Grand Challenge at ACM Multimedia 2011 on “Realistic Interaction in Online Virtual Environments”

EMC2 have teamed up with Huawai to present a Grand Challenge at ACM Multimedia 2011 on “Realistic Interaction in Online Virtual Environments”, which we believe may be of interest to you and your colleagues. The challenge provides a captured dataset that provides scope for research into a variety of areas, including the challenges main focus “real-time realistic interaction between humans in online virtual environments”. The provided dataset consists of recordings of a number of Salsa dancers, of differing expertise, from a variety of modalities, including microphones, cameras, inertial sensors and depth sensors. In addition, ground-truth annotations of the choreographies have been made. More details are given hereafter, or visit http://www.3dlife-noe.eu/3DLife/emc2/grand-challenge/ Read more on Call: Grand Challenge at ACM Multimedia 2011 on “Realistic Interaction in Online Virtual Environments”…

Workshop: “Collaborative usage and development of models and visualizations”
at ECSCW 2011 (European Conference on Computer Supported Cooperative Work)

Date: 24 or 25 September, 2011 (still pending)
Venue: Aarhus University, Denmark

http://www.imtm-iaw.rub.de/events/ecscw/index.html.en
Download the workshop description here.

The usage of graphical representations of work and business process such as process models can be considered a common practice in modern organizations. As their development can become a complex task it is reasonable to draft them collaboratively. Also they become increasingly useful when used by larger groups throughout an organization. However despite modeling being a popular approach in practice, models are hardly used by non-experts and have little impact on the people actually working in these processes. This raises questions such as why there is so little use of models after their creation, how this usage can be increased and which kind of tools and modes of interaction are suitable for non-modeling experts. Furthermore collaborative modeling most of the time remains restricted to collocated facilitated workshops. This approach however is not feasible as processes have to be rapidly adjusted to changing conditions inside and outside of an organization. Given the increasing usage of graphical representations in organizations, their collaborative use and creation is of vital interest for the CSCW community and therefore this workshop can be a starting point in forming a research community.

Topics

The workshop welcomes different kind of contributions, including the description of case studies and other empirical work on model usage and development, position papers e.g. describing future research and educational experiences with collaborative models usage and development. Read more on Call: “Collaborative usage and development of models and visualizations” – Workshop at ECSCW 2011…

Telepresence Options Magazine – Your Guide to Visual Collaboration

Telepresence Options is pleased to announce the launch of Telepresence Options Magazine. The new magazine which is available in hard copy and a digital edition covers the latest in telepresence and effective visual collaboration technologies.

Read more on Call: Telepresence Options Magazine…

Australasian Journal of Educational Technology

Special issue 2012, Volume 28: Call for articles
Virtual worlds in tertiary education: An Australasian perspective

Submissions are invited for a forthcoming special issue of AJET to be published in early 2012, entitled Virtual worlds in tertiary education: An Australasian perspective, edited by Mark J.W. Lee (Charles Sturt University and University of New England), Dr Barney Dalgarno (Charles Sturt University) and Dr Helen Farley (University of Southern Queensland) for the DEHub Virtual Worlds Working Group. As announced in AJET Editorial 27(1) and to be publicised through various listservs and society news bulletins, Virtual worlds in tertiary education will be AJET’s third special issue.

Virtual worlds have generated much attention and interest among tertiary education practitioners and researchers over the last few years. Universities and colleges across the globe are investing heavily in the technology, with some making use of commercial platforms like Second Life to provide spaces within which to build resources and conduct activities, and others licensing or developing their own platforms for hosting on their internal servers and networks. While a number of other education and educational technology journals have published special issues centred around the topic of virtual worlds (e.g. Bell, Savin-Baden & Ward, 2008; Chandler, Collinson, Crellin & Duke-Williams, 2009; Hunsinger & Krotoski, 2010; Rea, 2009; Salmon & Hawkridge, 2009; Steinkuehler & Squire, 2009; Twining, 2010; Veletsianos & de Freitas, 2010), a noticeable majority of the articles published in these issues have emanated from the UK and USA. This is by no means indicative of a lack of activity occurring in this area in other countries such as Australia and New Zealand – in fact, there is a great deal of innovation, experimentation and dialogue taking place in the virtual worlds arena across the tertiary education sector in these two countries, especially at the grassroots level (Dalgarno, Lee, Carlson, Gregory & Tynan, 2011; see also Bradshaw, 2006; Gregory et al., 2010; Salomon, 2010; Salt, Atkins & Blackall, 2008; Winter, 2010). This is reflected, for example, in the level of representation of the topic in the Programs and Proceedings of recent ascilite conferences (Atkinson & McBeath, 2008, 2009; Steel, Keppell, Gerbic & Housego, 2010).

This special issue invites contributions from across Australasia as well as the wider Asia-Pacific region. It will comprise articles that address theory, research and practical issues related to the use of virtual worlds in all aspects of tertiary education, encompassing both higher education and vocational education and training (VET). Read more on Call: Virtual worlds in tertiary education: An Australasian perspective…

GAME-ON North America 2011
6th Annual International North-American Conference on AI and Simulation in Games
September 28-30, 2011
Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute
Troy, New York, USA

Organized by The European Technology Institute
Co-Sponsored by EUROSIS

Conference web site:
http://www.eurosis.org/cms/?q=taxonomy/term/294

FIRST CALL FOR PAPERS

Aim

Games have become an important part of our everyday life, not only as a means of entertainment, but also by providing a unique venue for recreation, training, health intervention and artistic creation.

The aim of the 6th annual North American Game-On Conference (GameOn’NA 2011) is to bring together academics, researchers and commercial game developers from North America and around the world to exchange ideas and present new advances in the field of digital gaming research. This conference also aims to enhance research contacts in the field of gaming research between researchers from North American and from other parts of the world. The design and development of games involve many disciplines. GameOn’NA focuses broadly on the AI, Simulation, psychological and social aspects of digital games. The intent of the GameOn’NA 2011 event is to expose the research qualities of the efforts currently being studied and employed in the gaming community: projects in games research fields, students’ game-related research work, commercial game development and design including tools, etc. Read more on Call: GAMEON-NA’2011 – 6th Annual International North-American Conference on AI and Simulation in Games…