching, individual and group tutorials, and online classes and tutorials.
As an innovative and enterprising institution, the University may seek to utilise emerging technologies within the student experience. For all courses (whether on-campus, blended, or distance learning), the University may deliver certain contact hours and assessments via online technologies and methods.
n addition, you will be expected to undertake a further 300 hours of self-directed study each semester, e.g. working on course assignments, group project activities, reading and maintaining your own public facing digital profile.
Global ready
Did you know we help more students travel internationally than any other UK university according to data from the experts in higher education data and analysis, HESA?
In 2018/19, we were able to provide a total of 5,469 experiences abroad that lasted at least five days.
Much of this travel is made possible through our Global Leaders Programme, which enables students to prepare for the challenges of the global employment market, as well as strengthening and developing their broader personal and professional skills.
Explore our international experiences1st for
International experiences
Sending more students overseas than any other UK uni 2016/17
5,469
Student experiences
The number of student trips abroad for at least 5 days in 2018/19
12,000
and counting
The number of students we’ve helped travel internationally since 2016
12
global programmes
As well as trips, we offer other opportunities like language courses
Entry Requirements
Tuition Fees
We pride ourselves on offering competitive tuition fees which we review on an annual basis and offer a wide range of scholarships to support students with their studies. Course fees are calculated on the basis of what it costs to teach each course and we aim for total financial transparency.
EU student fees
EU nationals starting in the 2020/21 academic year remain eligible for the same fees as home students and the same financial support. Financial support comes from Student Finance England, and covers undergraduate and postgraduate study for the duration of their course, providing they meet the residency requirement.
For tuition fee loans
EU nationals starting in the 2020/21 academic year must have resided in the European Economic Area (EEA) or Switzerland for the three years prior to the start of their course. The purpose of that three year residency should not have been mainly for the purpose of receiving full time education.
For maintenance loans
EU nationals starting in the 2020/21 academic year must have resided in the UK and Islands for the five years prior to the start of their course. The purpose of that five year residency should not have been mainly for the purpose of receiving full time education.
Career prospects
Graduate Immigration Route visa
Based on current information from the UK Government, international students whose study extends beyond summer 2021 may be eligible for a visa under the UK Government’s Graduate Immigration Route, which will enable students to stay and work, or look for work, in the UK at any skill level for up to two (2) years. Check the most up to date guidance available to check your eligibility and any updates from the UK Government before making an application or enrolment decision.
Demand for graduates with skills and experience in immersive experience production is present and growing across the creative industries and students may seek employment in the screen industries and also across wider areas of the immersive economy, including but not limited to, GLAM (galleries, libraries, archives and museums), games, architecture, manufacturing and engineering, tourism, education and training, and healthcare.
Where our graduates work
Graduates from our MA media courses have gone on to work with international broadcasters, film production companies, independent media producers, games companies and also onto further media research and development sectors. Recent graduates also work as lecturers and technical skills instructors.
Disclaimer
By accepting your offer of a place and enrolling with us, a Student Contract will be formed between you and the university. A copy of the 2020/21 Contract can be found here. The Contract details your rights and the obligations you will be bound by during your time as a student and contains the obligations that the University will owe to you. You should read the Contract before you accept an offer of a place and before you enrol at the university.
The tuition fee for the course that is stated on the course webpage and in the prospectus for the first year of study will apply. We will review our tuition fees each year. For UK and EU students, if Parliament permit an increase in tuition fees, we may increase fees for each subsequent year of study in line with any such changes. Note that any increase is expected to be in line with inflation. Following the UK’s exit from the European Union, EU students should be aware that there may be a change to UK laws following the UK’s exit, this may change their student status, their eligibility to study part time, and/or their eligibility for student finance. We will act in accordance with the UK’s laws in force in relation to student tuition fees and finance from time to time.
For International students the tuition fee that is stated on the course webpage and in the prospectus for the first year of study will apply. We will review our tuition fees each year. For international students, we may increase fees for each subsequent year of study but such increases will be no more than 5% above inflation.
