Maps, agents and dialogue for exploring a virtual world

In previous years we have been involved in several projects in which users (or visitors) had to find their way in information-rich virtual environments. 'Information-rich' means that the users do not know beforehand what is available in the environment, where to go in the environment to find the information and, moreover, users or visitors do not necessarily know exactly what they are looking for. Information-rich means also that the information may change during time. A second visit to the same environment will require different behavior of the visitor in order for him or her to obtain similar information than was available during a previous visit. In this paper we report about two projects and discuss our attempts to generalize from the different approaches and application domains to obtain a library of methods and tools to design and implement intelligent agents that inhabit virtual environments and where the agents support the navigation of the user/visitor

Global Teamwork: A Study of Design Learning in Collaborative Virtual Environments

With the recent developments in communication and information technologies, using Collaborative Virtual Environments (CVEs) in design activity has experienced a remarkable increase. In this paper we present a collaborative learning activity between the University of Sydney (USYD), and the Istanbul Technical University (ITU). This paper shares our teaching experience and discusses the principles of collaborative design learning in virtual environments. Followed by a study on students’ perception on the courses and collaborative learning in both universities, this paper also suggests future refinements on the course structure and the main areas of collaborative design learning. Keywords: Collaborative Design; Collaborative Virtual Environments; Design Teaching And Learning</p

Collaborative virtual gaming worlds in higher education

There is growing interest in the use of virtual gaming worlds in education, supported by the increased use of multi‐user virtual environments (MUVEs) and massively multi‐player online role‐playing games (MMORPGs) for collaborative learning. However, this paper argues that collaborative gaming worlds have been in use much longer and are much wider in scope; it considers the range of collaborative gaming worlds that exist and discusses their potential for learning, with particular reference to higher education. The paper discusses virtual gaming worlds from a theoretical pedagogic perspective, exploring the educational benefits of gaming environments. Then practical considerations associated with the use of virtual gaming worlds in formal settings in higher education are considered. Finally, the paper considers development options that are open to educators, and discusses the potential of Alternate Reality Games (ARGs) for learning in higher education. In all, this paper hopes to provide a balanced overview of the range of virtual gaming worlds that exist, to examine some of the practical considerations associated with their use, and to consider their benefits and challenges in learning and teaching in the higher education context

Agents for educational games and simulations

This book consists mainly of revised papers that were presented at the Agents for Educational Games and Simulation (AEGS) workshop held on May 2, 2011, as part of the Autonomous Agents and MultiAgent Systems (AAMAS) conference in Taipei, Taiwan. The 12 full papers presented were carefully reviewed and selected from various submissions. The papers are organized topical sections on middleware applications, dialogues and learning, adaption and convergence, and agent applications

Agent-supported cooperative learning environments

We survey our research on (3D) virtual environments inhabited by agents that help visitors to get information and to get a tusk done. The main ideas and designs can be tuned to different applications, including information und transaction services (e-commerce), collaborative work and educational domains