The Social Interaction Experiences of Older People in a 3D Virtual Environment

Virtual worlds offer much potential in supporting social interaction for older adults, particularly as a platform which can provide an interactive and immersive social experience. Yet, there has not been much work carried out to study the use, interaction and behavior of older people in 3D virtual world systems, especially studies which investigate their interactions in a fully functional virtual world. Most focus on issues related to usability such as cognitive difficulties when navigation in a 3D space and we know little about their perceptions and preferences when socializing in a virtual space. In this chapter, we report an experimental study examining the various factors which affected the social experience of older users in virtual worlds. The study involved 38 older participants engaging with a 3D and non-3D virtual grocery store. A mixed method of questionnaire and contextual interview was used for data collection and analysis. Overall, we found that physical presence was a significant predictor of many measures defining the quality of social interaction, yet participants often reported a sense of artificiality in their virtual experience. Interestingly, avatars were not considered directly important for social interaction and instead were only seen as a “place holder” to complete the tasks. Two factors contributed to this, the lack of non-verbal communication and the perceived difficulty in embodying physical people with virtual avatars

Designing and Building immersive education spaces using Project Wonderland: from pedagogy through to practice

This paper presents work on the JISC funded SIMiLLE project to build a culturally sensitive virtual world to support language learning. This builds on the MiRTLE project (funded by Sun Microsystems), which created a mixed-reality space for teaching and learning. The aim of the SIMiLLE project is to investigate the technical feasibility and pedagogical value of using virtual environments to provide a realistic socio-cultural setting and content for language learning interaction. The paper starts by providing some background information on the Wonderland platform and the MiRTLE project, and then outlines the requirements for SIMiLLE, and how these requirements will be supported through the use of a virtual world based on Project Wonderland. We then present our plans for the evaluation of the system, with a particular focus on the importance of incorporating pedagogy into the design of these systems, and how we can support good practice with the ever-growing use of 3D virtual environments in formalised education

Supporting Computer-supported collaborative work (CSCW) in conceptual design

In order to gain a better understanding of online conceptual collaborative design processes this paper investigates how student designers make use of a shared virtual synchronous environment when engaged in conceptual design. The software enables users to talk to each other and share sketches when they are remotely located. The paper describes a novel methodology for observing and analysing collaborative design processes by adapting the concepts of grounded theory. Rather than concentrating on narrow aspects of the final artefacts, emerging “themes” are generated that provide a broader picture of collaborative design process and context descriptions. Findings on the themes of “grounding – mutual understanding” and “support creativity” complement findings from other research, while important themes associated with “near-synchrony” have not been emphasised in other research. From the study, a series of design recommendations are made for the development of tools to support online computer-supported collaborative work in design using a shared virtual environment

Learning in the Panopticon: ethical and social issues in building a virtual educational environment

This paper examines ethical and social issues which have proved important when initiating and creating educational spaces within a virtual environment. It focuses on one project, identifying the key decisions made, the barriers to new practice encountered and the impact these had on the project. It demonstrates the importance of the ‘backstage’ ethical and social issues involved in the creation of a virtual education community and offers conclusions, and questions, which will inform future research and practice in this area. These ethical issues are considered using Knobel’s framework of front-end, in-process and back-end concerns, and include establishing social practices for the islands, allocating access rights, considering personal safety and supporting researchers appropriately within this contex

The role of the “Inter-Life” virtual world as a creative technology to support student transition into higher education

The shape of Higher Education (HE) in the UK and internationally is changing, with wider access policies leading to greater diversity and heterogeneity in contemporary student populations world-wide. Students in the 21st Century are often described as “fragmented”; meaning they are frequently working whilst participating in a full time Degree programme. Consequently, those in the HE setting are required to become “future ready” which increasingly involves the seamless integration of new digital technologies into undergraduate programmes of teaching and learning. The present study evaluated the effectiveness of the “Inter-Life” three-dimensional virtual world as a suitable Technology Enhanced Learning (TEL) tool to support the initial stages of transition from school into university. Our results demonstrate that Inter-Life is “fit for purpose” in terms of the robustness of both the educational and technical design features. We have shown that Inter-Life provides a safe space that supports induction mediated by active learning tasks using learner-generated, multi-modal transition tools. In addition, through the provision of private spaces, Inter-Life also supports and fosters the development of critical reflective thinking skills. However, in keeping with the current literature in the field, some of the students expressed a wish for more training in the functional and social skills required to navigate and experience the Inter-Life virtual world more effectively. Such findings resonate with the current debate in the field which challenges the notion of “digital natives”, but the present study has also provided some new evidence to support the role of virtual worlds for the development of a suitable community to support students undergoing transition to university

DesignWorld : a tool for team collaboration in high band virtual environments

Current software tools for documenting and developing models of buildings focus on supporting a single user who is a specialist in the specific software used within their own discipline. Extensions to these tools for use by teams maintain the single discipline view and focus on version and file management. There is a perceived need in industry to have tools that specifically support collaboration among individuals from multiple disciplines with both a graphical representation of the design and a persistent data model. This project involves the development of a prototype of such a software tool. We have identified multi-user 3D virtual worlds as an appropriate software base for the development of a collaborative design tool. These worlds are inherently multi-user and therefore directly support collaboration through a sense of awareness of others in the virtual world, their location within the world, and provide various channels for direct and indirect communication. Such software platforms also provide a 3D building and modelling environment that can be adapted to the needs of the building and construction industry. DesignWorld is a prototype system for collaborative design developed by augmenting the Second Life (SL) commercial software platform1 with a collection web-based tools for communication and design. Agents manage communication between the 3D virtual world and the web-based tools. In addition, agents maintain a persistent external model of designs in the 3D world which can be augmented with data such as relationships, disciplines and versions not usually associated with 3D virtual worlds but required in design scenarios

A Framework for Designing 3d Virtual Environments

The process of design and development of virtual environments can be supported by tools and frameworks, to save time in technical aspects and focusing on the content. In this paper we present an academic framework which provides several levels of abstraction to ease this work. It includes state-of-the-art components we devised or integrated adopting open-source solutions in order to face specific problems. Its architecture is modular and customizable, the code is open-source.\u

Sketch-Based Interfaces to Support Collaborative Conceptual Design Learning

In order to gain a better understanding of online collaborative conceptual design processes this paper investigates how student designers make use of Lyceum, a shared virtual synchronous environment when engaged in conceptual design. The software enables users to talk to each other and share sketches when they are remotely located. The paper describes a novel methodology for observing and analysing collaborative design processes by adapting the concepts of grounded theory. Rather than concentrating on narrow aspects of the final artefacts, emerging 'themes' are generated that provide a broader picture of collaborative design process and context descriptions. Findings on the themes of 'grounding – mutual understanding' and 'support creativity' complement findings from other research, while important themes associated with 'near-synchrony' have not been emphasised in other research. From the study, a series of design recommendations are made for the development of tools to support online computer-supported collaborative work in design using a shared virtual environment