Journal For Virtual Worlds Research (Texas Digital Library - TDL E-Journals)
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Meta-theoretic Assumptions and Bibliometric Evidence Assessment on 3-D Virtual Worlds as Collaborative Learning Ecosystems
No full textComputer-supported online 3-D virtual world environments have been waxed and waned in interest and representativeness for supporting collaborative- and simulation-based practices. In a post-modern societal framework that requires inexpensive solutions for high-risk situations, research efforts in virtual worlds have developed a basis for understanding the use of virtual reality for multidisciplinary scenarios such as distance learning, training, therapy treatments, and social interaction. Complex relationships can be established simultaneously between several students functioning as integrated learning units using different media, and interacting with their physical environment in the context of real-world settings. In this sense, a recurrently updated research agenda for virtual worlds can characterize the current needs at a systematic way. This paper presents a meta-analysis of 35 publications to identify gaps and opportunities for research in collaborative three-dimensional environments based on content analysis. At a general perspective, there is a lack of established approaches to measure the influence and research potential of sociocultural factors in virtual world
Fostering Team Creativity in Virtual Worlds
No full textThis article addresses the potential of virtual worlds as a platform for creative team collaboration. The proliferation of geographically distributed teams, striving towards innovative results, calls for ICT that support team creativity. Three-dimensional virtual worlds represent such an emergent and rapidly developing collaboration tool. A systematic literature review was conducted to reveal the affordances of virtual worlds contributing towards team creativity.The results of the literature review reveal eight proposed affordances relevant for virtual worlds to foster team level creativity. Avatars (1) allow the team members to express themselves and their insights and point out information to others. Changing the user
Distributed Immersive Participation as Crowd-Sensing in Culture Events
No full textThis article investigates new forms for creating and enabling massive and scalable participatory immersive experiences in live cultural events, characterized by processes, involving pervasive objects, places and people. The multi-disciplinary research outlines a new paradigm for collaborative creation and participation towards technological and social innovation, tapping into crowd-sensing. The approach promotes user-driven content-creation and offsets economic models thereby rewarding creators and performers. In response to these challenges, we propose a framework for bringing about massive and real-time presence and awareness on the Internet through an Internet-of-Things infrastructure to connect artifacts, performers, participants and places. Equally importantly, we enable the in-situ creation of collaborative experiences building on relevant existing and stored content, based on decisions leveraging multi-criteria clustering and proximity of pervasive information, objects, people and places. Finally, we investigate some new ways for immersive experiences via distributed computing but pointing forward to the necessity to do more with regard to collaborative creation
Linguistic and multilingual issues in virtual worlds and serious games: a general review
No full textWithin a globalized world, the need for linguistic support is increasing every day. Linguistic information, and in particular multilingual textual information, plays a significant role for describing digital content: information describing pictures or video sequences, general information presented to the user graphically or via a text-to-speech processor, menus in interactive multimedia or TV, subtitles, dialogue prompts, or implicit data appearing on an image such as captions, or tags. It is obviously crucial to associate digital content to multilingual textual information in a non-intrusive way: the user must decide, whether or not, he wants to display the textual information related to the digital content he is dealing with in any particular language.In this paper we will present a general review on linguistic and multilingual issues related to virtual worlds and serious games. The expressio
A Multi-faceted Approach to Anonymity Online: Examining the Relations between Anonymity and Antisocial Behaviour
No full textThis article reviews the literature on the relations between anonymity in antisocial behaviour: does online anonymity qualitatively alter online behaviour, encouraging antisocial behaviour online? Or does online anonymity have no effect on the exhibition of antisocial behaviour? I argue that this line of thought presents an unsatisfactory dichotomy as it does not sufficiently account for individual contexts. Anonymity alone is not adequate to induce antisocial behaviour: it requires the motivation to act in that manner. I argue that the development of this motivation to exhibit antisocial behaviour involves a multifaceted perspective that consolidates the self (e.g. socio-economic backgrounds and the degree of value placed on anonymity) with the other (e.g. group norms). This is, in turn, influenced by the chosen media channel (e.g. games, forums, virtual worlds, chat-rooms), the presence of any wider motivations (political and sociological), and the degree of anonymity afforded by the media channel; these factors affect the way anonymity is perceived and utilised
Overview: Virtual Reality in Medicine
No full textBackground: Virtual Reality (VR) was defined as a collection of technological devices
Using 3D Virtual Standardized Patients to Teach Motivational Interviewing
No full textThe term motivational interviewing focuses on patient
Finding Healthcare Support in Online Communities: An Exploration of the Evolution and Efficacy of Virtual Support Groups
No full textWith the advent of social media technologies, debate continues to swirl around the ability of these technologies to either connect or isolate. Healthcare support communities represent an especially vulnerable population who can potentially gain most significantly from the ability to connect via online social support groups. This paper reviews current literature on the efficacy of online social support groups, with a particular interest in 3-D online social virtual worlds. The literature reveals the importance of social support in general; of finding support online in these mediated environments; and the strengths and weaknesses in the current technologies that offer virtual healthcare support groups. Characteristics of social virtual worlds including persistence, anonymity, 24/7 access to individuals globally, and virtual embodiment reveal powerful potential to build support online. For example, individuals with disabilities, chronic illness, or mental illness may not have physical or social resources necessary to get to face-to-face support groups yet the literature also finds that they may find meaningful support in avatar form.Finally, the literature also frequently cites the growing need for a clear understanding of user privacy, informed consent, intellectual property and ethics in research in this arena. As cost and access to healthcare and social support may become more challenging, access to support online is becoming more mainstream with tremendous opportunity, especially for individuals whose lives are limited by chronic illness or disability
Virtual Collaboration Spaces: Bringing Presence to Distributed Collaboration
No full textThis paper concerns the use of virtual worlds alongside web technologies for on-line collaborative activities. The potential of this combination of technologies lies in the complementary notions of presence that these technologies offer their users. After discussing the nature of synchronous and asynchronous distributed collaboration, we describe a virtual collaborative environment that has been developed for task-focused communities and support to them through specific problem-solving episodes. This environment has been subject to experiments involving the development and provision of expert advice in the context of the response to a large-scale emergency crisis
Taking a Broader View by Looking Deeper
No full textThe field of virtual worlds is vast, interconnected and expanding. In this issue, we take a review lantern and shed some light on some of the fiel