Journal For Virtual Worlds Research (Texas Digital Library - TDL E-Journals)
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Possible Futures
No full textOur journal, JVWR, is celebrating this year its 8th year anniversary. This issue (our customary beginning of the year assembled issue) includes again the top of the crop of papers in our field. We would like to thank our Issue Editors Dr. Stephanie Blackmon from the University of Oklahoma (OK, USA), and Dr. Patricia Anderson from Carolina University (NC, USA) who took upon themselves to bring to our readers this Assembled 2015 issue.Much has changed since 2008 when the JVWR was founded by Jeremiah Spence. The virtual is becoming the real and the real is becoming the virtual. It seems that the ter
Being There: Implications of Neuroscience and Meditation for Self-Presence in Virtual Worlds
No full textNew discoveries in neuroscience show that the human brain and body work together to experience and evaluate emotions and thoughts and to create a felt sense of presence in the material (or virtual) world. The brain engenders (creates) bodily feelings that represent emotions and thoughts. By directing attention to present moment bodily sensations we experience embodied presence. Practicing meditation increases the capacity and propensity to experience embodied presence. Virtual worlds are experienced by the human system that is deeply grounded in bodily sensations. In this essay we explore the implications of neuroscience and meditation for designing and studying self-presence in virtual worlds. We explain how presence is a dynamic, ongoing internal process that is the active result of sustained directed attention
Professors and Virtual World Professionalism: A Qualitative Study
No full textJust as there are now questions about professionalism and professional boundaries in social networking environments such as Facebook or LinkedIn, there are also questions about what it means to be professional in virtual worlds like Second Life (SL). In an effort to understand professor
Three Real Futures for Virtual Worlds
No full textWe are at a critical moment in the study of virtual worlds, where there is great need for theoretical work to clarify what research on virtual worlds can offer. In this article I seek to help set our theoretical affairs in order, with regard to the future of virtual worlds (and thus our research on virtual worlds). First, the false opposition betwee
The eSports Trojan Horse: Twitch and Streaming Futures
No full textThis paper argues that one potential future in gaming and virtual reality can be found in streaming media and technology. The streaming space of Twitch.tv is bot
Alexandria - A Virtual Repository of Knowledge
No full textVirtual worlds are development platforms, similar to sandbox games where users are able to interact with each other with no predefined goal. Due to immersive visual feedback, these platforms have been successfully used in the past to create lesson plans and materials used for undergraduate and, graduate education as well as fo
Lessons from Recruiting Second Life Users with Chronic Medical Conditions: Applications for Health Communications
No full textSecond Life (SL) is a virtual world with a number of venues for social interaction. SL integrates various aspects of a use
Toward the Futures of Real AND Virtual Worlds
No full textAn overview of the special "Futures" issue and its papers, and reflection on how this field has changed from 2008 to 2015 along the four platforms of 3D3C (3D, Community, Commerce and Creation)
White Man
No full textBased on previous research indicating that character portrayals in video games and other media can influence user
Virtual Worlds Enabling Distributed Collaboration
No full textDespite the growing prevalence of distributed work as an organizational form, the virtual world literature has largely neglected to consider the potentials of this new media in distributed collaboration. In the present study, we studied how virtual worlds (VWs) are used in professional distributed work and how they influence new forms of collaboration in distributed work settings. The study is based on a partially grounded theory analysis method of 47 semi-structured interviews. The interviews revealed several new collaboration potentials of virtual worlds in distributed work, like new forms of training and learning, as well as enabling small group meetings and large events. Based on the interview findings we developed a conceptual model in which psychological processes supported by the VW enable distributed collaboration in terms of immersion, engagement, social presence, and trust. Furthermore, technological features of the VW, like the use of avatars, import of 3D objects, and use of physical clues, enable distributed collaboration. The psychological processes and technological feature