A Framework to Generate 3D Learning Experience

A Collaborative Virtual Environment (CVE) is a computer-based virtual space that supports collaborative work and social interplay. In a 3D CVE, a ‘hosting’ 3D world is the necessary ingredient: within it users provided with graphical embodiments called avatars that convey their identity (presence, location, movement etc.), can meet and interact with other users, with agents or with virtual objects. Even if graphics hardware and 3D technologies are rapidly evolving and the increased Internet connection speed allows the sharing of amounts of data and information among geographically distributed users, the development of networked three-dimensional applications is still complicated and requires expert knowledge. Although some collaborative 3D Web technologies and applications have already been developed, most of them are particularly concerned with offering a high level realistic representation of the virtual world since increasing the level of detail increases the sense of ‘virtual presence’ in the 3D world. However, these developments have not, at the same time supported a high level, non-expert authoring process and the concepts of programming flexibility and component re-use have rarely been taken into account. In this introduction, we discuss our research experience in the field of Collaborative Virtual Environments. We will outline our approach which has been based on both multi-channel integration and on high performances issues

Including Nomadic People in Collaborative E-learning: Experiences in Research Projects

The focus of this chapter is the design of a solution for Computer-Supported Cooperative Learning (CSCL) that is able to connect both stationary and mobile users in live shared-learning sessions. The authors started from experiences that were mainly technology-driven to arrive at the development of two subsystems, OpenWebTalk and MobileWebTalk, that build, flexibly and simply, mixed reality environments in which users cooperate to perform the same learning task. From these experiences, the authors argue that heterogeneous learning environments (stationary and mobile) can only be really effective if they are designed from a unique abstract model. Therefore the challenge is to derive a conceptual model to describe a collaborative learning session that can be deployed in different devices

Conceptual design of collaborative virtual environments for education using a theater-based metaphor

Collaborative Virtual Environments (CVEs) are becoming more and more important in many areas because they offer users the opportunity to experiment with novel interaction paradigms in order to perform collaborative work or have engaging experiences ‘being together’. One of the most promising application fields is eLearning, where CVEs give the unique opportunity to explore effective educational formats. Surprisingly, if compared with other more traditional fields as software engineering and database, we note a lack of design approaches. We point out that a well-founded design approach is crucial to develop collaborative experiences that could generate substantial and measurable educational benefits. To meet this challenge, in this paper we present a set of founding concepts that enable pedagogs and teachers designing effective 3D virtual worlds for education. To keep our concepts simply understandable, we based our design method on a widespread metaphor: the theater. We demonstrate through a real case study the promising advantages of our approach: expressiveness to capture collaborative features at a high level of abstraction, semi-formality to facilitate the establishment of a common ground between educational designers and CVEs engineers, and guidance to enable non-experts to cope with all the relevant aspects of a 3D virtual world

Loading and Rendering Optimization for Networked Virtual Worlds

Internet-based collaborative virtual environments allow users to explore and interact with many virtual worlds containing a very large number of objects that are downloaded in real time rather than been pre-distributed. Client’s bandwidth fluctuation during the enjoyment of particularly complex environments, can produce a bottleneck that generates very long downloading and rendering time. This bottleneck can compromise the correct enjoyment of collaborative virtual environments, arising synchronization and shard state consistency problems that are keys factors in these applications. To avoid too much long waiting times during objects’ download, we have developed a method to reduce bandwidth congestion. This is possible thanks to the download of only the exact portion of geometries that is necessary for rendering, according to its own field of view and to the semantic rules defined by the designer during the phase of contents population. Such approach consists in the use of a data structure that is based on different levels of priority and allows in this way a selective download. We have applied this solution to WT04 framework which is a research project whose aim is to achieve a framework for generating and enjoining 3D collaborative virtual experiences. WT04 framework supports collaborative rules definitions suitable to perfectly govern virtual experiences

An approach to extend the metadata schema of Zenodo for Cultural Heritage datasets

In this article, we present an approach designed to extend the metadata schema of the Zenodo data management platform to strengthen the FAIRness of the published dataset. We focus on a bottom-up approach starting from a series of datasets ranging from the 3D digitalisation of monuments and sites to the creation of reconstructive records (including the scientific documentation they are based on), to the implementation of digital storytelling and to the development of open source-based web-apps. We propose the simplest possible set of metadata to be included in the Zenodo platform with the possibility, for the community, to adopt and further develop/modify them. This article will describe in detail the formalisation and the digital formats adopted providing the related metadata templates developed within the projects

BRAIN Journal - The State Chart Metaphor for the Design of Collaborative Virtual Environments

<div><i>Abstract</i></div><div><br></div><div>Nowadays there are an increasing evolution of technological</div><div>solutions providing the virtual collaboration among people geographically distributed to obtain some common goals. At the same time virtual collaborative environments are often used for learning purposes because increase the interaction among users. These systems are usually developed in a custom way according to the specific requirements without any kind of standardization in terms of definition of collaboration among involved users. Although the literature shows attempts to formally express learning processes through a standard language, there are not proposals that combine e-learning languages with typical concepts of 3D collaborative experiences. This paper propose a notation model able to design collaboration for e-learning virtual environments. In this paper we present also the architecture of a tool that helps the designer in the use of the notation model here proposed.</div><div><br></div><div><b>Find more at:</b></div><div><b>https://www.edusoft.ro/brain/index.php/brain/article/view/168</b><br></div