Collaborative Virtual Environments Research Articles

Developing virtual collaborative health team educational environments

In this short paper we introduce a conceptual framework that is under development to create virtual educational environments to simulate collaborative health team experiences. Building on our work of developing virtual environments for authentic Paramedicine education scenarios, we are extending the concept across the seven health disciplines at the university, beginning initially with a prototype involving three health discipline teams: Paramedicine, Nursing, and Physiotherapy. Using a design based research methodology we are developing prototypes of immersive simulated environments to simulate the real - world interaction between these three health teams for our students. We leverage a low cost mobile BYOD approach enabling rapid prototyping and development of these scenarios.

Collaborative virtual reality environment in disaster medicine: moving from single player to multiple learners.

The use of virtual reality (VR) in healthcare education is on the increase. In disaster medicine, it could be a solution to the cost and logistic constraints for a "full-scale" scenarios. However, VR is mainly designed for single players, which is not appropriate for the objectives pursued in disaster medicine. We decided to evaluate the educational value of using individual VR simulation in disaster medicine on a group of learners. The VR scenario used was a reproduction of a major train crash, with 21 victims and whose objectives were START triage and first aid techniques. The sessions were carried out in multi-participant groups with different roles (active and immersed with headset, paper triage without headset, and active for communications not immersed in the headset). Their perceived self-efficacy was assessed before (T0), after (T1) and 2months (T2) after the training. Satisfaction and confidence in learning were also measured. The median levels of satisfaction and confidence in learning were of 21/25 and 32/40 respectively. Their perceived self-efficacy increased significantly between T0 and T1 (p < 0.001), and remained stable until T2. The different roles of participant showed no difference in terms of satisfaction, confidence in learning or changes in perceived self-efficacy. One third of the participants agreed that the number of participants had interfered with their learning. A significant negative correlation (rS = -0.51, p = 0.002) was found between satisfaction and the fact of having been hindered by the number of participants. Around 90% of participants found the activity entertaining and found the new technologies appropriate for learning technical skills. This first experience of VR in a group setting is satisfactory and shows its positive effects. The limitations highlighted here will enable areas of improvement to be identified for the use of VR in disaster medicine, pending the development of multi-player tools. It would now be appropriate to analyse the impact of this type of simulation on learning and its retention over time.

Multi-person interaction in collaborative virtual conference for Metaverse

Virtual conferences have successfully solved the challenges of traditional face-to-face conferences that can’t be carried out smoothly due to issues such as venue, transportation, and the pandemic. More importantly, as virtual conferences continue to develop and mature, they provide a virtual environment for multi-person collaboration, which is impossible to achieve with traditional face-to-face conferences. This technological innovation is expected to bring significant cost savings to various fields such as medical care, education, and industry. This paper proposes a unity-based multi-party collaborative virtual conference model. The model takes automobiles as the theme, which can realize the design and modification of the appearance of the automobiles by multiple people in the same space, and also supports operations such as the disassembly and installation of the automobile engine. This model is designed to deepen our understanding of multi-person collaboration capabilities in virtual conferences, a feature that is expected to significantly improve teamwork efficiency.

A Literature Review of Collaborative Virtual Environments: Impacts, Design Principles, and Challenges

Aim/Purpose: The purpose of this research is to evaluate the available literature on Collaborative Virtual Environments (CVEs). It aims to investigate the impacts, guiding principles, and problems of CVEs, giving light to their revolutionary potential in a variety of sectors, such as education, healthcare, and gaming. Background: CVEs have received a lot of interest in recent years because of their potential to change how people interact and cooperate in virtual settings. It has the potential to increase collaboration, learning experiences, and productivity across numerous areas. Methodology: This study comprehensively analyzes existing literature on CVEs, highlighting their ability to significantly change several fields, such as education, healthcare, and gaming. The Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses (PRISMA) standards were followed to ensure a clear and methodical approach to the literature review. The search technique targeted the SCOPUS database for articles published from 2009 to 2022, utilizing specific keywords about CVEs. This was followed by a thorough two-stage screening procedure based on specified inclusion and exclusion criteria, ensuring only relevant research was evaluated. Contribution: This literature review contributes by providing a thorough review of the current state of the art in the field of CVEs. It synthesizes previous research and offers insights into the consequences, guiding principles, and problems of CVEs in different domains. Findings: The research results demonstrate the wide range of uses for CVEs and their ability to promote enhanced cooperation, learning, and productivity. Current obstacles have been identified, and a set of guiding principles for implementing CVEs has been provided. A clear and reproducible foundation for future research in this area was found through a detailed explanation of the search approach and criteria used to select studies. The literature review concludes with practical suggestions for practitioners in many fields, emphasizing the need to consider CVEs to improve cooperation and productivity. Recommendations for Practitioners: To improve cooperation and productivity, CVEs should be considered by practitioners in education, healthcare, gaming, and industry. Best practices and recommendations for the successful usage of CVEs in various areas must be established. End-user training and assistance are critical for maximizing the benefits of CVE technology. Recommendation for Researchers: Additional study is required to investigate the long-term consequences and durability of CVE solutions, the creation of new technologies and methods to overcome the stated CVE adoption problems, and multidisciplinary collaboration to harness CVEs in innovative ways. Impact on Society: The review emphasizes CVEs’ potential social benefit in fostering cooperation, improving learning experiences, and increasing productivity. The widespread use of CVE technology may result in more efficient and productive ways of communicating and working in virtual worlds. Future Research: Future studies in this field should concentrate beyond the study’s period (2022), investigating the changing environment of CVEs, examining the effects of developing technologies and trends on CVEs, and evaluating CVE technology’s scalability and accessibility for greater societal usage.

An exploratory study of social presence and cognitive engagement association in a collaborative virtual reality learning environment

As the utilization of virtual reality (VR) in engineering education increases, researchers are increasingly focused on enhancing teaching and learning within VR environments. Cognitive engagement among the participants is a fundamental outcome in any learning environment, where social interaction often plays a pivotal role. This study contributes to VR teaching and learning research by investigating the association between social presence indicators and modes of cognitive engagement in a desktop collaborative virtual reality (VR) learning environment based on the social presence theory and the cognitive engagement definition of the Interactive-Constructive-Active-Passive framework. The study participants logged into the VR platform to collaboratively solve simulated engineering statics problems. The transcripts of students' interaction videos were coded based on codebooks for both social presence and cognitive engagement. The study revealed that social presence indicators are significantly associated with the three modes of cognitive engagement (active, constructive, and interactive). Additionally, interactive open communication emerged as the primary social presence element utilized by students during cognitive engagement with peers in the learning environment. This study's findings have implications for research and practice in enhancing students' cognitive engagement through their social interactions within VR learning environment.

Collaborative Virtual Environments (CVEs) in the preparation of pre-service mathematics teachers post the COVID-19 pandemic

During the COVID-19 pandemic, teacher preparation programmes faced significant challenges as many universities transitioned to fully online or hybrid instructional models. These sudden shifts drastically decreased the opportunities for teaching in classrooms, which is now a cornerstone of teacher preparation programmes to help preservice teachers learn how to teach effectively. Thus, in mathematics education, visualisations are still used whenever possible to support teaching, inspire students and feed their need to see abstract mathematical facts. The present study examined the factors that impede the use of Collaborative Virtual Environments (CVEs) in the preparation of pre-service mathematics teachers during the COVID-19 pandemic, and how CVEs can be effectively integrated post-COVID-19 pandemic. Underpinned by an interpretivist paradigm, the study employed a qualitative research approach and a case study design. Data were collected from twenty-five pre-service mathematics teachers, two mathematics teacher educators, and one Head of Department. For this study, data collected were analysed using thematic analysis, and data trustworthiness was ensured through triangulation of the unit of analysis. Research findings revealed that the use of CVEs during the COVID-19 pandemic was hampered by several factors, which include resistance to change, technological limits, costs and time constraints, assessment difficulties, equality, and access issues, and a lack of training and support. Furthermore, the findings highlighted that for CVEs to be effective in teacher preparation programmes after the COVID-19 pandemic, mathematics educators should encourage the simulation of classroom scenarios, facilitate group discussions and cooperative learning and participate in virtual professional development opportunities.

Critical thinking development in physics courses by PBL in virtual collaboration environments

This research comprises the design of a strategy to develop critical thinking skills throughout the physics courses in engineering careers, trough collaborative work, problem-based learning (PBL) and virtual classroom interactions. To know any student’s development level and propose improvements to the learning strategy, an evaluation instrument is applied, seeking to increase the learning effectiveness before the course has finished. In various research stages a mixture of quantitative, qualitative, and inductive-deductive methods is used. An open-end questions instrument is adapted to show the initial and final critical thinking skills from the students. This didactic instrument focuses on developing critical thinking trough the usage of collaborative work to solve problems in virtual classrooms. The results shown that students demonstrate cognitive skills that allowed them to find the right solutions based on analysis and inference with various proceedings.

Use it early: The effect of immersion on spatial and design space aspects in team-based mechanical design reviews

The proliferation of high-immersion technologies might change the way virtual prototypes are used in the design process. This paper investigates the effect of immersion on reviews – critical design situations where many decisions are made. More specifically, the paper analyses the effect of immersion on spatial (intrinsic or extrinsic) and design space (problem or solution) aspects of the review. The effects have been tested in an experimental study comparing low- (computer screen) and high- (head-mounted display) immersion collaborative virtual environments (CVEs). In the experiment, four-member distributed teams conducted early-phase reviews with virtual prototypes represented in one of the two environments. Results show that the high-immersion CVE did not significantly affect the number of feedback items. Next, there was a non-significant but medium effect on the number of extrinsic feedback items, i.e., items that consider relations between the design and surroundings (e.g., users, environment). Finally, there was a significantly higher number and proportion of problem-related feedback items. Therefore, a high-immersion CVE might be more suitable if designers would like to get more problem-related or extrinsic feedback – essential aspects for the early design phases. These findings suggest that low-immersion and high-immersion CVEs are not substitutable but rather complementary technologies.

Gestures vs. Emojis: Comparing Non-Verbal Reaction Visualizations for Immersive Collaboration.

Collaborative virtual environments afford new capabilities in telepresence applications, allowing participants to co-inhabit an environment to interact while being embodied via avatars. However, shared content within these environments often takes away the attention of collaborators from observing the non-verbal cues conveyed by their peers, resulting in less effective communication. Exaggerated gestures, abstract visuals, as well as a combination of the two, have the potential to improve the effectiveness of communication within these environments in comparison to familiar, natural non-verbal visualizations. We designed and conducted a user study where we evaluated the impact of these different non-verbal visualizations on users' identification time, understanding, and perception. We found that exaggerated gestures generally perform better than non-exaggerated gestures, abstract visuals are an effective means to convey intentional reactions, and the combination of gestures with abstract visuals provides some benefits compared to their standalone counterparts.

Virtual Collaboration in the Context of Teaching and Learning With Interdisciplinary Perspective

Online virtual environments where students can learn and interact somewhat realistically have great potential for engineering studies, such as course resources, tools, and software that support learning and educational practice. Here, we present a collaborative virtual environment for interactive learning and immersive visualization with an interdisciplinary perspective. It allows users to visualize and sample complex scenarios' structures and dynamics and interact with other users in the same virtual environment. A series of controlled studies have been made in which participants were tasked with various emergency decision goals. Moreover, it can also support the following integrated functions: 3-D spatial analysis, 3-D visualization for spatial process, and 3-D spatial decision-making. The performance evaluation results confirmed the proposed virtual environment's higher usability and user satisfaction. This approach will be able to express opportunities for extending interdisciplinary knowledge in engineering education and support the students in their creativity and collaboration skills.

Social network analysis in virtual educational environments: Implications for collaborative learning and academic community development

This paper investigates the impact of Social Network Analysis (SNA) in optimizing virtual education, focusing on enhancing collaborative learning, strengthening virtual academic communities, and identifying challenges for educational innovation. Through SNA, patterns of interaction and collaboration are uncovered that inform the design of inclusive and dynamic educational practices. A theoretical review combining the benefits of bibliometric studies and documentary analysis was conducted. It highlights how ARS facilitates the identification of effective collaborative patterns and barriers to equal participation, promoting strategies for more meaningful collaboration. In addition, the role of ARS in consolidating academic communities by promoting cohesion, mutual support, and active engagement, crucial for student success and well-being, is discussed. Challenges such as forming subgroups and dependence on certain information nodes are analyzed, viewing them as opportunities to innovate in educational design and promote more equitable participation and knowledge construction. This analysis underscores the importance of ARS for developing more effective, equitable, and collaborative virtual learning environments aligned with the values of our digital society.

Presence and Team Performance in Synchronous Collaborative Virtual Environments

Synchronous collaborative virtual environments (CVEs) allow distributed teams to interact and work. CVEs afford a sense of presence, or “being there” in the workspace, as well as the opportunity to “do there” via interactions within the environment. However, there has been limited empirical evidence to support the link of presence and team performance, especially for CVE work. We identified multiple dimensions of presence that reflect relationships known to be essential to collaborative work and conducted a CVE experiment with 80 teams. Our results suggest certain aspects of presence are more important than others in driving virtual team performance.

Men are from Mars and women are from Venus: dyadic collaboration in the metaverse

PurposeThe gender composition of teams remains an important yet complex element in unlocking the success of collaboration and performance in the metaverse. In this study, the authors examined the collaborations of same- and mixed-gender dyads to investigate how gender composition influences perceptions of the dyadic collaboration process and outcomes at both the individual and team levels in the metaverse.Design/methodology/approachDrawing on expectation states theory and social role theory, the authors hypothesized differences between dyads of different gender compositions. A blocked design was utilized where 432 subjects were randomly assigned to teams of different gender compositions: 101 male dyads, 59 female dyads and 56 mixed-gender dyads. Survey responses were collected after the experiment.FindingsMultilevel multigroup analyses reveal that at the team level, male dyads took on the we-impress manifestation to increase satisfaction with the team solution. In contrast, female and mixed-gender dyads adopted the we-work-hard-on-task philosophy to increase satisfaction with the team solution. At the individual level, impression management is the key factor associated with trust in same-gender dyads but not in mixed-gender dyads.Originality/valueAs one of the pioneering works on gender effects in the metaverse, our findings shed light on two fronts in virtual dyadic collaborations. First, the authors offer a theoretically grounded and gendered perspective by investigating male, female and mixed-gender dyads in the metaverse. Second, the study advances team-based theory and deepens the understanding of gender effects at both the individual and team levels (multilevel) in a virtual collaboration environment.

The Influence of Immersive and Collaborative Virtual Environments in Improving Spatial Skills

The use of Virtual Reality (VR) is growing in popularity in educational contexts. In this work, we present a novel software application based on immersive VR in which users can interact simultaneously with a model in a shared virtual scene and maintain audiovisual communication. The 3D model-building activity within the application was designed to improve spatial skills. Twenty-nine industrial engineering students completed the modeling activity in groups of two or three. Post-test scores showed significant improvement over pre-test scores for both spatial tests used to measure the effectiveness of the instrument in improving spatial skills. Participants rated the application favorably in terms of usability and functionality. Results suggest that spatial training in a collaborative immersive virtual environment has the potential to be an effective approach to improving spatial skills.

Gamified dances, digital and socio-emotional skills in collaborative virtual environments of university students surviving the Covid-19 virus

The use of virtual dance avatars and virtual learning guides has enabled gamified dance teaching to virtualize the current university. In this experience, the objective was to test four hypotheses about the gamified dance developed in collaborative Zoom environments, and its effects on the digital and socioemotional skills of individuals who were severely or moderately infected by the Covid-19 virus between the years 2020 and 2022. We worked with 119 students and eight teachers from the Professional School of Primary Education of a private university in the city of Lima (Peru). An experimental design with pre and post-test was applied and Likert-type scales were used for data collection. The experience with gamified dances took place over four weeks in a dance competition at the university. The results allow us to assert that gamified dances developed digital skills, emotional skills, as well as socioemotional skills. These skills differ between the experimental group and the control group, with the exception of digital security skills, and the ability to improve self-esteem, which are skills that require more body practice as was achieved in the experimental group (dance virtual), which was also developed in the students of the control group (face-to-face dance).

Shifting Gears in a Pandemic: The Impact of Online Academic Support for International and Domestic Students

During a global pandemic, many students in 2020-2021 turned to peer-facilitated academic support through supplemental instruction (SI) to succeed. In this study, proficient students were hired as SI Leaders and trained to facilitate study sessions in a collaborative virtual learning environment. The impact of online SI support is assessed upon subgroups of 4,831 students enrolled in difficult courses at a four-year public university. Mean course GPAs and pass rates of international students, students of color, and white students with varying levels of SI session attendance were examined. One-way ANOVA and chi-square test results reveal significant differences by level of attendance for students of color and white students, with higher mean course GPAs and pass rates associated with higher levels of attendance at SI sessions for all three subgroups. These results are consistent with feedback from SI attendees and convey the significance of programs like SI, especially in times of crisis.

Remote arts therapy in collaborative virtual environment: A pilot case study

Motivated by the unique experience of creating three-dimensional artworks in virtual reality (VR) and the need for teletherapy due to the global pandemic, we conducted this pilot case study to explore the feasibility and effectiveness of using a custom-designed collaborative virtual environment (CVE) to enable remote arts therapy. Three participants (two females and one male) experiencing moderate to high stress as measured by the Perceived Stress Scale (PSS) joined this study. Each participant had eight 45-minute one-on-one sessions with the therapist for eight consecutive weeks. These eight sessions covered eight art creation themes and were delivered following pre-designed protocols. The CVE was the only medium to facilitate the sessions, during which the therapist and the participants were physically separated into two rooms. The quantitative and qualitative results suggested that the CVE-enabled approach was generally feasible and was welcomed by both the participants and the therapist. However, more evidence of the approach’s effectiveness in enhancing the participants’ mental wellbeing is needed because the results of the pilot case study were affected by the pandemic. The advantages and disadvantages of this approach and the CVE were investigated from practicality and technological affordance perspectives. Potential improvements to the CVE are also proposed to better facilitate the practice of remote arts therapy in CVE. We encourage future studies to cautiously investigate CVE-enabled remote arts therapy in clinical settings and collect more evidence regarding its effectiveness in addressing clinically diagnosed mental disorders and other complications.

Comparing Student Performance in Emergency Remote and Face-to-Face Collaborative Learning Courses.

The start of the COVID-19 pandemic forced an unprecedented shift from face-to-face (F2F) instruction to emergency remote teaching (ERT) for over one billion learners worldwide. Studies from K-12 and higher education have begun to address the impact of ERT on student learning and well-being. The lessons learned from ERT will likely shape the response to future public health emergencies and inform the design and implementation of remote courses. As such, it will be important to identify teaching practices in ERT that promoted student engagement and learning. Here, we address whether undergraduate collaborative learning courses were able to support student content knowledge outcomes at similar levels in ERT as compared to F2F classroom environments. Specifically, we tracked student performance in three different team-based undergraduate neuroscience courses. These courses were all taught by the same instructor during the academic years 2020-2021 and 2021-2022. Importantly, we found that student scores on individual and team assessments as well as measures of course satisfaction were similar between ERT and F2F. Taken together, our data suggest that the virtual collaborative learning environment in these courses was not associated with a decrease in student or team performance when compared to a traditional F2F classroom.

(How) Can Machine Learning Support Teaching Staff in a Virtual Collaborative Learning Environment?

Purpose: Supervising roles within virtual collaborative learning (VCL) environments face many different challenges and are often having difficulties keeping an eye on everything and comprehending every participant’s or group’s workflow. To help supervisors with problems like that we developed a software prototype to support their daily workflow and overcome the mentioned challenges. Study design/methodology/approach: This study used a design science research approach to investigate how learning analytics might be able to support teaching staff in VCL settings. Previous studies demonstrated that this approach is very well suited to derive design guidelines for such software artifacts. Initially, a qualitative interview series with four experienced tutors was carried out to get an in-depth understanding of the challenges and tasks teaching staff typically faces in VCL environments. The interview material was systematically analysed to acquire the underlying software requirements. These were then combined with existing knowledge about support software of similar use cases to create a first prototype, primarily based on a supervised machine learning model that classifies online messages sent within the teams. Findings: The software tool we have developed has shown that machine learning processes can indeed be used to support teaching staff in VCL environments. The tool achieves satisfactory classification performance in categorizing chat messages. It could therefore be demonstrated that it is possible to classify chat messages using a software tool. The interviews conducted revealed a particular interest in the statistical evaluations of group activities in Microsoft Teams. This was said to save a lot of time in the subsequent evaluation of the groups. The interviewed eTutors also expressed an interest in receiving private information on the development of possible conflicts within groups. The interest of the interviewed supervisors was very high and additional interviews could lead to further possible feature ideas. In general, the evaluative interviews resulted in positive feedback regarding how our prototype supported eTutors during their work. Originality/value: In current times, spatially distributed and asynchronous education plays a bigger role than ever before. VCL environments are useful tools to overcome these challenges of time and space. However, unlike research on conversational agents or automated feedback systems, the focus of this work is not on the communication interface between software and users or the exclusively quantitative analysis of messages. The goal is to evaluate the content of sent messages within VCL environments using the six defined categories to gain a better qualitative understanding of the teams’ collaboration and its workflow.

Semi-Supervised Behavior Labeling Using Multimodal Data during Virtual Teamwork-Based Collaborative Activities

Adaptive human-computer systems require the recognition of human behavior states to provide real-time feedback to scaffold skill learning. These systems are being researched extensively for intervention and training in individuals with autism spectrum disorder (ASD). Autistic individuals are prone to social communication and behavioral differences that contribute to their high rate of unemployment. Teamwork training, which is beneficial for all people, can be a pivotal step in securing employment for these individuals. To broaden the reach of the training, virtual reality is a good option. However, adaptive virtual reality systems require real-time detection of behavior. Manual labeling of data is time-consuming and resource-intensive, making automated data annotation essential. In this paper, we propose a semi-supervised machine learning method to supplement manual data labeling of multimodal data in a collaborative virtual environment (CVE) used to train teamwork skills. With as little as 2.5% of the data manually labeled, the proposed semi-supervised learning model predicted labels for the remaining unlabeled data with an average accuracy of 81.3%, validating the use of semi-supervised learning to predict human behavior.