Collaborative Virtual Environments

Designing Auditory Spaces to Support Sense of Place: The Role of Expectation

by Priscilla Chueng-Nainby

This paper reviews current approaches to designing virtual environments and investigates aspects of influence in... more This paper reviews current approaches to designing virtual environments and investigates aspects of influence in designing auditory spaces to support novel forms of interaction in virtual places. Initial research on human imagined sounds from places has identified ‘expectation’ as an important psychological construct, which must be considered when designing sounds for virtual places. The research work continues to provide evidence that there are differences between sounds people expect to hear in places and sounds recorded in real life places. Instead of designing realistic virtual spaces, the paper suggests a user’s sense of presence as a measure of the user’s experience in virtual environment. The results indicate that using highly expected sounds increases users’ sense of presence. As such, it is to propose that designing auditory spaces using expectations as perceived affordance is perhaps a minimal way to design auditory spaces that support sense of place, hence provoke the emergence of virtual communities.
Future work of the project is discussed.

A Roadmap For Strategic Research On Virtual Organizations

by Luis M. Camarinha-Matos

In Processes and foundations for virtual organizations, Kluwer Academic Publishers, ISBN 1-4020-7638-X, Oct 2003

A roadmap to the necessary integrated research and technological development towards a new generation of virtual... more A roadmap to the necessary integrated research and technological development towards a new generation of virtual organizations is presented. In special the roadmapping methodology developed in the VOmap project is described and exemplified.

Emotionally Expressive Avatars for Collaborative Virtual Environments (PhD Thesis)

by Marc Fabri

Fabri, M. (2006) Emotionally Expressive Avatars for Collaborative Virtual Environments, PhD Thesis, Leeds Metropolitan University, November 2006

When humans communicate with each other face-to-face, they frequently use their bodies to complement, contradict,... more When humans communicate with each other face-to-face, they frequently use their bodies to complement, contradict, substitute, or regulate what is being said. These non-verbal signals are important for understanding each other, particularly in respect of expressing changing moods and emotional states. In modern communication technologies such as telephone, email or instant messaging, these indicators are typically lost and communication is limited to the exchange of verbal messages, with little scope for expressing emotions.

This thesis explores Collaborative Virtual Environments (CVEs) as an alternative communication technology potentially allowing interlocutors to express themselves emotionally in an efficient and effective way. CVE users are represented by three-dimensional, animated embodiments, referred to as “avatars”, capable of showing emotional expressions. The avatar acts as an interaction device, providing information that would otherwise be difficult to mediate. Potential applications for such CVE systems are all areas where people cannot come together physically, but wish to discuss or collaborate on certain matters, for example in distance learning, home working, or simply to chat with friends and colleagues. Further, CVEs could be used in the therapeutic intervention of phobias and help address social impairments such as autism.

To investigate how emotions can efficiently and effectively be visualised in a CVE, an animated virtual head was designed to express, in a readily recognisable manner, the six universal emotions happiness, sadness, anger, fear, surprise and disgust. A controlled experiment was then conducted to investigate the virtual head model. Effectiveness was demonstrated through good recognition rates for most emotions, and efficiency was established since a reduced animation feature set was found to be sufficient to build core distinctive facial expressions. A set of exemplar facial expressions and guidelines for their use was developed.

A second controlled experiment was then conducted to investigate the effect such an emotionally expressive, animated avatar has on users of a prototype CVE, the Virtual Messenger (VM). The hypothesis was that introducing emotions into CVE interaction can be beneficial on many levels, namely the users’ subjective experience, their involvement, and how they perceive and interact with each other. The design considerations for VM are outlined, and a newly developed methodological framework for evaluation is presented.

The findings suggest that emotional expressiveness in avatars increases involvement in the interaction between CVE users, as well as their sense of being together, or copresence. This has a positive effect on their subjective experience. Further, empathy was identified as a key component for creating a more enjoyable experience and greater harmony between CVE users. The caveat is that emotionally expressive avatars may not be useful in all contexts or all types of CVEs as they may distract users from the task they are aiming to complete.

Finally, a set of tentative design guidelines for emotionally expressive avatars in CVEs is derived from the work undertaken, covering the appearance and expressive abilities of avatars. These are aimed at CVE researchers and avatar designers.

Massively distributed authorship of academic papers

by Marco Lazzari

Bill Tomlinson, Paul, Eric P. S. Baumer, Donald J. Patterson, Joseph Corneli, Martin Mahaux, Syavash Nobarany, Marco Lazzari, Birgit Penzenstadler, Andrew W. Torrance, David J. Callele, Gary M. Olson, Six Silberman, Marcus Ständer, Fabio Romancini Palamedi, Albert Ali Salah, Eric Morrill, Xavier Franch, Florian 'Floyd' Mueller, Joseph 'Jofish' Kaye, Rebecca W. Black, Marisa L. Cohn, Patrick C. Shih, Johanna Brewer, Nitesh Goyal, Pirjo Näkki, Jeff Huang, Nilufar Baghaei, Craig Saper
"Massively distributed authorship of academic papers"
Proceedings of Alt.Chi at the 30th ACM conference on Human factors in computing systems (CHI 2012), Austin, TX, USA, 2012

Wiki-like or crowdsourcing models of collaboration can provide a number of benefits to academic work. These techniques... more Wiki-like or crowdsourcing models of collaboration can provide a number of benefits to academic work. These techniques may engage expertise from different disciplines, and potentially increase productivity. This paper presents a model of massively distributed collaborative authorship of academic papers. This model, developed by a collective of thirty authors, identifies key tools and techniques that would be necessary or useful to the writing process. The process of collaboratively writing this paper was used to discover, negotiate, and document issues in massively authored scholarship. Our work provides the first extensive discussion of the experiential aspects of large-scale collaborative research.

Designing Online Collaborative Location-Aware Platform for History Learning

by June Xiaojun Chen

The authors express their sincere gratitude to Dr. Sorin A. Matei for his guidance in designing the course module and his provision of platform content.

The emergence of geographic visualization and location aware technologies provides educators and teachers with an... more The emergence of geographic visualization and location aware technologies provides educators and teachers with an opportunity to design more effective instructional materials. Visible Past is an innovative learning and discovery project that integrates mapping services with a content management system and 3D virtual reality capabilities. In addition, the system allows for the connection of physical locations or objects such as books and digital artifacts and documents through 2D codes. Similar to barcodes, they can be read by any camera enabled cell phone
triggering information retrieval from the web. This adds an element of portability and of meshing up print based media with digital information to the educational process. This paper describes
a recent attempt to integrate a location-aware platform into the high school history curriculum. Authors have reviewed the literature related to online history inquiry activity (i.e. collaborative
and reflective learning in history), as well as to newly innovative context-aware learning theory. The process of the module design is described and grounded in the literature. Learning effects and
future development paths of proposed technology are discussed.

Chen, X. & Choi, J. (2010). Designing online collaborative location-aware platform for history learning. Journal of Educational Technology Development and Exchange, 3(1), 13-26.

Mediating the Expression of Emotion in Educational Collaborative Virtual Environments: An Experimental Study

by Marc Fabri

Fabri, M., Moore, D.J., Hobbs, D.J (2004) Mediating the Expression of Emotion in Educational Collaborative Virtual Environments: An Experimental Study, in International Journal of Virtual Reality, 7(2), Springer Verlag London, pp 66-81

The use of avatars with emotionally expressive faces is potentially highly beneficial to communication in... more The use of avatars with emotionally expressive faces is potentially highly beneficial to communication in collaborative virtual environments (CVEs), especially when used in a distance learning context. However, little is known about how, or indeed whether, emotions can effectively be transmitted through the medium of CVE. Given this, an avatar head model with limited but human-like expressive abilities was built, designed to enrich CVE communication. Based on the Facial Action Coding System (FACS), the head was designed to express, in a readily recognisable manner, the six universal emotions. An experiment was conducted to investigate the efficacy of the model. Results indicate that the approach of applying the FACS model to virtual face representations is not guaranteed to work for all expressions of a particular emotion category. However, given appropriate use of the model, emotions can effectively be visualised with a limited number of facial features. A set of exemplar facial expressions is presented.

Educational visualizations in 3D collaborative virtual environments: a methodology

by Mikhail Fominykh

Mikhail Fominykh and Ekaterina Prasolova-Førland: "Educational Visualizations in 3D Collaborative Virtual Environments: a Methodology," International Journal of Interactive Technology and Smart Education (ITSE), Volume 9, issue 1, 2012, Emerald, ISSN: 1741-5659, pp. 33–45. DOI:10.1108/17415651211228086

Purpose – Collaborative virtual environments (CVEs) have become increasingly popular in educational settings and the... more Purpose – Collaborative virtual environments (CVEs) have become increasingly popular in educational settings and the role of 3D content is becoming more and more important. Still, there are many challenges in this area, such as lack of empirical studies that provide design for educational activities in 3D CVEs and lack of norms of how to support and assess learning in with such technology. The purpose of this paper is to address these challenges by discussing the use of a 3D CVE in a university course for three years and suggesting practical guidelines based on the data from observations.

Design/methodology/approach – The main research question of the discussion in this paper is: How to facilitate learning by means of educational visualizations in 3D CVEs? The authors discuss data from several explorative case studies conducted within the Cooperation Technology course at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology. In these case studies, the authors focused on a particular type of collaborative work with 3D content – educational visualizations. Groups of students were asked to build creative visualizations of a certain topic (e.g. a research project or a curriculum topic) and present the construction to the public. The data were collected from the direct observation of students' activities online, virtual artefacts, such as chat log and 3D constructions, and users' feedback in a form of group essays or blogs.

Findings – Following the analysis of these data, the authors introduce an original methodology for facilitating collaborative work with 3D content in an educational context and provide a characterization framework – Typology of 3D Content and Visualization Means, which can be used together with the methodology for analysing constructions in 3D CVEs. Constructionism and social constructivism were used as a theoretical grounding.

Research limitations/implications – Although the research method applied has certain limitations related to the settings of the conducted studies, such as observing the same course each year and impossibility of having a control group, this research still provides important insights, as it identifies overall tendencies in conducting educational activities in 3D CVEs.

Practical implications – The suggested methodology was developed for teachers, instructors, and technicians. It can be used as a guideline for organizing educational activities using collaborative work with 3D content.

Originality/value – Results of the authors' research indicate that the methodology suggested in the paper benefits structuring and planning of educational visualizations in 3D CVEs. It can be considered as a contribution to the field, as it helps to fill the gap in practical guidelines for the advanced use of 3D CVEs in educational settings.

Virtual R&D Teams: A potential growth of education-industry collaboration

by Nader Ale Ebrahim نادر آل ابراهیم

Ale Ebrahim, N., Ahmed, S., & Taha, Z. (2011). Virtual R&D Teams: A potential growth of education-industry collaboration. Academic Leadership Journal, 9(4), 1-5.

Introduction:

With the advent of the global economy and high-speed Internet, online collaboration is fast... more Introduction:

With the advent of the global economy and high-speed Internet, online collaboration is fast becoming the norm in education and industry [1]. Information technology (IT) creates many new inter-relationships among businesses, expands the scope of industries in which a company must compete to achieve the competitive advantage. Information systems and technology allow companies to coordinate their activities in distant geographic locations [2]. IT is providing the infrastructure necessary to support the development of new collaboration forms among industry and education. Virtual research and development (R&D) teams represent one such relational form, one that could revolutionize the workplace and provide organizations with unprecedented levels of flexibility and responsiveness [3-4].

Virtual Teams and Management Challenges

by Nader Ale Ebrahim نادر آل ابراهیم

Ale Ebrahim, N., Ahmed, S., & Taha, Z. (2011). Virtual Teams and Management Challenges. Academic Leadership Journal, 9(3), 1-7.

Introduction:

Collaboration is becoming increasingly important in creating the knowledge that makes... more Introduction:

Collaboration is becoming increasingly important in creating the knowledge that makes business more competitive. Virtual teams are growing in popularity [1] and many organizations have responded to their dynamic environments by introducing virtual teams. Additionally, the rapid development of new communication technologies such as the Internet has accelerated this trend so that today, most of the larger organization employs virtual teams to some degree [2]. A growing number of flexible and adaptable organizations have explored the virtual environment as one means of achieving increased responsiveness [3]. Howells et al. [4] state that the shift from serial to simultaneous and parallel working has become more commonplace. Based on conventional information technologies and Internet-based platforms virtual environments may be used to sustain companies’ progress through virtual interaction and communication.

Coordination Mechanisms for Collaborative Virtual Environments

by Ivan Ricarte

Co-authored with Alberto Raposo and Léo Magalhães. Published in WRV'2000.

In order to be effectively used as collaborative work tools, developers of virtual environments should invest, among... more In order to be effectively used as collaborative work tools, developers of virtual environments should invest, among other aspects, in the coordination of users’ activities. The goal of this work is to present coordination mechanisms that may be reused in different implementations of collaborative virtual environments (CVEs).

A tool to support Interaction and Collaboration Analysis of learning activities

by Nikolaos Tselios

N. Avouris, V. Komis, G. Fiotakis, M. Margaritis, N. Tselios, A tool to support Interaction and Collaboration Analysis of learning activities, Proc. of 6th Conf. Computer Based Learning in Science (CBLIS), 2003, pp. 215-225, Nicosia, Cyprus.

An increasing amount of data is collected today during studies in which students and educators are engaged in learning... more An increasing amount of data is collected today during studies in which students and educators are engaged in learning activities using information technology and other tools. These data are indispensable for analysis and evaluation of learning activities, for evaluation of new tools and for students’ meta-cognitive activities. The data can take various forms, including video and audio recordings, log files of computing-related activity, field notes, results of students work in electronic or other forms, activity sheets etc. The need for analysis tools, which can annotate these data, classify them, process them and facilitate their inspection, is of increased importance especially for science education, since the latter involves experimentation and use of laboratory and other equipment that necessitate thorough off-line analysis and evaluation.
In this paper we discuss first the key requirements of a new generation of interaction and collaboration analysis tools. We then present how these requirements have lead to the design of a prototype tool, recently developed. This tool can relate and synchronize various streams of field data. An important characteristic of the tool is its support for a multi-layer structure of annotations of various levels of abstraction, through which the activity can be interpreted and presented. This multi-layer representation can be inter-related to the raw field data, and can drive the navigation of the researcher in the activity data. An example of use of this tool for analysis and evaluation of a collaborative problem solving activity is also included.

Online versus face-to-face collaboration in the context of a computer-supported modeling task

by Nikolaos Tselios

Siambou, F., Komis, V., & Tselios, N. (2012). Online versus face-to-face collaboration in the context of a computer-supported modeling task, Computers in Human Behavior, special issue ‘Web-2.0 technologies in support of open, team-based learning and innovation’ (to appear).

In this paper, the differences between face-to-face and synchronous online collaboration in the context of a... more In this paper, the differences between face-to-face and synchronous online collaboration in the context of a computer-supported modeling task are examined. A mathematical problem was designed and given to the participants. Their modeling process using ModellingSpace, a collaborative computer-supported educational environment, was closely monitored. 16 ninth grade students participated in the study, who worked in groups of two. Half of the groups worked face-to-face, whereas the rest collaborated online. The analysis focused on the identification of students’ cognitive modeling strategies, their interactions and the learning for each type of collaboration. Towards this end, both qualitative and quantitative approaches were adopted; as well two complementary coding schemes to better investigate the peers’ interactions. The obtained results suggest that pairs who worked online emphasized on analysis and synthesis and demonstrated a higher learning gain, whereas face-to-face pairs needed the teacher’s support and demonstrated stronger social interaction. Moreover, despite the fact that the actions of face-to-face dyads were more in number, the dyads that worked online seemed to present more task oriented actions. Regarding the interactions, in both groups a mutual exploration of the problem is observed as well as few disagreements across the participants. It is argued that the findings, which are discussed in detail through comparison with other related studies, could inform design of learning programs and the facilitation of collaborative tasks.

A Collaborative Architecture for Healthcare Applications

by Mario Ciampi

M. Ciampi and T. Shon, Information-An International Interdisciplinary Journal, vol. 15, no. 2, pp. 607-618, 2012, International Information Institute

Collaboration Tools in Virtual Educational Communities: A Case of the Paulo Freire Project for Critical Pedagogy

by Trudi Wright

Co-authored with Dr. Eun Park (McGill University), and Dr. Charles Cole (McGill University)

The purpose of this study is to engage community members in the design and development processes of the Freire Project... more The purpose of this study is to engage community members in the design and development processes of the Freire Project web site in order to assess their needs and preferences for collaboration tools in virtual communities. This study consisted of surveys taken by the participants of the Freire Project communities. The survey questionnaire investigated participants’ familiarity with activities and preferences for certain web tools in order to improve collaboration on the Freire Project website. Participants favored web tools with only marginal differences to increase the member collaboration in wikis, blogs, RSS, and folksonomy. Using digital technology and web tools encourages members to be active participants in the communities’ activities and creates new possibilities for the development of educational communities in online environments.

Multipresence-enabled mobile spatial audio interfaces

by Owen Noel Newton Fernando

Mobile telephony offers an interesting platform for building multipresence-enabled applications that utilize the phone... more Mobile telephony offers an interesting platform for building multipresence-enabled applications that utilize the phone as a social or commercial assistant. The main objective of this research is to develop multipresence-enabled audio windowing systems for visualization, attention, and privacy awareness of narrowcasting (selection) functions in collaborative virtual environments (CVEs) for mobile devices such as 3rd- and 4th-generation mobile phones. Mobile audio windowing system enhances auditory information on mobile phones and encourages modernization of office- and mobile-based conferencing.

Narroweasting Operations for Multipresent Chatspace Avatars in Collaborative Virtual Environments

by Owen Noel Newton Fernando

Our group is exploring interactive multi- and hypermedia, especially regarding virtual and mixed reality groupware... more Our group is exploring interactive multi- and hypermedia, especially regarding virtual and mixed reality groupware systems. The apparent paradoxes of multipresence, having avatars in multiple places or spaces simultaneously, are resolvable by an "autofocus" feature, which uses reciprocity, logical exchangability of source and sink, to project overlaid soundscapes and simulate precedence effect to consolidate the audio display. Our goal is to develop user interfaces to control source.RAR.sink transmission in synchronous groupware (like teleconferences, chatspaces, virtual concerts, etc.) We have developed two interfaces for narrowcasting (selection) functions in a collaborative virtual environments (CVEs): for a workstation-style WIMP (windows/icon/menu/pointer) and GUI (graphical user interface), and for a networked mobile device, a third-generation mobile phone. The interfaces are integrated with other CVE clients, interoperating with a heterogeneous groupware suite. The narrowcasting operations comprise an idiom for selective attention or presence.

Mobile control in cyberspace of image-based and computer graphic scenes and spatial audio using stereo QTVR and Java3D

by Owen Noel Newton Fernando

Anticipating ubicomp (for ubiquitous computing) networked applications and information spaces, we have developed and... more Anticipating ubicomp (for ubiquitous computing) networked applications and information spaces, we have developed and integrated various multimodal I/O devices into a virtual reality groupware system. In this paper, we present one of many interesting part of our CVE system that enables users to view stereographic QTVR movie with spatial audio. We have deployed a Java-programmed mobile phone capable of interacting with this virtual environment groupware suite, interfaced through a "servent," a server/client hybrid HTTP and TCP/IP gateway. By adjusting audio (intensity stereo) panning, through the Java Media Foundation, of a virtual source with respect to the orientation of an avatar, a virtual soundscape may be rotated and stabilized, registrable with an actual physical space (for alignment of auditory cues with real-life events or locations). Beside using ordinary QTVR controllers like mouse and keyboard, users can also utilize their mobile phone (DoCoMo i.appli) to control the display. A Java framework integrates these different spatial media modalities: audio, and visual.

Drama and Context in Real-Time Virtual Environments: Use of Pre-Scripted Events as a Part of an Interactive Spatial Mediation Framework

by Stanislav Roudavski

Cite as: Nitsche, Michael, Stanislav Roudavski, Maureen Thomas and François Penz (2003). 'Drama and Context in Real-Time Virtual Environments: Use of Pre-Scripted Events as a Part of an Interactive Spatial Mediation Framework', in Proceedings of 1st International Conference on Technologies for Interactive Digital Storytelling and Entertainment, ed. by Stefan Göbel et al. (Darmstadt: Fraunhofer IRB Verlag), pp. 296-310

We suggest that the dramatically engaging mediation of an experience of place should be built in as a fundamental... more We suggest that the dramatically engaging mediation of an experience of place should be built in as a fundamental capability of a compelling and meaningful virtual environment (VE). Our main objective is to develop flexible interactive techniques that supply VE’s with a coherent context and make the resulting ‘virtual place’ available to the user in a dramatically engaging way. To support the concept of narrative expressive space, we propose a three-layer multi-purpose spatial mediation framework that utilizes an interactive narrative structure to coordinate stylized dramatic camera work, lighting, effects and sound. We then describe the use of pre-scripted events as a layer in this framework and explain the inherent benefits and problems, using a single-user prototype environment as illustration. The work offers guidelines for the design of VE’s to all fields that combine narrativity and spatiality, such as interactive entertainment, education and architecture.

Building Cuthbert Hall Virtual College As a Dramatically Engaging Environment

by Stanislav Roudavski

Cite as: Nitsche, Michael, Stanislav Roudavski, Maureen Thomas and François Penz (2002). 'Building Cuthbert Hall Virtual College As a Dramatically Engaging Environment', in Proceedings of the Participatory Design Conference 2002, ed. by Thomas Binder, Judith Gregory and Ina Wagner (Palo Alto: CPSR), pp. 386-390

This paper outlines the interdisciplinary nature, collaborative work patterns and role of aesthetics in the Cuthbert... more This paper outlines the interdisciplinary nature, collaborative work patterns and role of aesthetics in the Cuthbert Hall Virtual College research project at the Cambridge University Moving Image Studio (CUMIS) and the Centre for Applied Research in Education Technology (CARET). The project identifies key properties of dramatically engaging real-time three-dimensional virtual environments (RT 3D VE) and how the holistic experiential phenomenon of place is organised and mediated through spatial narrative patterns. Interdisciplinary by nature, the project requires a collaborative approach between science, engineering, media and architecture, and the results are revealing for all these areas. The Cuthbert Hall project invites discussion of the importance in the creation and use of RT 3D VE’s - under single and multi-user conditions - of articulate aesthetics (the quality of architectural, visual and audio design; the production and incorporation of dramatic properties) and of the conditions required for collaborative, communicative use of the environment.

The full theoretical and technical discussions as well as the evaluation results are outside the scope of this submission.

Mobile spatial audio interfaces

by Owen Noel Newton Fernando

For an increasing amount of people (especially young people), the mobile phone, and not the computer, is becoming... more For an increasing amount of people (especially young people), the mobile phone, and not the computer, is becoming their main media device and portal to the virtual world. Mobile phones have become a ubiquitous technology and for many people an important tool for communication and information access. Mobile telephony offers an interesting platform for building multipresence-enabled applications that utilize the phone as a social or commercial assistant. The main objective of this research is to develop multipresence-enabled audio windowing systems for visualization, attention, and privacy awareness of narrowcasting (selection) functions in collaborative virtual environments (CVEs) for mobile devices such as 3rd- and 4th-generation mobile phones. Mobile audio windowing system enhances auditory information on mobile phones and encourages modernization of office- and mobile-based conferencing.