Conference name: CSEDU International Workshop on Virtual Worlds for Open Learning - ViWOL 2011

Venue: Noordwijkerhout, The Netherlands


Event Date:6-9 May, 2011


Co-chairs

Colin Allison
University of St. Andrews
U.K.


Alan Miller
University of St. Andrews
U.K.



Scope

Virtual worlds continue to attract considerable interest as an innovative means of engaging students through the use of immersive, collaborative environments. They allow for the dynamic creation of content and for that content to be programmed. They empower students to explore learning environments that would be inaccessible to them in the real world. Learners achieve presence through the proxies of avatars, and consequently are aware of and may interact with fellow learners within the virtual environment. Interactivity ranges from simple exhibits as might be found in a museum to configurable, complex simulations visualised in a 3D space. At the same time there are now numerous open learning initiatives which seek to encourage the sharing of independently produced quality educational resources through the Internet, but these are mostly web-based, so the challenge of realizing open learning within virtual worlds remains. Until now, Second Life (SL) has been the dominant virtual world technology in use, and whilst attractive in that it is a ready-made - albeit commercial - service, it was not designed for open educational use and has significant social and technical drawbacks when used for that purpose. This workshop seeks to identify and address the challenges which need to be met to support the widespread use of virtual world technology in the emerging open learning context.

Topics of interest include, but are not limited to:

› Support for, and Experiences of, Operation and Service Provision in an Educational Context
› Approaches to Sharing Virtual World based Educational Resources
› Support for Educational Content Creation and Application Development
› Examples of Best Practice for Learning and Teaching
› System and Network Design and Measurement
› Leveraging the Web and Virtual Worlds Working Together
› Cloud Computing as a Basis for Service Deployment
› Evaluation Studies
› Secure Learning Issues in Virtual Worlds
› Educational Identity Management
› Open Learning Repositories for Virtual World Educational Resources
› Virtual Worlds for Life Long Learning

Important Dates

Regular Paper Submission: January 24, 2011
Authors Notification: February 9, 2011
Final Paper Submission and Registration: February 25, 2011

Workshop Program Committee

Giovanni De Gasperis, University of L'Aquila, Italy
Filomena Faiella, University of Salerno, Italy
John McCaffery, University of St. Andrews, U.K.
Petra Newrly, Public Innovation Agency for Information Technology and Media, Germany
Ross Nicoll, University of St. Andrews, U.K.
Alexander Nussbaumer, University of Graz, Austria
Indika Perera, University of St. Andrews, U.K.
Thanassis Tiropanis, University of Southampton, U.K.

(list not yet complete)

Paper Submission

Prospective authors are invited to submit papers in any of the topics listed above. Position papers are welcome.
Instructions for preparing the manuscript (in Word and Latex formats) are available at: Paper Templates
Please also check the Submission Guidelines.
Papers should be submitted electronically via the web-based submission system at: http://www.insticc.org/Primoris

Publications

All accepted papers will be published in the workshop proceedings book, under an ISBN reference and on CD-ROM support.
All papers presented at the conference venue will be available at the SciTePress Digital Library (http://www.scitepress.org/DigitalLibrary/).
Registration Information
At least one author of an accepted paper must register for the workshop. If the registration fees are not received by February 25, 2011, the paper will not be published in the workshop proceedings book.

Secretariat Contacts

CSEDU Workshops - ViWOL 2011

e-mail: csedu.secretariat@insticc.org
website:http://www.csedu.org/ViWOL.asp