Online Virtual Environment Research Articles

The Unbearable Likeness of Being Digital: The Persistence of Nonverbal Social Norms in Online Virtual Environments

Every day, millions of users interact in real-time via avatars in online environments, such as massively-multiplayer online role-playing games (MMORPGs). These online environments could potentially be unique research platforms for the social sciences and clinical therapy, but it is crucial to first establish that social behavior and norms in virtual environments are comparable to those in the physical world. In an observational study of Second Life, a virtual community, we collected data from avatars in order to explore whether social norms of gender, interpersonal distance (IPD), and eye gaze transfer into virtual environments even though the modality of movement is entirely different (i.e., via keyboard and mouse as opposed to eyes and legs). Our results showed that established findings of IPD and eye gaze transfer into virtual environments: (1) male-male dyads have larger IPDs than female-female dyads, (2) male-male dyads maintain less eye contact than female-female dyads, and (3) decreases in IPD are compensated with gaze avoidance as predicted by the Equilibrium Theory. We discuss implications for users of online games as well as for social scientists who seek to conduct research in virtual environments.

Evaluating cultural learning in an online virtual environment

How can we develop and evaluate contextual cultural learning through exploration and participation in a virtual heritage environment? This article discusses one way of evaluating cultural learning, through measuring the cultural understanding of participants who learn about the same environments but via different methods of interaction (observation, social instruction, and activity-based exploration). Task performance, understanding of local cultural practices, memory of what was written and memory of events and objects, were recorded. Issues arising from the chosen internet-based technology, and how these issues could have been avoided, will also be discussed.

M. Kötter, Tandem learning on the internet: learner interactions in virtual online environments (MOOs), Foreign Language Teaching in Europe, vol. 6, Peter Lang, Frankfurt, 2002, pp. 306

M. Kötter, Tandem learning on the internet: learner interactions in virtual online environments (MOOs), Foreign Language Teaching in Europe, vol. 6, Peter Lang, Frankfurt, 2002, pp. 306

Virtual online environments creating an external social presence — MOO

After five years of significant growth in the use of the online‐medium to deliver courses by Australian universities, questions are still being asked about the overall quality of the experience provided to students studying in these online environments. This article explores the experience of community for a group of undergraduate students studying an online course designed and offered in a virtual environment. This research confirms the significance and value of community for students studying courses online and suggests that virtual online environments such as MOO's, that provide students with a sense of place and the possibility of creating an extended social presence, create a unique virtual space which facilitates the development of learning support networks or learning communities.

Virtual Online Environments Creating an External Social Presence—MOO

Virtual Online Environments Creating an External Social Presence—MOO

Avatar: From Deity to Corporate PropertyA philosophical inquiry into digitalproperty in online games

The focal point in this paper is our virtual selves, the avatars with which we interactwith others in online virtual environments. The dispute is growing as to whom thesedigital manifestations belong to. The dispute is in part due to the ability of thetechnology to transfer the avatars and also in part on the desire of the softwaremanufacturers to enforce the end user licence agreements. These licences do notfollow contract theory but have been enforced by the courts. Despite the actions of thecourt their validity as a whole is still questionable. This paper contains descriptions ofthe disputed objects and presents the arguments of both sides. There is also apresentation of the law regulating the area and its rationale, strengths and weaknesses.Then there follows a critique of the law as it is and a presentation of what the lawcould, and indeed in some cases, should be. In the conclusion this work bothdescribes the importance of this issue and what is at stake if an equitable andreasonably balanced solution to the collective rights cannot be found.

Utah Virtual Lab: JAVA interactivity for teaching science and statistics on line

The Utah on-line Virtual Lab is a JAVA program run dynamically off a database. It is embedded in StatCenter (www.psych.utah.edu/learn/statsampler.html), an on-line collection of tools and text for teaching and learning statistics. Instructors author a statistical virtual reality that simulates theories and data in a specific research focus area by defining independent, predictor, and dependent variables and the relations among them. Students work in an on-line virtual environment to discover the principles of this simulated reality: They go to a library, read theoretical overviews and scientific puzzles, and then go to a lab, design a study, collect and analyze data, and write a report. Each student's design and data analysis decisions are computer-graded and recorded in a database; the written research report can be read by the instructor or by other students in peer groups simulating scientific conventions.

Ethics, programming, and virtual environments

We have devised a novel experiential approach to teaching students about the social impact of computers and the ethical, legal, and social responsibilities of computing professionals. Rather than teaching these topics in a traditional classroom manner, we teach them in a text-based online virtual educational environment. At the same time we use the environment's object-oriented design to instruct the students in object-oriented concepts, and to introduce them to software engineering by having them work in groups. The approach is proving extremely successful.

The Lessons of Lucasfilm's Habitat

Habitat is a "multi-player online virtual environment", created by Lucasfilm Games, a division of LucasArts Entertainment Company, in association with Quantum Computer Services, Inc. It was arguably one of the first attempts to create a very large scale commercial multi-user virtual environment in 1985. The system we developed could support a population of thousands of users in a single shared cyberspace. Habitat presented its users with a real-time animated view into an online simulated world in which users could communicate, play games, go on adventures, fall in love, get married, get divorced, start businesses, found religions, wage wars, protest against them, and experiment with self-government.
 Our experiences developing the Habitat system, and managing the virtual world that resulted, offer a number of interesting and important lessons for prospective cyberspace architects. The purpose of this paper is to discuss some of these lessons. We hoped that the next generation of builders of virtual worlds can benefit from our experiences and (especially) from our mistakes.