Resources for Researching Virtual Worlds

Posted by Karl Kapp on October 7, 2009

Recently, a number of individuals have inquired about resources for virtual world research. Here are some valuable links. Please add your own resources in the comments.

Journal of Virtual World Research–Great resource. This journal has freely available PDF articles describing the vast amount of work being done in virtual worlds. Recently, the journal featured a number of articles on using virtual worlds in the field of Healthcare.

Articles

The Effects of Gaming on Socializing, Social Behavior, and Making Friends

EMERGING Technologies Center Nursing Education 2.0: A Second Look at Second Life

Virtual Reality Welding Trainer

Seven Things You Should Know About Virtual Worlds

Recipe for Success with Enterprise Virtual Worlds

Virtual Worlds and Unified Communications Provide a Collaboration Platform for the US Intelligence Community

Real Life Teaching in a Virtual World

Industry Research

ThinkBalm Immersive Internet Business Value Study, Q2 2009 by Erica and Sam Driver

3D Learning and Virtual Worlds

Second Life: Virtual Worlds and the Enterprise

Serious Virtual Worlds: A Scoping Study by Sara de Freitas

Papers:

Virtual Worlds Research: A Conceptual Primerby Marc Fetscherin, Christoph Lattemann and Guido Lang.

Worlds for Study: Invitation – Virtual Worlds for Studying Real-World Business (and Law, and Politics, and Sociology, and….)by Robert J. Bloomfield

Situated Learning in Virtual Worlds: The Learning Ecology of Second Lifeby Elisabeth R. Hayes of University of Wisconsin-Madison.

Virtual Worlds: A First-Hand Account of Market and Society on the Cyberian Frontier
by Edward Castronova, well-known author on the topic of virtual worlds.

Learning Archetypes as tools of Cybergogy for a 3D Educational Landscape by Lesley Scopes (who also contributed to the book, great detailed use of the learning archetypes.)

Canadian border simulation at Loyalist CollegeBy Ken Hudson and Kathryn Degast-Kennedy, Loyalist College, Canada (Ken contributed this case study to the book, Learning in 3D)

Teaching in Virtual Worlds: Opportunities and Challenges by Stacy Kluge and Liz Riley.

The relationship and differences between physical- and virtual-world personality by
James T. Doodson

“Alone Together?” Exploring the Social Dynamics of Massively Multiplayer Online Games by Nicolas Ducheneaut, Nicholas Yee, Eric Nickell and Robert J. Moore

Real-Time Prosody-Driven Synthesis of Body Language by Sergey Levine, Christian Theobalt and Vladlen Koltun of Stanford.

Extending the ‘Serious Game’ Boundary: Virtual Instructors in Mobile Mixed Reality Learning Games by Jayfus Doswell and Kathleen Harmeyer

Establishing Virtual Learning Worlds: The Impact of Virtual Worlds and Online Gaming on Education and Training by Barton K. Pursel and Keith D. Bailey

Massively multiplayer online games (MMOs) in the new media classroom by Aaron Delwiche

Learning in the Virtual World: the Pedagogical Potentials of Massively Multiplayer Online Role Playing Games

MMORPG: A Review of Social Studies by Marco Chiuppesi

Wiki’s, Web Sites and Blogs

Second Life for Education Wiki

CC International