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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. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We present a novel collaborative virtual reality system that offers multiple immersive 3D views at large 3D scenes. The physical setup consists of two synchronized multi-user 3D displays: a tabletop and a large vertical projection screen. These displays afford different presentations of the shared 3D scene. The wall display lends itself to the egocentric exploration at 1:1 scale, while the tabletop affords an allocentric overview. Additionally, handheld 3D portals facilitate the personal exploration of the scene, the comparison of views, and the exchange with others. Our developments enable seamless 3D interaction across these independent 3D views. This requires the simultaneous representation of user input in the different viewing contexts. However, the resulting interactions cannot be executed independently. The application must coordinate the interactions and resolve potential ambiguities to provide plausible effects. We analyze and document the challenges of seamless 3D interaction across multiple independent viewing windows, propose a high-level software design to realize the necessary functionality, and apply the design to a set of interaction tools. Our setup was tested in a formal user study, which revealed general advantages of collaborative 3D data exploration with multiple views in terms of user preference, comfort, and task performance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Collaborative virtual environments (CVEs), which allow naturalistic communication between two or more individuals in a shared virtual environment, hold promise as a tool for measuring and promoting social communication between peers. In this work, a CVE platform and a set of CVE-based collaborative games are designed for children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD). Two groups (7 ASD/TD pairs; 7 TD/TD pairs) participated in a pilot study to establish system feasibility and tolerability. We also designed a methodology for capturing meaningful metrics of social communication. Based on these metrics, we found improved game performance and trends in communication of these participants over time. Although preliminary, these results provide important insights on CVE-based interaction for ASD intervention. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In recent years, there has been an increasing interest for collaborative training in risk management. One of the critical point is to create educational and entirely controlled training environments that support industrial companies (in transportation industries, healthcare, nuclear...) or hospitals to train (future or not) professionals. The aim is to improve their teamwork performance making them understand the importance applying or adjusting safety recommendations. In this article, we present a method to design multi-player educational scenario for risk management in a socio-technical and dynamic context. The socio-technical situations focused in this article involve nontechnical skills such as teamwork, communication, leadership, decision-making and situation awareness. The method presented here has been used to design as well regular situations as well as critical situations in which deficiencies already exist or mistakes can be freely made and fixed by the team in a controlled digital environment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose The paper aims to present the processing pipeline of an assembly immersive simulation application which can manage the interaction between the virtual scene and user using stereoscopic display and haptic devices. A new set of elements are integrated in a Collaborative Virtual Environment (CVE) and validated using an approach based on subjective and objective users’ performance criteria. The developed application is intended for Assembly/Disassembly (A/D) analysis, planning and training.Design/methodology/approach A mobility module based on contact information is used to handle the assembly components’ movements through real-time management of collision detection and kinematically constraint guidance. Information on CVE architecture, modules and application configuration process are presented. Impact of device type (3 degrees of freedom (DoFs) vs 6 DoFs) over user’s experience is evaluated. Parameters (number of assembled components and components assembly time) are measured for each user and each haptic device, and results are compared and discussed.Findings Test results proved the efficiency of using a mobility module based on predefined kinematic constraints for reducing the complexity of collision detection algorithms in real-time assembly haptic simulations. Also, experiments showed that, generally, users performed better with 3 DoFs haptic device compared to 6 DoFs haptic equipment.Originality/value The proposed immersive application automates the kinematical joints inference from 3D computer-aided design (CAD) assembly models and integrates it within a haptic-based virtual environment, for increasing the efficiency of A/D process simulations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper describes a design of a collaborative virtual environment (CVE) for training security agents in big events. The CVE was modelled with Autodesk 3ds Max, while Unity 3D was used to create the terrain and implement the features that make up a virtual environment. The Brazilian soccer stadium known as Maracanã and its surroundings were chosen as the real counterparts of the CVE. The usability of the CVE was evaluated through simulations involving security agents dealing with threats related to suspects carrying radioactive material in big events. In order to perform these simulations, we use the same procedures used during 2014 FIFA World Cup and planned to be used in Rio 2016 Olympic Games. The main objective of this work is to verify the feasibility of designing a CVE and its usability for training security agents involved in big events issues. Results indicated that the proposed CVE has been successful concerning both, design and usability, besides of helping to improve the ability of each member of the security team on performing his duty. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Research problem: The purpose of this study is to examine the effects of the cultural intelligence of a dyad (a team of two persons) on its global virtual collaboration processes and outcomes. Research question: Does a dyad's cultural intelligence have an effect on global virtual collaboration processes and outcomes? If yes, which effects does that cultural intelligence have? Literature review: We review literature on the management of cultural diversity in global virtual collaboration and cultural intelligence. The literature suggests that cultural diversity in global virtual teams is mainly managed with rigid approaches, which are ineffective in many situations. Leveraging cultural intelligence has the potential to improve global virtual collaboration. However, its effects at the team level or in a virtual setting are not yet clear. Methodology: We used a collaboration simulation with 70 participants recruited from two public universities in China and Germany to study the effects of cultural intelligence. Quantitative and qualitative data were collected through questionnaires, voice recorders, and computer logs. Bale's interaction process analysis was used to code the voice recordings, and ordinary least-squares regression was used to test the hypotheses. Results and conclusions: The results indicate that cultural intelligence has an effect on global virtual collaboration; the lower cultural intelligence and the higher cultural intelligence in a dyad exert different effects on global virtual collaboration. Specifically, the lower cultural intelligence significantly influences the frequency of collaborative behaviors, which further influence group satisfaction. In contrast, the higher cultural intelligence significantly influences the deliverable quality. The findings advance the understanding of the effects of cultural intelligence at a dyad level and on proximal behavioral outcomes. The study has practical implications for global virtual collaboration practitioners and collaborative virtual environment designers. The study is limited by using student subjects and a self-report measure of cultural intelligence, as well as by examining global virtual teams in their simplest form. Future studies are suggested to examine contingency factors on the relationships between cultural intelligence and global virtual collaboration processes and outcomes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper studies a new sensorial approach to improving communication between partners during collaborative tasks taking place in abstract and non-visual virtual reality environments. The sensorial approach was investigated in the context of the search and identification of targets in a simplified 2D environment. It consists in finding a spatial configuration corresponding to a defined criterion such as a maximum, minimum, or defined score. During the collaborative search, users need to be aware of their results and also the results of their partners. In addition, they need to compare examined scores (e.g., docking score or physical value) with other results to make decisions. To support these features, an audio-haptic display was developed employing binaural audio with an intermodal stimuli synthesis design to improve the collaborative search. This rendering tool allows for simultaneous use of the audio and haptic channels which enables an efficient individual search and comparison of results. In addition, it improves the communication and activity coordination between the partners. An experiment was carried out to evaluate the contribution of the tool to improve the collaborative search of targets in a 2D non-visual environment. The results clearly show a significant improvement in performance and working efficiency with the audio-haptic display as compared to a traditional haptic-only condition. Moreover, we observed a reduction in the need for verbal communication during some steps of the search process. However, this approach introduces some communication conflicts during the steps presenting high-level interactions between partners which reduce the working efficiency of some groups. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper reports the progress of a pilot project exploring the integration of a collaborative virtual learning environment (Second Life) with the instruction of English courses at Lingnan University in Hong Kong. An educational partnership was developed with two TESOL teacher-training courses at Texas A&M University in the US. The project enrolled over 200 participants, with about half from each participating university. Coordination of online activities was done using the Moodle learning management system. A large non-traditional language learning facility was developed in the Second Life virtual environment in the style of a 1950's American diner on a private island, complete with Cadillac booths, traditional diner booths and tables, and outdoor campfire settings to facilitate conversational groupings. Both IM typed chat and VOIP voice interactions were explored inside the virtual environment. Student behavior observed during the study indicates the conditions which result in the most productive interactions, and also highlights several key problem areas which must be addressed before successful interactions can be achieved. This paper presents a process which has been developed and trialed, and the plans at Lingnan University to adopt it on a wider scale to support the development of language skills. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Existing client/server architecture with a multiple server has the capacity constraint of users due to the fixed number of servers. A hierarchical architecture based on the tailoring tree model for improving scalability and consistency in the collaborative virtual environment (CVE) is described. In our architecture, the main server, region servers and clients maintain the state of the CVE together. In order to improve the scalability and consistency, computing resources and communication resources should be effectively assigned. Two algorithms are proposed to solve the resource assignment problem in the hierarchical architecture: a dynamic clustering algorithm partitions the virtual environment according to the current load, which can effectively assign computing resources; a time-bounding-box-based filtering scheme is used to reduce the traffic, which can effectively assign communication resources. Experimental results show that the hierarchical architecture with our algorithms has a reasonable assignment of computing resources and communication resources at the same time, and, indeed, improves the scalability and consistency. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

humans start to spend more time in collaborative virtual environments (CVEs) it becomes important to study their interactions in such environments. One aspect of such interactions is personal space. To begin to address this, we have conducted empirical investigations in a non immersive virtual environment: an experiment to investigate the influence on personal space of avatar gender, and an observational study to further explore the existence of personal space. Experimental results give some evidence to suggest that avatar gender has an influence on personal space although the participants did not register high personal space invasion anxiety, contrary to what one might expect from personal space invasion in the physical world. The observational study suggests that personal space does exist in CVEs, as the users tend to maintain, in a similar way to the physical world, a distance when they are interacting with each other. Our studies provide an improved understanding of personal space in CVEs and the results can be used to further enhance the usability of these environments. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The design of the virtual environment (VE) has to take into account several factors including the input and output devices, the design of the interaction metaphor and the application domain. In addition to these considerations, the design of collaborative virtual environment (CVE) needs to take into account the collaborative aspect of the interaction metaphor. in one hand, the interaction metaphor must be designed to produce the most possible task performance. In the other hand, the influence of the interaction metaphor on the user’s experience (in terms of psychological and social considerations) constitutes an important research question. To address this research question, we presented a new user-centred method for Collaborative Virtual Environments in taking into account human factors. Our goal is to study the effect of 3D interaction metaphors in CVE on copresence, involvement, awareness and collaborative effort. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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Computer games became an essential source of entertainment for both children and adults. Additionally, the increase use of computer games encouraged researchers to investigate the use of computer games as an educational tool. Educational computer games have been recognized as a tool to provide students with intrinsic and extrinsic motivation during the learning process. This study introduces serious games as innovative educational tools. The main goal of the proposed approach is to face the current challenges due to the changes of students' characteristics and the requirements of the new education system. A Multi-players role-playing educational serious game was developed and tested to verify the effectiveness of the proposed approach. Moreover, promising results of using serious games to increase students' social interaction and their learning performance were obtained. The results indicated that playing serious games positively influence students' perceptions of social interaction as well as their learning performance [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The purpose of tele-immersive collaboration is to enable people in separate locations to work together effectively by the Virtual Reality (VR) technology facilitating the human intuitive insight and interpretation. Consequently, it is important to cogitate with figures and characters as well as voice communication in Collaborative Virtual Environment (CVE). In this paper, we constructed tele-immersive CVE with annotation capability and free-hand drawing of characters and figures into Immersive Projection Technology (IPT) environment. In addition, participants from remote sites connected over a Wide Area Network (WAN) were enabled to interact with each other by sharing annotations via a PDA application. Moreover, we developed applications for scientific visualization and, for intellectual work based on KJ Method inside a tele-immersive CVE. From these results, we are able to maintain essential information for thinking by making annotation on IPT environment, and have proved the system can support intuitive understanding in remote collaborative work. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This case study is about ‘Gulliver’s World’, a multi-user mixed reality environment that functions simultaneously as interactive edutainment platform and learning environment as well as flexible infrastructure for the expansion of mixed reality environments via innovations in technology and media art. As an exhibition project, the installation is characterized by a nonlinear exhibition concept that activates interaction between individual users and different modes of virtual reality as well as collaboration among the users themselves. At seven workstations, people of all age groups range along the Reality–Virtuality continuum while collaboratively creating 3D worlds. Results of these creation activities are interactive worlds at the nexus of theatre, digital film production and game environment. As a research project, ‘Gulliver’s World’ features multilevel infrastructure with exemplary content in which the latest insights and models to emerge from HCI research as well as concepts of mixed reality and virtual environments and their supporting technology are brought together and developed further. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In a collaborative work situation at a distance, the use of avatars to represent collaborators reduces collaborative effort. Also, animated avatars can help distant users to ground their relationship and facilitate their interaction because they materialise visual clues for the distant collaborators and their current activity. To check the validity of these hypotheses we set up an experiment based on the use of a collaborative virtual environment (CVE) synchronised for collective medical decision-making. Several teams of practitioners from different disciplines will be required to deal with liver tumours displayed in Argonaute 3D. In this paper, we provide some evidence from existing studies for the hypotheses and select several measures to estimate the grounding process in CVEs. Next, we briefly describe the setup used to collect observable data with Argonaute 3D and we summarise first observations acquired with practitioners. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A collaborative virtual environment (CVE) allows geographically dispersed users to interact with each other and objects in a common virtual environment via network connections. One of the successful applications of CVE is multiplayer on-line role-playing game. To support massive interactions among virtual entities in a large-scale CVE and maintain consistent status of the interaction among users with the constraint of limited network bandwidth, an efficient collaborative interaction management method is required. In this paper, we propose a behaviour-based interaction management framework for supporting multiplayer role-playing CVE applications. It incorporates a two-tiered architecture which includes high-level role behaviour-based interaction management and low-level message routing. In the high level, interaction management is achieved by enabling interactions based on collaborative behaviour definitions. In the low level, message routing controls interactions according to the run-time status of the interactive entities. Collaborative Behaviour Description Language is designed as a scripting interface for application developers to define collaborative behaviours of interactive entities and simulation logics/game rules in a CVE. We demonstrate and evaluate the performance of the proposed framework through a prototype system and simulations. Copyright © 2006 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We report an investigation exploring the effect of avatar gender on the anxiety level caused by personal space (PS) invasion in desktop collaborative virtual environments (DCVE). We outline an experiment in which participants, of both genders, whose avatars' PS were "invaded" by other avatars of either gender, reported their anxiety levels through the use of a post-experiment questionnaire. The data from the questionnaire are analysed and discussed. The results suggest that the combination of the gender of the invading avatar and the avatar being invaded has an influence on the PS invasion anxiety level and that the ranking of gender combination groups has a striking difference from those observed for PS invasion in physical environments. Results also show that the participants in general did not register high anxiety, contrary to what one might expect from personal space invasion in the physical world. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The AS Interactive Project aimed to assess the potential of single-user and collaborative virtual environments to support learning and enhancing of social skills in people with autistic disorders on the high-functioning end of the autistic spectrum. The project had two distinct phases of research: Phase I focused mainly on development and design using user-centred principles. Phase II was concerned with implementation of design feedback, further improvements and evaluation studies of the virtual environments developed. This paper describes the research process, summarizes results of the project and briefly outlines plans for future research. Copyright © 2003 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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 a 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. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper describes an experimental, adaptive community-based system, the Forum, designed to facilitate communication where there are mutual concerns or interests among virtual communities within or across organizations. Our description of the Forum is presented from the perspective of user-centered interaction design. The system consists of a WWW-based collaborative virtual environment comprised of intelligent software agents that support explicit information sharing, chance meetings, and real time informal communication. The Forum provided the technological support for users to interact informally, but lacked the social support necessary to motivate users to interact with strangers in their community of practice. Context, or the reasons why two persons might want to meet, was overlooked. We propose future directions for the Forum including cultural signposts that provide contextual cues in the intelligent community-based system to better support information sharing and real time communication between strangers. The contribution of the present paper is to provide lessons learned about design considerations from a series of user trials over a period of one year for developing adaptive community-based systems. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]