UK Higher and Further Edu developments in Second Life
http://www.eduserv.org.uk/foundation/sl/uksnapshot102008
An autumn 2008 "snapshot" of UK Higher and Further Education developments in Second Life
This report summarises an investigation into the use and uptake of Second Life (SL) by UK Higher and Further Education. The research, carried out in the period up until October 2008, had four main goals:
-to determine the "state of play" of SL developments within the Higher and Further Education sector,
-to discover how these developments are supported, in terms of time, funding and other resources,
-to explore the functionality of these developments, i.e. which types of media or interactive service they incorporate,
-to establish how "busy", or well-used, the developments have been and discover any impacts resulting from their implementation and use.
|

|
|
Training Simulation Improves Test Scores
http://nwn.blogs.com/nwn/2008/09/simulating-succ.html
Simulating Success: SL-to-RL Border Guard Training Simulation Improves Test Scores By 28%
|

|
|
Metaverse Roadmap
http://www.metaverseroadmap.org/
Metaverse Roadmap
Key info you should know about the 3D and virtual future, now to 2025.
What happens when video games meet Web 2.0? When virtual worlds meet geospatial maps of the planet? When simulations get real and life and business go virtual? When you use a virtual Earth to navigate the physical Earth, and your avatar becomes your online agent? What happens is the metaverse.
Taking its name from the immersive virtual world imagined by Neal Stephenson in his visionary novel, Snow Crash, the Metaverse Roadmap (MVR) is the first public ten-year forecast and visioning survey of 3D Web technologies, applications, markets, and potential social impacts.
Areas of exploration include the convergence of Web applications with networked computer games and virtual worlds, the use of 3D creation and animation tools in virtual environments, digital mapping, artificial life, and the underlying trends in hardware, software, connectivity, business innovation and social adoption that will drive the transformation of the World Wide Web in the coming decade.
|

|
|
The Student User Experience in Second Life
http://www.ischool.utexas.edu/~sanchez/
The Student User Experience in Second Life
Collaboration in Virtual Worlds - The Educators Coop
Avatar Priming and Social Stereotypes
|

|
|
Three Steps to Encourage Corporate Investment in VWs
Gartner Identifies Three Steps to Encourage Corporate Investment in Virtual Worlds
Gartner Identifies Three Steps to Encourage Corporate Investment in Virtual Worlds
|

|
|
Jackie Fenn, Gartner VP
http://www.virtualworldsnews.com/2008/08/qa-jackie-fenn.html
Jackie Fenn, Gartner VP and Fellow, on Public Virtual Worlds and the Hype Cycle
|

|
|
Gartner Report
http://www.gartner.com/it/page.jsp?id=503861
Gartner Says 80 Percent of Active Internet Users Will Have A "Second Life" in the Virtual World by the End of 2011
Analysts Identify the Five Laws for Virtual Worlds During Gartner Symposium/ITxpo 2007 Emerging Trends, Analysts Say IT Leaders Must Take the Initiative to Innovate
|

|
|
Intute
http://tinyurl.com/6qesvd
Intute is a free online service providing you with access to the very best Web resources for education and research.
The service is created by a network of UK universities and partners.
Subject specialists select and evaluate the websites in our database and write high quality descriptions of the resources.
The database contains over 120,000 records.
|

|
|
Second Life Researcher Resources
http://tinyurl.com/45x2sr
Second Life Researcher Resources
Presentation ... Second Life Researcher Resources PF Anderson, pfa@umich.edu a.k.a. Perplexity “Lexi” Peccable (SL)
|

|
|
Medicine and Heath : Second Life
http://tinyurl.com/5cxdog
Medicine and Heath : Second Life ... simulations research
|

|
|
The SaLamander Project
http://www.eduisland.net/salamanderwiki/
The SaLamander Project
The SaLamander Wiki - a folksonomy of practical and theoretical applications, builds and designs in the Virtual World of Second Life for the purposes of teaching and learning.
The project mission is to enlist people to collaborate to find, index, and discuss aspects of the 3D Virtual World "Second Life" that has educational value and share in the research, development, and training opportunities associated with those factors. Please register and contribute to the growing index of useful teaching and learning sites in the SaLamander Wiki!
|

|
|
Emerging “Best Practices” for Campus Builds in SL (pdf)
http://tinyurl.com/69u8xh
Emerging “Best Practices” for Campus
Builds in Second Life ... pdf file
As educators begin to explore the affordances
of Second Life for teaching, learning, and
research, new institutions look to the early
adopters of the technology for examples of
best practices as they plan their own foray into the environment.
To that end, researchers atthe University of Cincinnati performed an observational study of educational institutions in Second Life to provide a benchmark of current practices. From this study, a set of commonalities across educational institutions with a land presence in Second Life began to emerge.
The observational study was conducted upon
the 51 institutions found to have a land
presence in Second Life, with 102 unique
variables collected about each institution.
|

|
|
SL Research Group on Diigo
http://groups.diigo.com/groups/second-life-research
SL Research Group on Diigo
The purpose of this group is to collect resources on educational uses of Second Life/Teen Second Life.
This group is a repository of materials discussing specific projects, approaches, and research on virtual worlds in education.
|

|
|
Virtual Worlds by Sector
http://tinyurl.com/668lq3
Virtual Worlds by Sector ... a single graphics .. nicely done.
|

|
|
Virtual Worlds white papers, guides and reports
http://cleverzebra.com/knowledge
Virtual Worlds white papers, guides and reports
Published by Clever Zebra ... a new kind of company. We live and work in virtual worlds, and in fact have never met in the physical world.
We operate from the US, Canada and Denmark. Our "office" is a connection to the 3D web.
|

|
|
Second Life and VW Research papers
http://socialnets.wikispaces.com/Papers-Research
Second Life and VW Research papers ... listed at the Social Networking wiki
|

|
|
Slrl -- Second Life Research Listserv
http://list.academ-x.com/listinfo.cgi/slrl-academ-x.com
Slrl -- Second Life Research Listserv
|

|
|
GROOVE
http://groups.google.com/group/groovegroup
GROOVE - Graduate Researchers Of Online Virtual Environments
The GROOVE group promotes the sharing of resources and experiences, enables discussion and networking, and build community amongst postgraduate (Masters, Doctoral or similar) researchers of online virtual environments.
We welcome current or past students, or those intending to study in this area.
|

|
|
Virtual Human Interaction Lab
http://vhil.stanford.edu/
Virtual Human Interaction Lab
The mission of the Virtual Human Interaction Lab is to understand the dynamics and implications of interactions among people in immersive virtual reality simulations (VR), and other forms of human digital representations in media, communication systems, and games.
Researchers in the lab are most concerned with understanding the social interaction that occurs within the confines of VR, and the majority of our work is centered on using empirical, behavioral science methodologies to explore people as they interact in these digital worlds.
|

|
|
ARVEL SIG
http://www.arvelsig.com/
Applied Research in Virtual Environments for Learning Special Interest Group (ARVEL SIG)
Affiliated with the American Educational Research Association http://aera.net
The mission of the ARVEL Special Interest Group is, "to steward a robust community of educators, scholars, and practitioners dedicated toward research in and on virtual 3D environments.
Using a variety of research methods, we support a diverse approach to understanding the optimal use of virtual worlds and environments for educational purposes.
We're interested in developing a comprehensive research agenda intended to encompass the breadth and scope of learning potentialities, affordances, challenges, and shortcomings of immersive virtual learning environments."
|

|
|
Criminal Law in Virtual Worlds
http://tinyurl.com/6z3kmv
Criminal Law in Virtual Worlds
When does conduct by an online player in a virtual world game trigger liability for a real-world crime? In the future, will new criminal laws be needed to account for new social harms that occur in virtual worlds?
This short essay considers both questions.
|

|
|
User Acceptance of Second Life
http://www.fetscherin.com/UserAcceptanceVirtualWorlds.htm
User Acceptance of Second Life ...
An Explorative Study about Second Life
Our report assesses the user acceptance of Virtual Worlds, specifically Second Life. By means of a survey with almost 250 respondents this report provides first empirical results of the user acceptance of Second Life. The data has been gathered during spring 2007.
|

|
|
Second Life Research (Blog)
http://secondliferesearch.blogspot.com/
Second Life Research (Blog)
|

|
|
Public Diplomacy and Virtual Worlds
http://tinyurl.com/5t85xr
Public Diplomacy and Virtual Worlds
My goal in this paper will be to describe how "virtual worlds" can facilitate intercultural dialogue among various groups; how new actors have emerged in and around the scope of virtual worlds that serve to enhance and expand on the intents of public diplomacy. How unintentional public diplomacy efforts, private sector leadership in the form of the virtual world ?Second Life? are redefining the rules and iterations of a 21st Century Public Diplomacy.
Virtual worlds, traditionally, but not exclusively constructed through massively multiplayer online games (MMOGs), function as communication networks in three different ways:?
|

|
|
Journal of Virtual Worlds Research
http://jvwresearch.org/
A meta-analysis of the training effectiveness of virtual reality surgical simulators
The increasing use of virtual reality (VR) simulators in surgical training makes it imperative that definitive studies be performed to assess their training effectiveness.
Indeed, in this paper we report the meta-analysis of the efficacy of virtual reality simulators in: 1) the transference of skills from the simulator training environment to the operating room, and 2) their ability to discriminate between the experience levels of their users.
|

|
|
The training effectiveness of virtual reality surgical simulators
http://tinyurl.com/589c44
A meta-analysis of the training effectiveness of virtual reality surgical simulators
The increasing use of virtual reality (VR) simulators in surgical training makes it imperative that definitive studies be performed to assess their training effectiveness.
Indeed, in this paper we report the meta-analysis of the efficacy of virtual reality simulators in: 1) the transference of skills from the simulator training environment to the operating room, and 2) their ability to discriminate between the experience levels of their users.
|

|
|
The i-web Singularity Redux
http://wadatripp.wordpress.com/2008/04/04/the-i-web-singularity-redux/
The i-web Singularity Redux
Four vectors are on a collision to creat the i-web: Immersive, Interactive, Immediate and Intuitive. When this world-wide, three-dimensional, avatar-mediated Cognosphere emerges we will truly reach a singularity: a point where technological progress reaches infinity as it relates to leveraging and enabling human capital.
|

|
|