Anthropology in World of Warcraft

WoW Insider have a very interesting interview with Alex Golub, an Assistant Professor within the Anthropology department at the University of Hawaii.

Golub is well underway in research on culture of raiding in World of Warcraft, with the final product expected to be a book in 2010. There’s some discussion on behaviour in raids, gender differences and effective communication strategies. One of the most fascinating aspects is Golub’s take on ‘real-life’ versus online behaviour:

One thing about studying WoW and other virtual worlds is that it has made social scientists realize that “real” and “in the same room” are just not the same things. Everyone in my guild knows each other in “real life,” because real doesn’t mean “physical world” — it means “things that people care about,” or as an anthropologist, I’d say, “things that people in a culture care about.” There is a guy in my guild who works in a cheese factory, turning over 90-pound blocks of cheese all day. I bet I know him better than he knows the guys in the control room measuring cheese temperatures or whatever, even if he sees them every day.

Read the full article here.

Popularity: 1% [?]

NZ: Literature review on virtual worlds

The dynamos at SLENZ have published a literature review titled Engaging with Second Life: Real Education in a Virtual World.

Written by Ben Salt, Clare Atkins and Leigh Blackall, it provides a superb overview of research undertaken to date and covers a wide range of education-related topics including learning design in Second Life, applying behavioural and cognitive theories and the science applications of virtual worlds.

If you’re an educator or someone just interested in the academic underpinnings or work being done in Second Life, this is a more than worthwhile read.

Popularity: 2% [?]

AVWW Doggie Bag

A big thanks to Feldpsar Epstein for attending the real-world AVWW event last weekend. What follows are some of the highlights from her perspective. We’d also love to hear your thoughts.

The Australian Virtual Worlds Workshop, Friday 28 November and Saturday 29 November 2008, held at Swinburne University, Hawthorn Campus, was a bit of a mixed bag. I present here some of my favourite take-away notions.

Presence in Virtual Worlds

The presence afforded by virtual worlds of many flavours can put conference and class participants on a more equal footing, where each individual has access to the event in the same way, i.e. through a common virtual world. Unlike video or phone events, where some people are present physically, and others are present through a technological medium, virtual worlds create a more compelling atmosphere, since each person has an equal presence.

Investing in understanding

It makes sense for educational institutions to make use of contractors and ‘experts’, especially where that knowledge or those skills are lacking amongst the faculty. However, it’s important also that the faculty invest some time and effort into expanding their own knowledge to the point that they understand what they are asking the contractors to do. There is little point in asking for the impossible and then feeling disappointed or cheated when it cannot be done.

Students are not just consumers of education

Students at all levels need to have input into their own education. It is important that students collaborate with and mentor not just each other, but also the faculty. This kind of education goes on in the real world all the time; failure to support it in virtual environments represents diminished opportunity for students.

VastPark – vast possibilities, simplicity in action

Vast Park is a virtual worlds platform being developed in Australia. The standards are open (as in Open Source), as is the code, to a large extent, except for pieces such as the renderer; these closed-source pieces have been introduced to cut down on the amount of work needed to be put into technologies that already exist and need not be duplicated. The Immersive Media Markup Language (IMML) was conceived with this notion in mind - “A deaf person must be able to communicate with a blind person.” This means, in essence, that rich, complex environments can be described simply, and that there is a vast range of accessibility options available.

“VastPark” is the name of the technology behind the virtual worlds that other people will create.

Hedonic Consumption Behaviours

Hedonic behaviours account for approximately 51% of intentions to use virtual worlds, making enjoyment the most significant predictor of usage.

Popularity: 2% [?]

AVWW 2008 commences

The Australasian Virtual Worlds Workshop is underway today and continues tomorrow (all day Friday and Saturday 28th / 29th November Australian time). The base for events is Swinburne University’s Koala Island.

It’s still not too late to get involved and it’s even free to join the Second Life component of AVWW (click here for landmark)

We’ll be covering both the RL and SL event over the coming two days - the event organisers have arranged a comprehensive program so do take some time to participate if you can. We’re proud to be a media partner for this event.

Check it out in-world

Popularity: 2% [?]

Journal of Virtual Worlds Research - second issue

The latest issue of the Journal of Virtual Worlds Research has been released and this time consumer behaviour is the focus.

There’s eight research papers, of which five are peer-reviewed, plus there’s six ‘think pieces’ on related topics.

The full contents:

Peer Reviewed Research Papers

- Consuming Code: Use-Value, Exchange-Value, and the Role of Virtual Goods in Second Life (Jennifer Martin)
- Virtual World Affordances: Enhancing Brand Value (So Ra Park, Fiona Fui-Hoon Nah, David DeWester, Brenda Eschenbrenner, Sunran Jeon)
- On the Relationship between My Avatar and Myself (Paul R Messinger, Xin Ge, Eleni Stroulia, Kelly Lyons, Kristen Smirnov, Michael Bone)
- The Social Construction of Virtual Reality and the Stigmatized Identity of the Newbie (Robert E. Boostrom, Jr.)
- The “New” Virtual Consumer: Exploring the Experiences of New Users (Lyle R Wetsch)

Research Papers

- Ugly Duckling by Day, Super Model by Night: The Influence of Body Image on the Use of Virtual Worlds (Enrique Becerra, Mary Ann Stutts)
- Symbolic and Experiential Consumption of Body in Virtual Worlds: from (Dis)Embodiment to Symembodiment (Handan Vicdan, Ebru Ulusoy)
- Demographics of Virtual Worlds (Jeremiah Spence)

“Think pieces”

- Surveillance, Consumers, and Virtual Worlds (Douglas R Dechow)
- Second Life and Hyperreality (Michel Maffesoli)
- Having But Not Holding: Consumerism & Commodification in Second Life (Lori Landay)
- Metaverse: A New Dimension? (Yohan Launay, Nicolas Mas)
- Virtual Worlds Research: Global X Local Agendas (Gilson Schwartz)
- Real Virtual Worlds SOS (State of Standards) Q3-2008 (Yesha Sivan)

There’s some serious reading time in it all and if virtual goods, branding, avatar identification, new user experience or demographics are of interest, this is one must-read issue from a journal hitting the ground well and truly running. Well researched quantitative and qualitative studies will be key as virtual worlds expand in scope and popularity - this Journal deserves kudos as one of the pioneers of empirical observation of virtual worlds.

Popularity: 2% [?]

Distance education close-up

Learning together apart: Distance education in a virtual world - Kim Holmburg and Isto Huvila

Holmburg and Huvila’s study, as related in the article link above, focuses on distributed learning opportunities for distance education students, ‘distributed learning’ meaning that multiple tools are used.

Background information

Some of the tools compared in the study were traditional face-to-face classroom teaching -  asynchronous systems such as blogs, wikis and discussion forums. Synchronous systems include chat rooms, video conferences, and lectures and classroom teaching in digital environments like Second Life.

Overall, students in the past have reported that the use of distributed learning has caused them to be more engaged with the class material. This seems unsurprising - the more learning modalities they are exposed to, the more learning styles a student has access to. Synchronous systems in particular were useful for encouraging interaction between students.

Lectures run in Second Life were found to be distinctly advantageous for distance education students. Students report preferring face-to-face classes, however they also found Second Life to be a more ‘fun’ learning experience compared to the other modalities they were exposed to. Additionally, lecturers found that students were more likely to participate in lectures run in Second Life than in face-to-face classes.

Using Second Life creates an interreality for the users – users are immersed in a digital environment, but are also making use of the real world. They are neither in one reality or the other completely. Digital environment experiences, being used the way they are at present, are best interleaved with real world experiences – students getting solely one set of experiences or the other will be missing out.

The major reason for students to prefer face-to-face education over distance education is because of perceived technical problems with remote connections, rather than a difference in perceived quality of overall educational experiences.

Some researchers have found that digital environments that the students engage well with, will positively impact on students’ emotions. Others fear that digitally mediated distance education will lead to emotional distance.

Holmburg and Huvila’s Study

This study had 30 participants – 28 female, 2 male. Of those, 6 had technical difficulties responding to the survey. Moodle, Second Life and one day of face-to-face teaching were used during the course. A classroom was built in Second Life, in which the lectures were held; the classroom closely resembled real-world classrooms to increase familiarity and emotional engagement. The course was arranged by the Centre for Open University Education at Åbo Akademi University.

Respondents were born between 1952 and 1984.

Each student was given instructions about how to use Second Life, and was expected to get to grips with it before commencing lectures.

Respondents felt that the Second Life client was not too difficult to use. Face-to-face education still rated as ‘better’, though Second Life rated as ‘better’ than web-based educational methods. Second Life was rated as the most fun method. Sixty percent of respondents felt that Second Life lectures could replace face-to-face lectures.

The assumption was made at the outset of the study that using Second Life – manoeuvring an avatar – might be challenging for students who were non-gamers. This turned out to be incorrect.

Second Life itself provides many opportunities for different modes of learning, however there are still benefits to be gained from face-to-face communication, when that is easy to organise, since this adds yet more modes.

Second Life provides significant benefits where distance education is involved. If travel time is short and travelling easy, face-to-face teaching is to be preferred. Nonetheless, Second Life increases the fun in learning, an outcome which in and of itself increases engagement and participation amongst students.

In conclusion

The authors of the study state that fun “is always a desired outcome.” This does not always seem to be the case: for many years, anything ‘fun’ has been questionable in educational circles. Hopefully, studies like this in which the fun of an activity is shown to have a positive impact on learning outcomes will go to show that education can be fun and worthwhile at the same time.

Popularity: 3% [?]

AVWW 2008 - registrations open

The Australasian Virtual Worlds Workshop and (AVWW) is back again in 2008 and it’s looking like a fascinating two-day program. It’s being held at Swinburne University in Melbourne on the 28th and 29th November.

Keynote presenters include the New Media Consortium’s Larry Johnson, SLCN’s Keren Flavell, Linden Lab’s Chris Collins and VastPark CEO Bruce Joy.

We’re proud to be a media partner for the event and will be covering both the real-world and Second Life proceedings. If you’ve got any interest in virtual worlds and education, health and business then think about registering.

Popularity: 2% [?]

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