Reflections, innovations and ways forward for interdisciplinary teams building virtual escape rooms

Abstract : Effective collaboration and communication are imperative for interdisciplinary teams to achieve their goals. In the academic realm, there are abundant opportunities for interdisciplinary collaboration both within and outside institutions. With the advent of the 2020 pandemic, these opportunities have extended into the virtual or remote realm. This presentation highlights the journey of an interdisciplinary team, comprising paramedic and nursing lecturers, digital experts, and learning designers, who worked online over a period of 5 months in 2023 building virtual escape rooms. These escape rooms were designed to prepare nursing students for a high stakes objective structured clinical assessment. Sharing learnings from felt tensions and difficulties experienced is important. The team emerged with valuable reflections on their experiences and deepened understanding of how such experiences can disrupt the status quo to incentivise breakthroughs and creative solutions for both teamwork and building virtual escape rooms. Some challenges were partially mitigated by the online virtual conferencing platforms, collaboration tools used and artificial intelligence. Existing infrastructure inhibited the build and required creative workarounds. Teamwork was challenging and rewarding. Attendees will learn of the innovations incorporated into the virtual escape rooms, which may not have been possible in a monodisciplinary team, or without the experienced challenges.The insights derived from this team's experiences provide valuable guidance for teams collaborating online building virtual simulations.

Please include a short summary of your presentation that highlights why an attendee would want to participate in your session.: Attendees will learn of the innovations incorporated into a virtual escape rooms design after a multidisciplinary team working together online experienced challenges building the simulations. The insights shared in this presentation will provide valuable guidance, innovations and creative solutions for virtual teams collaborating to design virtual simulations.