Ekaterina Prasolova-Førland | Norwegian University of Science and Technology (original) (raw)
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Book Chapters by Ekaterina Prasolova-Førland
Lecture Notes in Computer Science (LNCS) – Transactions on Computational Science (TCS), Volume 8490, Issue XXIII, 2014
Understanding culture is an integral part of international operations in developing countries and... more Understanding culture is an integral part of international operations in developing countries and conflict zones. Cultural encounters in countries such as Afghanistan might introduce a number of challenges. This article presents the experiences with the CAMO project (Cultural Awareness in Military Operations) seeking to address these challenges. Game-based simulations are to an increasing degree used for military training, but most of the systems are expensive to develop. The goal of the project has been to create an inexpensive game-based simulation in the 3D virtual world of Second Life for pre-deployment cultural awareness training among Norwegian military personnel preparing for service in Afghanistan. At the same time, due to the gradual withdrawal of troops from Afghanistan, training cultural awareness among civilian personnel becomes more important. This article presents the results of the CAMO project, discussing how the proposed methodology could be extended for non-military use as well, and outlining the challenges and directions for future work.
Papers by Ekaterina Prasolova-Førland
20th International Conference on Virtual Systems and Multimedia (VSMM), Dec 12, 2014
The purpose of this work is to contribute to the design and development of a virtual university h... more The purpose of this work is to contribute to the design and development of a virtual university hospital as a place for educational activities. The findings presented in this paper are based on two exploratory studies using a virtual operating room with both medical and non-medical participants. The room was designed to recreate a real one at St. Olav’s university hospital in Trondheim, Norway. The first participant category was represented by surgical and anesthesia postgraduate nursing students who conducted role-play of realistic and relevant scenarios in the virtual operating room. The non-medical participants went on a virtual guided tour around in the same operating room. Both participant groups provided suggestions for further development of the virtual hospital. We have also investigated the use of the Oculus Rift, a head mounted display, as a way of enhancing the immersion at the virtual operating room. The paper highlights and discusses the most important findings, with suggestions of future work.
This paper discusses a theatrical performance in a 3D collaborative virtual environment (3D CVE).... more This paper discusses a theatrical performance in a 3D collaborative virtual environment (3D CVE). Place in a performative 3D CVE is contingent on immersion and presence generated by social interaction. It discusses the production of an online performance of Plato's Allegory of the Cave involving students from three different continents. It was found that theatrical activities in a 3D CVE share some of the characteristics of both cinema and traditional theatre. The paper identifies different types of places in 3D CVE and discusses their role in an educational context.
International Conference on Advanced Learning Technologies, 2002
In this paper we discuss the usage of Collaborative Virtual Environments (CVE) in educational set... more In this paper we discuss the usage of Collaborative Virtual Environments (CVE) in educational settings. In particular we discuss the role that these systems can play in supporting learning communities. The focus of the paper is on the representation of space that underlies these systems. We present and compare different spatial metaphors presented in the literature and analyze how they
Digital Systems for Open Access to Formal and Informal Learning, 2014
Supporting social creativity across different domains and disciplines in learning communities is ... more Supporting social creativity across different domains and disciplines in learning communities is an important part of collaborative process in university education, workplace, and in the context of large-scale international projects. In this paper, we present the experiences from the Virtual Summer School in Second Life as an attempt to support creative communities in a systematic manner and preserve their knowledge in a shared repository. The Virtual Summer School acted as a forum for the presentation of innovative approaches, developments, and outcomes of research projects in the areas of technology-enhanced learning, serious games, and collaborative technologies, facilitating the exchange of ideas between students, researchers, and practitioners. Based on our experience and data collected, we present lessons learned and implications for supporting creative communities by conducting collaborative activities and by preserving their results.
Lecture Notes in Computer Science, 2008
Sixth IEEE International Conference on Advanced Learning Technologies (ICALT'06), 2006
Fifth IEEE International Conference on Advanced Learning Technologies (ICALT'05), 2005
ACM SIGGROUP Bulletin, 2003
Third International Conference on Systems (icons 2008), 2008
Proceedings 3rd IEEE International Conference on Advanced Technologies, 2003
the 20th International Conference on Collaboration and Technology (CRIWG)
In this paper, we present the first results of a study on exploring how to support collaborative ... more In this paper, we present the first results of a study on exploring how to support collaborative learning of surgical nursing students in a 3D virtual world. A Virtual Operating room, resembling the one at St. Olav’s University Hospital in Trondheim, Norway was created in Second Life to accommodate an educational role-play. In this role-play, the operating nursing students could practice communication with patients and cooperation in the team while preparing patients for surgery. At the first stage of the evaluation, the virtual simulation has been tested among nine postgraduate nursing students. The participants gave their evaluation and opinions in the form of questionnaires and discussion after the role-plays. Following the analysis of the data, we present a summary of the most important results in this paper. This study provides a number of suggestions for improving the learning process when role-playing in a virtual environment. We demonstrate that an educational simulation can be implemented with limited resources, and yet be practically useful in education of health personnel. Further research with medical and nursing students is highly applicable and feasible, and should include a larger group of participants. In the next stage of our work, the evaluation of the Virtual Operating room has been conducted with nurses, who are on an earlier stage of their study program, as well as anesthesia nurses and non-medics.
Intelligent Systems Reference Library, 2015
Much architectural design work ,increasingly addresses an international audience. But many design... more Much architectural design work ,increasingly addresses an international audience. But many designers continue to work in isolation. In practice, however, their work includes international collaboration. This requires cross-cultural understandings with their cocollaborators. There are few opportunities for this to occur in a pedagogical setting. The 3Dco-located laboratory (3DCollab) described in this paper was used as a cross-cultural exchange,platform to
2005 International Conference on Cyberworlds (CW'05), 2005
… , 2008. ICALT'08. …, Jan 1, 2008
In recent years, virtual museums have become more widespread and the usage of them for educationa... more In recent years, virtual museums have become more widespread and the usage of them for educational purposes has increased. They are used to facilitate educational process in different ways, such as presenting their exhibitions online and serving as a place for educational activities. In this paper, we present an example of such a virtual museum – “3D Virtual Environment for Learning Arts”. Still, only few of existing virtual museums provide sufficient support for collaboration and social interaction. Therefore, considering the growing importance of collaborative technologies and social networking in education, we show how a virtual museum can be enhanced and extended to serve as a collaborative virtual workshop.
In this paper, we seek to develop a holistic approach to educational virtual cities, introducing ... more In this paper, we seek to develop a holistic approach to educational virtual cities, introducing a concept of ‘Universcity’ as a framework for a wide range of social, cultural and educational activities, a city for students, researchers and other learners to live and work in. The metaphor of a city is widely used in the design of virtual worlds. However, a systematic approach to learning support in virtual cities is not fully developed yet. To fill the gap, we consider a city as a place for lifelong learning, with a broad spectrum of disciplines and areas of knowledge. We have investigated these aspects in the implementation of two projects where virtual reality was used for the contextualization of educational activities. Based on the experiences from these projects and related work, we propose an initial design of ‘Universcity’.
9th International Conference on Cooperative Design, Visualization and Engineering (CDVE) LNCS 7467, ISSN: 0302-9743, ISBN:978-3-642-32608-0
Project work is becoming an important part of university education aiming at preparing students f... more Project work is becoming an important part of university education aiming at preparing students for team-based activities in a workplace. However, cooperation problems are common in the learning process. The major purpose of this paper is to address these challenges by applying a three-dimensional Collaborative Virtual Environment (3D CVE) as a platform for learning how cooperation can be supported by technology. 3D CVEs, such as Second Life, have become increasingly popular as cooperation and learning platforms, providing wide possibilities for collaborative work, interaction, and visualization. In the discussion, we use the results of an explorative case study conducted within the Cooperation Technology course at the Norwegian University of Sci-ence and Technology. Students were working in small groups on the projects aiming at visualizing major curriculum concepts. We analyze collaboration in student groups that occur on different levels and, as a result, provide a set of implications for using 3D CVEs for learning computer-mediated cooperation.
Lecture Notes in Computer Science (LNCS) – Transactions on Computational Science (TCS), Volume 8490, Issue XXIII, 2014
Understanding culture is an integral part of international operations in developing countries and... more Understanding culture is an integral part of international operations in developing countries and conflict zones. Cultural encounters in countries such as Afghanistan might introduce a number of challenges. This article presents the experiences with the CAMO project (Cultural Awareness in Military Operations) seeking to address these challenges. Game-based simulations are to an increasing degree used for military training, but most of the systems are expensive to develop. The goal of the project has been to create an inexpensive game-based simulation in the 3D virtual world of Second Life for pre-deployment cultural awareness training among Norwegian military personnel preparing for service in Afghanistan. At the same time, due to the gradual withdrawal of troops from Afghanistan, training cultural awareness among civilian personnel becomes more important. This article presents the results of the CAMO project, discussing how the proposed methodology could be extended for non-military use as well, and outlining the challenges and directions for future work.
20th International Conference on Virtual Systems and Multimedia (VSMM), Dec 12, 2014
The purpose of this work is to contribute to the design and development of a virtual university h... more The purpose of this work is to contribute to the design and development of a virtual university hospital as a place for educational activities. The findings presented in this paper are based on two exploratory studies using a virtual operating room with both medical and non-medical participants. The room was designed to recreate a real one at St. Olav’s university hospital in Trondheim, Norway. The first participant category was represented by surgical and anesthesia postgraduate nursing students who conducted role-play of realistic and relevant scenarios in the virtual operating room. The non-medical participants went on a virtual guided tour around in the same operating room. Both participant groups provided suggestions for further development of the virtual hospital. We have also investigated the use of the Oculus Rift, a head mounted display, as a way of enhancing the immersion at the virtual operating room. The paper highlights and discusses the most important findings, with suggestions of future work.
This paper discusses a theatrical performance in a 3D collaborative virtual environment (3D CVE).... more This paper discusses a theatrical performance in a 3D collaborative virtual environment (3D CVE). Place in a performative 3D CVE is contingent on immersion and presence generated by social interaction. It discusses the production of an online performance of Plato's Allegory of the Cave involving students from three different continents. It was found that theatrical activities in a 3D CVE share some of the characteristics of both cinema and traditional theatre. The paper identifies different types of places in 3D CVE and discusses their role in an educational context.
International Conference on Advanced Learning Technologies, 2002
In this paper we discuss the usage of Collaborative Virtual Environments (CVE) in educational set... more In this paper we discuss the usage of Collaborative Virtual Environments (CVE) in educational settings. In particular we discuss the role that these systems can play in supporting learning communities. The focus of the paper is on the representation of space that underlies these systems. We present and compare different spatial metaphors presented in the literature and analyze how they
Digital Systems for Open Access to Formal and Informal Learning, 2014
Supporting social creativity across different domains and disciplines in learning communities is ... more Supporting social creativity across different domains and disciplines in learning communities is an important part of collaborative process in university education, workplace, and in the context of large-scale international projects. In this paper, we present the experiences from the Virtual Summer School in Second Life as an attempt to support creative communities in a systematic manner and preserve their knowledge in a shared repository. The Virtual Summer School acted as a forum for the presentation of innovative approaches, developments, and outcomes of research projects in the areas of technology-enhanced learning, serious games, and collaborative technologies, facilitating the exchange of ideas between students, researchers, and practitioners. Based on our experience and data collected, we present lessons learned and implications for supporting creative communities by conducting collaborative activities and by preserving their results.
Lecture Notes in Computer Science, 2008
Sixth IEEE International Conference on Advanced Learning Technologies (ICALT'06), 2006
Fifth IEEE International Conference on Advanced Learning Technologies (ICALT'05), 2005
ACM SIGGROUP Bulletin, 2003
Third International Conference on Systems (icons 2008), 2008
Proceedings 3rd IEEE International Conference on Advanced Technologies, 2003
the 20th International Conference on Collaboration and Technology (CRIWG)
In this paper, we present the first results of a study on exploring how to support collaborative ... more In this paper, we present the first results of a study on exploring how to support collaborative learning of surgical nursing students in a 3D virtual world. A Virtual Operating room, resembling the one at St. Olav’s University Hospital in Trondheim, Norway was created in Second Life to accommodate an educational role-play. In this role-play, the operating nursing students could practice communication with patients and cooperation in the team while preparing patients for surgery. At the first stage of the evaluation, the virtual simulation has been tested among nine postgraduate nursing students. The participants gave their evaluation and opinions in the form of questionnaires and discussion after the role-plays. Following the analysis of the data, we present a summary of the most important results in this paper. This study provides a number of suggestions for improving the learning process when role-playing in a virtual environment. We demonstrate that an educational simulation can be implemented with limited resources, and yet be practically useful in education of health personnel. Further research with medical and nursing students is highly applicable and feasible, and should include a larger group of participants. In the next stage of our work, the evaluation of the Virtual Operating room has been conducted with nurses, who are on an earlier stage of their study program, as well as anesthesia nurses and non-medics.
Intelligent Systems Reference Library, 2015
Much architectural design work ,increasingly addresses an international audience. But many design... more Much architectural design work ,increasingly addresses an international audience. But many designers continue to work in isolation. In practice, however, their work includes international collaboration. This requires cross-cultural understandings with their cocollaborators. There are few opportunities for this to occur in a pedagogical setting. The 3Dco-located laboratory (3DCollab) described in this paper was used as a cross-cultural exchange,platform to
2005 International Conference on Cyberworlds (CW'05), 2005
… , 2008. ICALT'08. …, Jan 1, 2008
In recent years, virtual museums have become more widespread and the usage of them for educationa... more In recent years, virtual museums have become more widespread and the usage of them for educational purposes has increased. They are used to facilitate educational process in different ways, such as presenting their exhibitions online and serving as a place for educational activities. In this paper, we present an example of such a virtual museum – “3D Virtual Environment for Learning Arts”. Still, only few of existing virtual museums provide sufficient support for collaboration and social interaction. Therefore, considering the growing importance of collaborative technologies and social networking in education, we show how a virtual museum can be enhanced and extended to serve as a collaborative virtual workshop.
In this paper, we seek to develop a holistic approach to educational virtual cities, introducing ... more In this paper, we seek to develop a holistic approach to educational virtual cities, introducing a concept of ‘Universcity’ as a framework for a wide range of social, cultural and educational activities, a city for students, researchers and other learners to live and work in. The metaphor of a city is widely used in the design of virtual worlds. However, a systematic approach to learning support in virtual cities is not fully developed yet. To fill the gap, we consider a city as a place for lifelong learning, with a broad spectrum of disciplines and areas of knowledge. We have investigated these aspects in the implementation of two projects where virtual reality was used for the contextualization of educational activities. Based on the experiences from these projects and related work, we propose an initial design of ‘Universcity’.
9th International Conference on Cooperative Design, Visualization and Engineering (CDVE) LNCS 7467, ISSN: 0302-9743, ISBN:978-3-642-32608-0
Project work is becoming an important part of university education aiming at preparing students f... more Project work is becoming an important part of university education aiming at preparing students for team-based activities in a workplace. However, cooperation problems are common in the learning process. The major purpose of this paper is to address these challenges by applying a three-dimensional Collaborative Virtual Environment (3D CVE) as a platform for learning how cooperation can be supported by technology. 3D CVEs, such as Second Life, have become increasingly popular as cooperation and learning platforms, providing wide possibilities for collaborative work, interaction, and visualization. In the discussion, we use the results of an explorative case study conducted within the Cooperation Technology course at the Norwegian University of Sci-ence and Technology. Students were working in small groups on the projects aiming at visualizing major curriculum concepts. We analyze collaboration in student groups that occur on different levels and, as a result, provide a set of implications for using 3D CVEs for learning computer-mediated cooperation.
46th Hawaii International Conference on System Sciences (HICSS), Jan 7, 2013
3D virtual worlds and game-based simulations are to an increasing degree used for military traini... more 3D virtual worlds and game-based simulations are to an increasing degree used for military training. However, there is a lack of research-based methods for using game-based simulations and developing scenarios for educational role-plays in a military context, especially in the area of cultural awareness. The CAMO project (Cultural Awareness in Military Operations) seeks to address these challenges. The goal of the project has been to create a game-based simulation in Second Life for training cultural awareness among military personnel preparing for international operations and to explore the advantages and limitations of 3D virtual worlds in this context. This paper will focus on the methodology for scenario development, outlining the challenges and directions for future work.
Originally presented at the International Conference on Applied Computing, Computer Science, and Computer Engineering (ICACC), 2014
In this paper, we present a project aiming at integrating immersive virtual reality technologies ... more In this paper, we present a project aiming at integrating immersive virtual reality technologies into a three-dimensional virtual world. We use an educational platform vAcademia as a test bed for the project, and focus on improving the learning process and, subsequently – the outcomes. We aim at increasing the immersiveness of 3D virtual world experience by applying motion tracking for controlling the avatar and two technologies for natural navigation: immersive projection and head-mounted display. In addition, we propose the major types of learning scenarios for the use of the designed systems.
International Journal of Emerging …
In recent years, virtual worlds have become increasingly popular in education and social life. Us... more In recent years, virtual worlds have become increasingly popular in education and social life. Using a ‘city’ metaphor, we are developing a 3D virtual world enriched with social and educational tools. This virtual world allows performing a number of activities, such as exploring the city, learning and communicating with its citizens, building a social network. In this paper we report the results of case studies we have performed to explore users’ activities and behavior in a virtual city context. Our goal was to investigate how such a city can facilitate learning and socializing, also in a cross-cultural context. Based on the empirical results, we derive a list of recommendations for a virtual city as a place for social and educational activities.
Purpose – Collaborative virtual environments (CVEs) have become increasingly popular in education... more Purpose – Collaborative virtual environments (CVEs) have become increasingly popular in educational settings and the role of 3D content is becoming more and more important. Still, there are many challenges in this area, such as lack of empirical studies that provide design for educational activities in 3D CVEs and lack of norms of how to support and assess learning in with such technology. The purpose of this paper is to address these challenges by discussing the use of a 3D CVE in a university course for three years and suggesting practical guidelines based on the data from observations.
Design/methodology/approach – The main research question of the discussion in this paper is: How to facilitate learning by means of educational visualizations in 3D CVEs? The authors discuss data from several explorative case studies conducted within the Cooperation Technology course at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology. In these case studies, the authors focused on a particular type of collaborative work with 3D content – educational visualizations. Groups of students were asked to build creative visualizations of a certain topic (e.g. a research project or a curriculum topic) and present the construction to the public. The data were collected from the direct observation of students' activities online, virtual artefacts, such as chat log and 3D constructions, and users' feedback in a form of group essays or blogs.
Findings – Following the analysis of these data, the authors introduce an original methodology for facilitating collaborative work with 3D content in an educational context and provide a characterization framework – Typology of 3D Content and Visualization Means, which can be used together with the methodology for analysing constructions in 3D CVEs. Constructionism and social constructivism were used as a theoretical grounding.
Research limitations/implications – Although the research method applied has certain limitations related to the settings of the conducted studies, such as observing the same course each year and impossibility of having a control group, this research still provides important insights, as it identifies overall tendencies in conducting educational activities in 3D CVEs.
Practical implications – The suggested methodology was developed for teachers, instructors, and technicians. It can be used as a guideline for organizing educational activities using collaborative work with 3D content.
Originality/value – Results of the authors' research indicate that the methodology suggested in the paper benefits structuring and planning of educational visualizations in 3D CVEs. It can be considered as a contribution to the field, as it helps to fill the gap in practical guidelines for the advanced use of 3D CVEs in educational settings.