Towards an Automated Model to Evaluate Collaboration through Non-Verbal Interaction in Collaborative Virtual Environments

Virtual environments represent a helpful resource for learning and training. In their multiuser modality, Collaborative Virtual Environments (CVE) support geographical distant people to experience collaborative learning and team training; a context in which the automatic monitor of collaboration can provide valuable and in time information, either for human instructors or intelligent tutor systems, about individual and group performance. CVE enable people to share a virtual space where they interact through a graphical representation, generating nonverbal behavior such as gaze-direction or deictic gestures, a potential means to understand collaboration. This paper presents an automated model and its inference mechanisms to evaluate collaboration in CVE based on the nonverbal activity of the participants. The model is a multi-layer analysis that includes: data filtering, fuzzy classification, and rule-based inference producing high-level assessment for group collaboration.

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Automatic Approach to Evaluate Collaborative Interaction in Virtual Environments

Advances in Human and Social Aspects of Technology - Handbook of Research on Technology Integration in the Global World ◽

10.4018/978-1-5225-6367-9.ch001 ◽

2019 ◽

pp. 1-23 ◽

Cited By ~ 1

Author(s):

Luis Casillas ◽

Adriana Peña ◽

Alfredo Gutierrez

Keyword(s):

Virtual Environments ◽

Virtual Space ◽

Fuzzy Classification ◽

Collaborative Virtual Environments ◽

Rule Based ◽

Layer Analysis ◽

High Level ◽

Task Oriented ◽

Intelligent Tutor ◽

Time Information

Virtual environments for multi-users, collaborative virtual environments (CVE), support geographical distant people to experience collaborative learning and team training. In this context, monitoring collaboration provides valuable, and in time, information regarding individual and group indicators, helpful for human instructors or intelligent tutor systems. CVE enable people to share a virtual space, interacting with an avatar, generating nonverbal behavior such as gaze-direction or deictic gestures, a potential means to understand collaboration. This chapter presents an automated model and its inference mechanisms to evaluate collaboration in CVE based on expert human rules of nonverbal participants' activity. The model is a multi-layer analysis that includes data filtering, fuzzy classification, and rule-based inference producing a high-level assessment of group collaboration. This approach was applied to a task-oriented session, where two participants assembled cubes in a CVE to create a figure.

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High-Level Model for Educational Collaborative Virtual Environments Development

2012 IEEE 12th International Conference on Advanced Learning Technologies ◽

10.1109/icalt.2012.25 ◽

2012 ◽

Cited By ~ 2

Author(s):

Rosa Reis ◽

Paula Escudeiro ◽

Benjamin Fonseca

Keyword(s):

Virtual Environments ◽

Collaborative Virtual Environments ◽

Level Model ◽

Educational Collaborative ◽

High Level

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An Overview of the COVEN Platform

Presence Teleoperators & Virtual Environments ◽

10.1162/105474601750182351 ◽

2001 ◽

Vol 10 (1) ◽

pp. 109-127 ◽

Cited By ~ 33

Author(s):

Emmanuel Frécon ◽

Gareth Smith ◽

Anthony Steed ◽

Mårten Stenius ◽

Olov Ståhl

Keyword(s):

Virtual Environments ◽

Virtual Environment ◽

Large Scale ◽

State Of The Art ◽

Collaborative Virtual Environments ◽

Semantic Modeling ◽

High Level ◽

Interactive Virtual Environment ◽

Real Scale

A central aim of the COVEN project was to prototype large-scale applications of collaborative virtual environments (CVEs) that went beyond the existing state of the art. These applications were used in a series of real-scale networked trials that allowed us to gather many interesting human and technological results. To fulfill the technological and experimental goals of the project, we have modified an existing CVE platform: the DIVE (distributed interactive virtual environment) toolkit. In this paper, we present the different services and extensions that have been implemented within the platform during the four years of the project. Such a presentation will exemplify the different features that will have to be offered by nextgeneration CVE platforms. Implementation of the COVEN services has had implications at all levels of the platform: from a new networking layer through to mechanisms for high-level semantic modeling of applications.

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High-level development of collaborative virtual environments

2013 International Conference on Collaboration Technologies and Systems (CTS) ◽

10.1109/cts.2013.6567287 ◽

2013 ◽

Author(s):

Vasily Y. Kharitonov

Keyword(s):

Virtual Environments ◽

Collaborative Virtual Environments ◽

High Level

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Transformed Social Interaction: Decoupling Representation from Behavior and Form in Collaborative Virtual Environments

Presence Teleoperators & Virtual Environments ◽

10.1162/1054746041944803 ◽

2004 ◽

Vol 13 (4) ◽

pp. 428-441 ◽

Cited By ~ 101

Author(s):

Jeremy N. Bailenson ◽

Andrew C. Beall ◽

Jack Loomis ◽

Jim Blascovich ◽

Matthew Turk

Keyword(s):

Social Interaction ◽

Virtual Environments ◽

Communication Systems ◽

Computer Mediated Communication ◽

Virtual Space ◽

Actual Behavior ◽

Research Paradigm ◽

Nonverbal Behaviors ◽

Collaborative Virtual Environments ◽

Mediated Communication

Computer-mediated communication systems known as collaborative virtual environments (CVEs) allow geographically separated individuals to interact verbally and nonverbally in a shared virtual space in real time. We discuss a CVE-based research paradigm that transforms (i.e., filters and modifies) nonverbal behaviors during social interaction. Because the technology underlying CVEs allows a strategic decoupling of rendered behavior from the actual behavior of the interactants, conceptual and perceptual constraints inherent in face-to-face interaction need not apply. Decoupling algorithms can enhance or degrade facets of nonverbal behavior within CVEs, such that interactants can reap the benefits of nonverbal enhancement or suffer nonverbal degradation. Concepts underlying transformed social interaction (TSI), the ethics and implications of such a research paradigm, and data from a pilot study examining TSI are discussed.

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LIRKIS Global Collaborative Virtual Environments: Current State and Utilization Perspective

Open Computer Science ◽

10.1515/comp-2020-0124 ◽

2020 ◽

Vol 11 (1) ◽

pp. 99-106

Author(s):

Marián Hudák ◽

Štefan Korečko ◽

Branislav Sobota

Keyword(s):

Virtual Reality ◽

Virtual Environments ◽

Smart Devices ◽

Collaborative Virtual Environments ◽

Web Based ◽

Smart Client ◽

Input Devices ◽

User Input ◽

History Of ◽

Shared Virtual Environments

AbstractRecent advances in the field of web technologies, including the increasing support of virtual reality hardware, have allowed for shared virtual environments, reachable by just entering a URL in a browser. One contemporary solution that provides such a shared virtual reality is LIRKIS Global Collaborative Virtual Environments (LIRKIS G-CVE). It is a web-based software system, built on top of the A-Frame and Networked-Aframe frameworks. This paper describes LIRKIS G-CVE and introduces its two original components. The first one is the Smart-Client Interface, which turns smart devices, such as smartphones and tablets, into input devices. The advantage of this component over the standard way of user input is demonstrated by a series of experiments. The second component is the Enhanced Client Access layer, which provides access to positions and orientations of clients that share a virtual environment. The layer also stores a history of connected clients and provides limited control over the clients. The paper also outlines an ongoing experiment aimed at an evaluation of LIRKIS G-CVE in the area of virtual prototype testing.

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Developing a BIM-Based MUVR Treadmill System for Architectural Design Review and Collaboration

Applied Sciences ◽

10.3390/app11156881 ◽

2021 ◽

Vol 11 (15) ◽

pp. 6881

Author(s):

Calvin Chung Wai Keung ◽

Jung In Kim ◽

Qiao Min Ong

Keyword(s):

Architectural Design ◽

Human Locomotion ◽

Virtual Space ◽

Design Stage ◽

Design Review ◽

Team Members ◽

Physical Constraints ◽

Simulated Environment ◽

Set Up ◽

High Level

Virtual reality (VR) is quickly becoming the medium of choice for various architecture, engineering, and construction applications, such as design visualization, construction planning, and safety training. In particular, this technology offers an immersive experience to enhance the way architects review their design with team members. Traditionally, VR has used a desktop PC or workstation setup inside a room, yielding the risk of two users bump into each other while using multiuser VR (MUVR) applications. MUVR offers shared experiences that disrupt the conventional single-user VR setup, where multiple users can communicate and interact in the same virtual space, providing more realistic scenarios for architects in the design stage. However, this shared virtual environment introduces challenges regarding limited human locomotion and interactions, due to physical constraints of normal room spaces. This study thus presented a system framework that integrates MUVR applications into omnidirectional treadmills. The treadmills allow users an immersive walking experience in the simulated environment, without space constraints or hurt potentialities. A prototype was set up and tested in several scenarios by practitioners and students. The validated MUVR treadmill system aims to promote high-level immersion in architectural design review and collaboration.

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