ABSTRACT
Distance learning in form of video chats or the streaming of recorded lectures are common ways for schools and universities to maintain teaching under the restrictions of the global SARS-CoV-2 pandemic. One possibility to improve distance learning can be the use of virtual reality (VR). To this day there are no common guidelines for educators for using VR, and therefore no recommendations to decide which platform to use and what specific requirements they entail. This paper presents an evaluation of currently available proprietary social VR platforms for the use in distance learning. Based on results of expert interviews (n= 4 ) with educators and an online survey (n= 92 ) of students, we identified ten relevant criteria for teaching in VR. We compiled a list of 155 currently available proprietary social VR platforms, which we filtered and evaluated. The results indicate that current social VR platforms can provide an easy and affordable way for educators to access the usage of VR in education, although we could not determine a single best social VR platform. Our recommendations rather provide different most suitable platforms for particular learning applications depending to respective educational requirements. Our research provides a guideline for interested educators in order to find an affordable entry into the usage of VR in education. Building on this, future research can shed light on questions of didactic effects, user-friendliness, or data protection. © 2021, Springer Nature Switzerland AG.