Collaborative Virtual Communities Research Articles

Accessibility Monitoring for People with Disabilities

The Accessibility for Ontarians with Disabilities Act (AODA) is a law mandating that organizations in Ontario must comply to accessibility standards for people with disabilities. However, there is no tool to report accessibility complaints and track them. To that effect, mobile applications can be effective to make report and monitor accessibility issues as they arise in private as well as public spaces (e.g. building, sidewalks). An App would provide users with an opportunity beyond the mapping of compliance, it can provide data that addresses the gaps across legislation and embodied experiences. The objective of this paper is to share a novel method associated with the development accessibility monitoring Android App prototype called “ACCESS-ABILITY.” ACCESS-ABILITY is a first-of-its-kind app in the domain of disability informatics, it facilitates the formation of a collaborative virtual community that can be used by people with disabilities, advocacy groups, organizations and official bodies.

Collaborative virtual community to share class plans for STEAM education

This research presents an international community of practice for teachers using the VISIR remote lab. Throughout the research, it was necessary to study about communities of practice and their potential use in remote laboratories; identify practices with collaborative potential in the institutions and with the participating teachers; develop the necessary technological environment to support the proposed community of practice; validate the proposal with four institutions (four countries - Brazil, Portugal, Spain and Argentina) to evaluate the proposed model. The motivation for developing this research came from the history of the Remote Experimentation Laboratory (REXLAB) with the project VISIR+: Educational Modules for Electric and Electronic Circuits Theory and Practice following an Enquiry based Teaching and Learning Methodology supported by VISIR+”. The VISIR + project is an international cooperation project with the participation of 21 Ibero-American partner institutions between October 2015 and April 2018. The platform, called Labs4STEAM, was developed using Dokuwiki, an open source wiki software that contains a large number of plugins. From the data collection it was possible to receive a mostly positive feedback, but several improvement opportunities were pointed out, which will be performed soon. Thus, from the developed platform one can plan future work, taking into account the results obtained and experience and partnerships with the VISIR + project.

Research directions in designing intercultural interactions in collaborative virtual communities

As applications and environments supporting collaborative virtual communities (CVEs) become increasingly available, opportunities to work, learn, play, and share experiences trans-culturally are not only more appealing, but also more feasible. Distributed cross-cultural and cross-organizational interactions are here, now. The emergence of such synchronous, post-geographical, virtual communities raises particular issues around fostering the intercultural 'chemistry' of online interactions and online community design.Elaine Raybourn and Andrew McGrath facilitated a one-day workshop at Group 99 on online community design, highlighting the potential for intercultural communication as an over-arching design principle. The program committee included Elizabeth Churchill, Alan Munro, Wolfgang Prinz, William Stubblefield, and Eunice Young. Workshop participants represented intellectually and culturally diverse backgrounds and fields including computer science, systems engineering, ethnography, HCI, intercultural communication, design, and psychology. Private sector, public sector, and university affiliations were also represented.

Designing an emergent culture of negotiation in collaborative virtual communities

In Beyond Culture, anthropologist Edward T. Hall indicated that "culture is the total communication framework" comprised of words, actions, nonverbal behaviors, the handling of time, space, and materials, world view, beliefs, and attitudes passed over time from generation to generation. Culture often serves as a perceptual filter with which we determine that which is important to us, and that which is not. In many ways, it is necessary to unlearn the lessons of culture in order to effectively communicate with others whom we perceive to be different from ourselves. Some readers might recall the 'golden rule' which states--treat others the way you would like to be treated. In fact, when engaging in an intercultural interaction, this rule is precisely what one wants to avoid. It is more useful to consider the following as a rule of thumb--treat others as they would have you treat them, not as you would like to be treated. To this end, effective intercultural communication cannot successfully occur without collaboration, the co-creation of meaning, and negotiation. I define intercultural communication as the exchange, and co-creation, of information and meanings by individuals or groups when at least one party perceives itself to be different from others. Collaborative virtual environments (CVE) offer unique opportunities to begin anew--and experiment with unlearning the lessons, or biases, of culture to ultimately foster more equitable communication.