Waterfall Glen: Social Virtual Reality at Work

Abstract

Waterfall Glen is a MOO, a form of MUD or “multi-user domain”. MUDs are immersive virtual environments - one enters the MUD environment and conversations take place within it. Traditionally MUDs have been used for multi-player Internet gaming and for social chat, and have not been used extensively to support work-related activities. However, MUDs have been gaining attention as potential environments for supporting collaborative learning and cooperative work. Recent publications describe the use of MUDs for supporting teaching and learning (e.g. Penn MOO; Diversity MOO; see also discussions by Hand and Skipper, 1996; Bruckman, 1998; O’Day et al., 1998), for building social and vocational communities (e.g. Curtis, 1996; Mynatt et al., 1998; Schank et al., 1999), for virtual conferencing (e.g. Towell and Towell, 1997), for exploring issues of culture (Chapter 13) and for supporting collaborative work activities (e.g. Doppke at al., 1998; Evard, 1993; Churchill and Bly 1999a,b,c; Tomek and Giles, 1999).