Welcome to the Virtual Courtroom Project

Academics at the Open University have designed and built a highly realistic immersive virtual courtroom (VCR) where users can explore and learn about the court system. In addition, the courtroom allows users to come together in the VCR to engage in mock hearings to support the practice and development of advocacy skills. The VCR can support people representing themselves, witnesses, jurors and those studying and practising law.

To find out more visit our website and if you want to get involved with the project, please email us at [email protected]

Research Projects

An interdisciplinary simulated court hearing

This project explored the use of desktop virtual reality virtual courtroom (VCR) as a learning tool to enable students from law, policing, and social work to come together to practise courtroom presentation skills through an interdisciplinary simulated court hearing. The study explored the benefits of in incorporating virtual reality (VR) into teaching and learning across disciplines whilst highlighting improvements to enhance the virtual courtroom’s (VCR) effectiveness as a teaching and learning tool.

For more information the report is available at this link.

Unlocking criminal law: evaluating a virtual courtroom simulation to enhance students’ learning of criminal law  

In this project funded by SCiLAB we developed an innovative virtual courtroom (VCR) simulation that incorporated interactive escape room challenges and quizzes to enhance Level 1 criminal law students’ understanding and application of key concepts. The project also sought to evaluate the effectiveness of the simulation in consolidating student learning and supporting engagement with criminal law. To find out more you can read the project report at this link. 

VR Courtroom: Web Based Demo version

The web-based demonstration below shows the 'tutorial' and 'explore' modes of the virtual courtroom. Please note that it is a working prototype and may not display the full range of capabilities intended for the final version.

This short video below explains our vision for the virtual courtroom.

Project director Francine Ryan also appeared as a guest on the Reimagine law podcast in February 2024 talking about the virtual courtroom. Listen at the link below.