Visualising historical knowledge using virtual reality technology

This paper discusses virtual reality reconstructions of historical sites. Seeing the past as a cultural construction makes the process of representation problematic. Two case studies illustrate aspects of the visualisation of virtual environments: how authenticity in computer reconstructions is reduced to their visuality, and how historically-based VR environments as copies honour their original. The paper asks for more implementation of life forms into architectural settings, and also examines the impact of user expectations on the VR experience.     

Knowledge retrieval through virtual communities of practice

This article explores how Computer Sciences Corporation (CSC) manages knowledge retrieval by employees when they need to access documents written by colleagues in geographically distant units. CSC's establishment of virtual communities of practice facilitates the coordination of knowledge, and minimises contextual gaps between senders and receivers of knowledge. Furthermore, the knowledge-sharing friendly culture of the case company quickly establishes swift trust, which enables receivers to directly approach the original, often previously unknown, author of a document for additional information.     

A virtual reality platform to simulate orientation and mobility training for the visually impaired

Virtual Reality - Blindness and low vision are an urgent, steadily increasing public health concern. One of the most dramatic consequences of the debilitating conditions that cause visual...     

How to address group dynamics in virtual worlds

The study of group dynamics highlights the activity in the group in terms of its performance and communication. The experience of facilitating virtual communities and teams (Eunice and Kimball in , 1997) suggests that groups go through the same stages either in face-to-face or in online mode. The paper brings together a theoretical framework based on the literature on virtual communities, Gestalt systems and online facilitation in order to address the issue of electronic togetherness, in particular from a group dynamics perspective. The empirical work on which the paper is based is an observation of a group of students in a training set playing a decision-making game. The model of Tuckman (Tuckman in Psychol Bull 63:384–399, 1965; Tuckman and Jensen in Group Organ Stud 2:419–427, 1977) is used as a framework within which to discuss the findings of the case. The paper finishes with concrete recommendations for facilitators of online communities and designers of the electronic spaces where these communities operate.     

Exploring the dynamics of blog communities: the case of MetaFilter

This paper explores the social processes and mechanisms that give form to a prominent type of online community: community blogs. We conducted an interpretive study that examines a particular community blog, MetaFilter, by drawing on the concepts of communities of practice as a theoretical lens. Theoretically, we contribute to the body of knowledge of online communities by identifying the structures of an emergent type of community that is brought together by blog technology. Our findings suggest that cohesion in a community blog is brought about by the following practices: (a) explicit ground rules regarding membership, (b) presence of moderators, (c) availability of profile information, (d) 'net etiquette', (e) tacit warrants for discerning pertinent posts, and (f) the deployment of specific techniques of discipline.     

Index to Digital Creativity volumes 10-12

This paper advocates the future of the body as a distributed and shared embodiment; an unfolded body that doesn't end at one's skin, but emerges as intercorporeality between bodies and the technological environment. Looking at new tendencies within interaction design and ubiquitous computing to see how these are to an increasing extent focusing on sociality, context-awareness, relations, affects, connectedness and collectivity, we will examine how these new technological movements can change our perception of embodiment towards a distributed and shared one. By examining interactive textiles as part of a future rising landscape of multi-sensory networks, we will exemplify how the new technologies can shutter dichotomies and challenge traditional notions of embodiment and the subject. Finally, we show how this ‘new embodiment’ manifests Deleuze's philosophy of the body as something unstable and changing, and how his refolding of the body can be useful for future interaction designers to understand the context in which they work and the challenges they will meet.     

The Emerging Challenge of Knowledge Management Ecosystems: A Silicon Valley High Tech Company Signals the Future

A Silicon Valley case study serves as a leading indicator of knowledge management challenges emerging in high-tech knowledge economies. Though a leader in technology innovation, this multi-billion-dollar semiconductor company struggles with traditional knowledge management efforts in technical support owing to the sheer complexity and dynamism of their intellectual property. Add to this the back-end knowledge linkages to suppliers and customer-driven knowledge channels sprouting like weeds and a managed ecosystem perspective emerges. Implications of these emerging phenomena for knowledge management theory and practice are discussed.     

Degenerative structures that inhibit the emergence of communities of practice: a case study of knowledge management in the British Council

Abstract.  This paper presents the British Council's knowledge management strategy. It outlines how, as part of this strategy, the organization attempted to engender communities of practice among a strategically significant group spread across the 110 countries in which the organization operates. Using a case study of this group, the paper explores 'degenerative structures' that impact on the ability to engender communities of practice and, through consideration of issues of individualization and risk, highlights a series of paradoxes that inhibited this organization's attempt to move from a 'hub-and-spoke' structure to become a networked organization in which communities of practice flourish.     

In justice we trust: Exploring knowledge-sharing continuance intentions in virtual communities of practice

Knowledge has become the key to success in the global knowledge economy, not only for organizations, but also in virtual communities of practice (VCoPs). The major challenge in sustaining a VCoP is acquiring knowledge spontaneously from members. This challenge leads to our research question: what encourages VCoP members to voluntarily and continuously help one another through continuous knowledge-sharing? In this study, we integrate three research streams—justice, trust, and organizational citizenship behaviors (OCB)—into one model in order to analyze the antecedents of knowledge-sharing continuance intentions in VCoPs. Our model theorizes that the four dimensions of justice (i.e., distributive, procedural, interpersonal, and informational justice) affect two different referents of trust (i.e., trust in members and trust in management). We further link these trust constructs to altruism (i.e., OCB directed to the individual) or conscientiousness (i.e., OCB directed to the organization), which in turn effect the knowledge-sharing continuance intentions in VCoPs. This hypothetical model is empirically validated using data collected from 142 members of an IT-oriented VCoP in Taiwan. Our integrated model has been helpful in VCoP research as it broadens our theoretical understanding of knowledge-sharing continuance intentions.     

集成虚拟现实环境在工程设计分析中的应用 *

虚拟现实技术在工程设计与分析上有很大的应用潜力。可是 ,虚拟环境的创建时间长、成本高,极大地限制了虚拟现实技术在工程上的应用。为此 ,提出了虚拟现实脚本生成器的概念,将虚拟现实技术与过程的设计、分析集成化,创造性地提出了一种自上而下的设计方法———VR-IEDA,以便高效、快速地创建虚拟原型,提高计算机虚拟复杂系统工程的性价比。在 VR-IEDA中复杂系统的结构和行为被计算机捕捉并自动生成可执行的 VR仿真代码 ,从而减少了创建虚拟环境的时间,便利了基于仿真的过程分析和设计。最后 ,以武器系统的维修过程为     

Droplet: A virtual brush model to simulate Chinese calligraphy and painting

This paper proposes a virtual brush model based on droplet operation to simulate Chinese calligraphy and traditional Chinese painting in real time. Two ways of applying droplet model to virtual calligraphy and painting are discussed in detail The second droplet model is more elaborated and can produce more vivid results while being slightly more time-consuming. The novel feature of the proposed droplet virtual brush model successfully enables the simulation painting system to overcome the poor expressional ability of virtual brush based on particle system and avoids the complex evaluation of physical brush with solid model. The model, derived from the actual calligraphy and painting experience, due to the simplicity of the droplet operation and its powerful expressive ability, considerably improves the performance of the simulation system and maintains painting effect comparable with real brush by supporting special Chinese brush effect such as dry brush, feng and stroke diffusion.     

Vision‐tangible interactive display method for mixed and virtual reality: Toward the human‐centered editable reality

Building a human‐centered editable world can be fully realized in a virtual environment. Both mixed reality (MR) and virtual reality (VR) are feasible solutions to support the attribute of edition. Based on the current development of MR and VR, we present the vision‐tangible interactive display method and its implementation in both MR and VR. We address the issue of MR and VR together because they are similar regarding the proposed method. The editable mixed and virtual reality system is useful for studies, which exploit it as a platform. In this paper, we construct a virtual reality environment based on the Oculus Rift, and an MR system based on a binocular optical see‐through head‐mounted display. In the MR system about manipulating the Rubik's cube, and the VR system about deforming the virtual objects, the proposed vision‐tangible interactive display method is utilized to provide users with a more immersive environment. Experimental results indicate that the vision‐tangible interactive display method can improve the user experience and can be a promising way to make the virtual environment better.     

Effects of technical and social design on virtual community identification: a comparison approach

We investigated how virtual community (VC) design, both technical and social decisions adopted by VC management teams, might affect the development of members’ identification with the VC. Adopting a comparison approach developed in studying formal organisational identification, we develop the research model explaining the effects of VC design on VC identification. A survey study involving 412 members from seven VCs revealed that identified VC design factors (community presentation and community empowerment) have significant impacts on identification by making the perceived VC identities attractive. We concluded with a discussion of the key managerial and research implications of our findings.     

The co-learning process in healthcare professionals: Assessing user satisfaction in virtual communities of practice

Communities of practice are nowadays an important concept in the healthcare sector. Particularly, the intensive use of ICT has allowed their creation into a virtual environment – Virtual Communities of Practice (VCoPs) developing optimal conditions to make possible the collaborative learning process. The VCoPs antecedents can be situated on social network phenomenon, where individuals with different traits but a common interest/objective are linked, use ICT potency (especially social media) to interchange information, experiences and contents among them. And as a result, people create and share knowledge, and learn collaboratively. VCoP users have a higher satisfaction level in the collaborative learning process when they can: (1) Achieve benefits related to patient diagnosis and treatment (cost reductions, faster management, quality and accuracy of diagnosis, etc.); (2) Increase the share capital of participants and creating networks of trusted individuals. Given the interest in this topic, the objective of this work is to identify the factors that determine user satisfaction in relation to Community Practice (CoP) and the process of building shared knowledge. For this, a sample of 130 Spanish health professionals participating in an online community, and developed in a virtual community of practice, is discussed. The results obtained from an analysis of logistic regression show evidence of the perception of efficiency and effectiveness in collaboration with the members of the VCoP as positively influencing the perceived satisfaction with the CoP. Also, the degree of individual participation in the community affects the degree of perceived satisfaction. The conclusions provide interesting strategic recommendations in the management process of the CoP.     

Distributed computing as a virtual supercomputer: Tools to run and manage large-scale BOINC simulations

Distributed computing (DC) projects tackle large computational problems by exploiting the donated processing power of thousands of volunteered computers, connected through the Internet. To efficiently employ the computational resources of one of world's largest DC efforts, GPUGRID, the project scientists require tools that handle hundreds of thousands of tasks which run asynchronously and generate gigabytes of data every day. We describe RBoinc, an interface that allows computational scientists to embed the DC methodology into the daily work-flow of high-throughput experiments. By extending the Berkeley Open Infrastructure for Network Computing (BOINC), the leading open-source middleware for current DC projects, with mechanisms to submit and manage large-scale distributed computations from individual workstations, RBoinc turns distributed grids into cost-effective virtual resources that can be employed by researchers in work-flows similar to conventional supercomputers. The GPUGRID project is currently using RBoinc for all of its in silico experiments based on molecular dynamics methods, including the determination of binding free energies and free energy profiles in all-atom models of biomolecules.     

Activity Theory and System Design: A View from the Trenches

An activity theory model and a mediatingartifacts hierarchy were employed to helpidentify the needs for tools for customersupport engineers who documented solutions tocustomer problems, a knowledge authoringactivity. This activity also involves customersupport engineers who assist Hewlett-Packardsoftware product users. The particular toolsto be designed were knowledge-authoring toolsembedded in the customer support trackingapplication suite, SupportTracker. The researchanalyzed the role of tensions between theelements of Engeström's activity theorymodel. The research also explored the benefitsof specific interpretations of Engeström'srefinement of Wartofsky's mediating artifactshierarchy. The hierarchy contributed to theidentification of desired characteristics ofmediating artifacts, particularly tools. Thefindings included an interpretation of the``where-to' artifact concept as supporting anunderstanding of the entire activity system asan evolving entity. Specific interventionswere used to achieve a positive impact on theevolution of the activity system.     

Landscapes of Practice: Bricolage as a Method for Situated Design

This paper proposes a `bricolage' approach to designing systems forcooperative work. This involves users, participatory designers andethnographers in a continuing cycle of design and revised work practice,often in settings where resources are limited and short-term results arerequired. If exploits the flood to market of hardware, software and services.The approach is illustrated with results from a project with a practice oflandscape architects. Their work is analysed in terms of communities ofpractice and actor networks. These perspectives help to identify the`socilities' of people and technologies and of the relationships betweenthem. They help to distinguish different forms of cooperation with differingsupport needs, opportunities and vulnerabilities. They inform the designof technical support, the assessment of outcomes, and the design of furthersolutions, in a cycle of `situated experimentation'.     

Exploring MARS: developing indoor and outdoor user interfaces to a mobile augmented reality system

We describe an experimental mobile augmented reality system (MARS) testbed that employs different user interfaces to allow outdoor and indoor users to access and manage information that is spatially registered with the real world. Outdoor users can experience spatialized multimedia presentations that are presented on a head-tracked, see-through, head-worn display used in conjunction with a hand-held pen-based computer. Indoor users can get an overview of the outdoor scene and communicate with outdoor users through a desktop user interface or a head- and hand-tracked immersive augmented reality user interface.