A systematic review and environmental analysis of the use of 3D immersive virtual worlds in Australian and New Zealand higher education institutions: Final report 2013 (original) (raw)

2013, Final report 2013 (pp. 1–226). Armidale, Australia: DEHub: Innovation in Distance Education, University of New England

3D immersive virtual worlds such as Second Life have been the focus of substantial attention from tertiary educators in recent years and the potential for the use of such environments in learning and teaching contexts has been a frequent topic of discussion by commentators on higher education futures. However, despite anecdotal evidence of an increase in usage of such environments for learning and teaching in Australian and New Zealand higher education, there have been no published studies reporting on the breadth of use and the nature of the experience of adopters of such environments across the sector. This report draws on data from a review and environmental analysis of the use of 3D immersive virtual worlds in higher education in Australia and New Zealand, carried out by researchers from Charles Sturt University (CSU), the University of New England (UNE) and the University of Southern Queensland (USQ) from 2010 to 2012. The study sought to identify and examine existing applications of 3D immersive virtual worlds by educators throughout the two countries, with the aim of developing an understanding of how the technology is being used for learning and teaching across institutions and disciplines and the relevant experiences of academics, educational designers and Information Technology (IT) support staff. The study has been carried out under the auspices of the Distance Education Hub (DEHub at http://www.dehub.edu.au), a federally funded research consortium based at UNE that involves UNE, CSU, USQ and Central Queensland University in Australia, and Massey University in New Zealand. The study set out to provide the higher education community with exemplars, guidelines and recommendations to encourage the successful uptake, implementation and use of 3D immersive virtual worlds. The scoping study consisted of three phases of data collection: 1. Literature searches and searches of institutional web sites leading to the establishment of a database of 179 higher education staff (135 in Australia and 44 in New Zealand) with an interest or involvement in using 3D immersive virtual worlds for learning and teaching; 2. An online questionnaire completed by 117 respondents, including 82 from Australia and 35 from New Zealand, to obtain information about the ways in which 3D immersive virtual worlds were used, and about the perspectives of the teaching staff involved; 3. Interviews to gather more detailed information and perspectives from 13 academic staff who had implemented virtual worlds in their teaching, from six educational design staff and from five Information Technology (IT) support staff. The 62 respondents who indicated they had already used 3D immersive virtual worlds in their teaching reported on a total of 125 individual subjects in which they had used the technology, including 201 individual subject offerings. Details were provided about the use of virtual worlds in 100 subjects, and of these, the majority used Second Life (78.0%) as the virtual worlds platform, followed by Active Worlds (5.0%) and OpenSim (4.0%). Within these 100 subjects the virtual world-based tasks were compulsory and assessed in 41% of subjects, compulsory but not assessed in 16%, and neither compulsory nor assessed in 43%. There was a fairly even distribution of subjects using virtual worlds across disciplines, although the science discipline was somewhat underrepresented. Specifically, 29% were in the Arts and Humanities, 21% in Education, 18% in Information Technology, 10% in Legal and Business Studies, 9% in Health, 4% in Science and 9% in other discipline areas. Respondents provided 53 detailed descriptions of the way in which virtual worlds were used in their teaching, and from these descriptions, ten categories of learning design were identified, with a number of subjects fitting into more than one category. The most commonly used virtual world supported learning design was role-play (43% of subjects), followed by learning designs centred on communication (40%), learning designs focussing on instruction or presentation (23%) and place exploration and building/scripting (each 17%). Fifty-five respondents provided more detailed information about a specific virtual world implementation, and of these 55% indicated that the virtual world, island or space was developed specifically for the purpose of the subject they taught. Twenty-two per cent of these 55 respondents indicated that an important aspect of the learning task was familiarisation with Second Life and consequently these respondents indicated that students were required to explore the environment as a whole rather than using a space developed for a specific pedagogical purpose. Of these 55 respondents, 55% indicated that they had drawn on the support of non academic staff within their institutions, such as information technology or educational design support staff. Fifty-five per cent also indicated that they had drawn upon dedicated funding to support the implementation with this funding coming from a variety of internal and external sources. Interview participants described a number of different virtual spaces that had been developed to meet the specific needs of their particular learning context, including a virtual hospital emergency department, a virtual classroom, and a simulated street with retail outlets allowing students to undertake a business role-play. Others described the development of spaces designed for various types of online teaching including amphitheatres, boardrooms, and informal student meeting spaces. Some of the spaces developed consisted largely of static building and furniture, while others incorporated dynamic features controlled by complex scripts, for example one participant described a virtual environment containing business outlets controlled by a complex back-end economic simulation. Other spaces relied on user interface enhancement allowing avatar control beyond that provided by default within the viewer software. With respect to evaluation, little systematic evaluation was described in the interviews, with participants mainly describing informal feedback mechanisms and some types of formal but not systematic evaluation. Most commonly, participants described informal student feedback or informal observation of student activity as the main evaluation mechanisms. Formal evaluation procedures predominately included student subject evaluation forms that were included as part of a university reporting system. Of those that did mention systematic evaluation, most referred to research projects associated with the virtual world implementation. Respondents to the questionnaire mentioned a number of problems they had encountered in their attempts to integrate virtual world activities into their teaching and these problems were grouped into the following categories: technology, support, funding and time, usability and familiarity, equity and ethics, inherent limitations of virtual worlds, acceptance of virtual worlds, and management and planning. Interview participants also provided more detailed descriptions of many of the problems identified, and a number of recommendations for others emerged from both the questionnaire responses and interviews. Other perspectives emerging from interviews included identification of a lack of specific funding for, and an absence of institutional policies relating to virtual worlds, an acknowledgement of the need for substantial time commitment by staff considering the adoption of virtual worlds, and noting of the value of working with others through informal and formal networks. Additionally, academic staff members interviewed highlighted the increased engagement of students that had occurred through the introduction of virtual worlds based tasks and the fact that the process of introducing virtual worlds into their teaching had led to new reflections on their teaching practice.