Categorizing audience interests:
Emerging from this morning's discussion, we have identified the following taxonomy:
1. Those that are interested in teaching with virtual worlds
2. Those interested in researching how people use virtual worlds (research, teaching, work, interaction and play)
3. Those that are interested in virtual environments as a publication medium
4. Those that are interested in virtual worlds as a collaboration medium
5. Those that are interested in virtual worlds as a research tool (e.g. represent an object or run a simulation)
I would add an element to this taxonomy. I would submit that virtual worlds constitute in and of themselves a set of Arts and Humanities environments/contexts, worthy of study for their own sake, rather than as a representation of something else.
The taxonomy, above, lists ways of USING VWs; my intent is to note that VWs are a form of being.
As the more-than-likely next form of netted ubiquity (Web 4 or 5.0), virtual environments are themselves the substantiation of research and creative production. They are the libraries, museums, social science laboratories, mass media outlets, concert halls, etc. of the next generation (not as a total replacement of those things in RL, but as a fully implemented and concurrent alternative or adjunct). Research into the ways that they function IS research in the Arts and Humanities.
The other huge opportunities are the possibility of asking new questions and the ability to execise scholarship in new ways.
Hi michelle, thank you again for a great first summit. I know it took loads of planning and when working with humanities scholars, we can sometimes be a tempermental bunch...anyway, here are my thoughts on what we were not really able to clarify at the meeting. It was my understanding that you have three goals:
1. to establish research opportunities for those wanting to explore existing virtual environment projects. To this end, tools need to be created to enable this to be done in the most efficient manner possible. For example, if i wanted to explore aspects of virtual harlem (the actual project doesn't matter nor does the virtual platform), I would would like to have the following at my disposal:
1. a video/audio recording tool that could be easily used in world that would enable users or visitors to the environment to record their experiences and have those recordings archived in a central location that can be accessed via the web, imbedded into other documents and publications (with permission) and searchable.
2. I would also like a tool that would easily enable usage metrics to be logged and graphed that would track unique visitors, teleportation locations and time on the parcel or island
3. I would like an easy way for visitors to record their ideas and thoughts on a blog or web archive relating their experiences in text...this is different from the video/audio recording feature, and this would also be searchable.
I'm sure there are other tools that others would need or could use based on their individual disciplines.
the second goal was to establish a method to publish research. I imagine this could be a "call" for an organization to host a robust web server with a huge drive that could be expanded. This server would host an electronic document that would be "published" on a regular basis, be it quarterly or yearly. The electronic version of this publication (platform could be proposed by the hosting organization based on features, search, and multimedia potential), would contain multimedia as well as text and would be searchable. Optionally there could be a corresponding print version of this publication which would be similar in features minus the electronic cababilites. Both would contain proper publication references and would be peer refereed.
The third goal is, according to my understanding or perhaps suggestion, would be to provide funding to "enhance" existing virtual environments to provide new features to modify, or better enable the first two goals.
I thought it might be useful to attempt a taxonomy of the 'Uses of VWs by Humanist Scholars'. I worked up an interactive 'freemind' map, took a snapshot, and posted it to
http://web.bvu.edu/faculty/
schwe...rlyUsesVWs.jpeg
Commenting by HaloScan
