Writing with Pictures: Immersive Technology and 21st Century Professional Development

In The Language of New Media, Lev Manovich asks, “What kind of space is virtual space?” (254). This seemingly simple question will pose a number of challenges for writing centers as they develop services that transcend physical space. As writing center administrators integrate new media and technology into their operations, they must continue to invent and articulate theory that informs the development of virtual spaces. In Heuretics, Gregory Ulmer poses a related question: “What will research be like in an electronic apparatus?” (32). Ulmer explains that the notion of spatiality has changed since the development and widespread adoption of the computer (Heuretics 36). Indeed, it has, and the cultural and political landscape of the university has changed as well, as educational technology and virtual spaces are often at the heart of many academic institutions.University Writing Cente

Sharing emotions and space - empathy as a basis for cooperative spatial interaction

Boukricha H, Nguyen N, Wachsmuth I. Sharing emotions and space - empathy as a basis for cooperative spatial interaction. In: Kopp S, Marsella S, Thorisson K, Vilhjalmsson HH, eds. Proceedings of the 11th International Conference on Intelligent Virtual Agents (IVA 2011). LNAI. Vol 6895. Berlin, Heidelberg: Springer; 2011: 350-362.Empathy is believed to play a major role as a basis for humans’ cooperative behavior. Recent research shows that humans empathize with each other to different degrees depending on several modulation factors including, among others, their social relationships, their mood, and the situational context. In human spatial interaction, partners share and sustain a space that is equally and exclusively reachable to them, the so-called interaction space. In a cooperative interaction scenario of relocating objects in interaction space, we introduce an approach for triggering and modulating a virtual humans cooperative spatial behavior by its degree of empathy with its interaction partner. That is, spatial distances like object distances as well as distances of arm and body movements while relocating objects in interaction space are modulated by the virtual human’s degree of empathy. In this scenario, the virtual human’s empathic emotion is generated as a hypothesis about the partner’s emotional state as related to the physical effort needed to perform a goal directed spatial behavior

From Trend Analysis to Virtual World System Design Requirement Satisfaction Study

Virtual worlds have become global platforms connecting millions of people and containing various technologies. The development of technology, shift of market value, and change of user preference shape the features of virtual worlds. In this paper, we first study the new features of virtual worlds and emergent requirements of system development through trend analysis. Based on the trend analysis, we constructed the new design requirement space. We then discuss the requirement satisfaction of existing virtual world system architectures and highlight their limitations through a literature survey. The comparison of existing system architectures sheds some light on future virtual world system development to match the changing trends of the user market. At the end of this study, we briefly introduce our ongoing study, a new architecture, called Virtual Net, and discuss its possibility in requirement satisfaction and new research challenges.Comment: 30 pages, 8 figures, 2 table

Virtual teams: A literature review

In the competitive market, virtual teams represent a growing response to the need for fasting time-to-market, low-cost and rapid solutions to complex organizational problems. Virtual teams enable organizations to pool the talents and expertise of employees and non-employees by eliminating time and space barriers. Nowadays, companies are heavily investing in virtual team to enhance their performance and competitiveness. Despite virtual teams growing prevalence, relatively little is known about this new form of team. Hence the study offers an extensive literature review with definitions of virtual teams and a structured analysis of the present body of knowledge of virtual teams. First, we distinguish virtual teams from conventional teams, different types of virtual teams to identify where current knowledge applies. Second, we distinguish what is needed for effective virtual team considering the people, process and technology point of view and underlying characteristics of virtual teams and challenges they entail. Finally, we have identified and extended 12 key factors that need to be considered, and describes a methodology focused on supporting virtual team working, with a new approach that has not been specifically addressed in the existing literature and some guide line for future research extracted

The dynamic control of robotic manipulators in space

Described briefly is the work done during the first half year of a three-year study on dynamic control of robotic manipulators in space. The research focused on issues for advanced control of space manipulators including practical issues and new applications for the Virtual Manipulator. In addition, the development of simulations and graphics software for space manipulators, begun during the first NASA proposal in the area, has continued. The fabrication of the Vehicle Emulator System (VES) is completed and control algorithms are in process of development

Macular Bioaccelerometers on Earth and in Space

Space flight offers the opportunity to study linear bioaccelerometers (vestibular maculas) in the virtual absence of a primary stimulus, gravitational acceleration. Macular research in space is particularly important to NASA because the bioaccelerometers are proving to be weighted neural networks in which information is distributed for parallel processing. Neural networks are plastic and highly adaptive to new environments. Combined morphological-physiological studies of maculas fixed in space and following flight should reveal macular adaptive responses to microgravity, and their time-course. Ground-based research, already begun, using computer-assisted, 3-dimensional reconstruction of macular terminal fields will lead to development of computer models of functioning maculas. This research should continue in conjunction with physiological studies, including work with multichannel electrodes. The results of such a combined effort could usher in a new era in understanding vestibular function on Earth and in space. They can also provide a rational basis for counter-measures to space motion sickness, which may prove troublesome as space voyager encounter new gravitational fields on planets, or must re-adapt to 1 g upon return to earth

Content, Context, Reflexivity and the Qualitative Research Encounter: Telling Stories in the Virtual Realm

The arrival of the virtual realm and computer-mediated communication (CMC) has attracted considerable interest within the discipline. However, the full potential of computer-mediated conversation as both a research resource and medium of communication within the qualitative research encounter awaits further exploration. In this paper, I discuss the dimensions of the qualitative \'tradition\', the recent burgeoning interest in biographical methods shaping the research agenda and the significance of the virtual realm as a locus of communication. In so doing, I draw from my recent research exploring 15 women\'s accounts of their experiences of infertility and assisted reproductive procedures. Often, the qualitative encounter becomes a shared medium of trust, reciprocity and revelation. This research highlights the importance of not just making \'space\' for participants voices and words but of acknowledging the significance of the context of communication itself – paying attention to \'where\' and \'how\' we speak is as critical as paying attention to what might be said. Participants within this study used and translated virtual text and virtual participation into a sense-making vehicle. In this respect, the virtual space offers a new dimension to the qualitative research encounter and we need to remain aware of the opportunities this affords.Qualitative Methodology; Computer-Mediated Communication; Biographical Methods; Reflexivity

Necessary skills and practices required for effective participation in high bandwidth design team activities

Technology is continually changing, and evolving, throughout the entire construction industry; and particularly in the design process. One of the principal manifestations of this is a move away from team working in a shared work space to team working in a virtual space, using increasingly sophisticated electronic media. Due to the significant operating differences when working in shared and virtual spaces adjustments to generic skills utilised by members is a necessity when moving between the two conditions. This paper reports an aspect of a CRC-CI research project based on research of ‘generic skills’ used by individuals and teams when engaging with high bandwidth information and communication technologies (ICT). It aligns with the project’s other two aspects of collaboration in virtual environments: ‘processes’ and ‘models’. The entire project focuses on the early stages of a project (i.e. design) in which models for the project are being developed and revised. The paper summarises the first stage of the research project which reviews literature to identify factors of virtual teaming which may affect team member skills. It concludes that design team participants require ‘appropriate skills’ to function efficiently and effectively, and that the introduction of high band-width technologies reinforces the need for skills mapping and measurement