Abstract
The use of collaborative virtual environments in e-learning is one of the most promising uses of virtual reality technology. While much research has been done in the area of networked virtual environments corresponding to the sharing of events, very little research has been done on specific services and functionality. However both the requirements and the kind of the offered services affect significantly the design of a system. In this paper we present the design and implementation of a platform suitable for educational virtual environments, which are collaborative virtual environments aiming at offering collaborative e-learning services to the users. Apart from the platform itself, we present the technological choices, and a new method for sharing virtual environments. Furthermore, we present an e-learning environment to support e-learning services using collaborative virtual environments from both the technical and functional point of view, along with the end-user evaluation results.
![](http://media.springernature.com/m312/springer-static/image/art%3A10.1007%2Fs11042-006-0005-7/MediaObjects/11042_2006_5_Fig1_HTML.gif)
![](http://media.springernature.com/m312/springer-static/image/art%3A10.1007%2Fs11042-006-0005-7/MediaObjects/11042_2006_5_Fig2_HTML.gif)
![](http://media.springernature.com/m312/springer-static/image/art%3A10.1007%2Fs11042-006-0005-7/MediaObjects/11042_2006_5_Fig3_HTML.gif)
![](http://media.springernature.com/m312/springer-static/image/art%3A10.1007%2Fs11042-006-0005-7/MediaObjects/11042_2006_5_Fig4_HTML.gif)
![](http://media.springernature.com/m312/springer-static/image/art%3A10.1007%2Fs11042-006-0005-7/MediaObjects/11042_2006_5_Fig5_HTML.gif)
![](http://media.springernature.com/m312/springer-static/image/art%3A10.1007%2Fs11042-006-0005-7/MediaObjects/11042_2006_5_Fig6_HTML.gif)
Similar content being viewed by others
Explore related subjects
Discover the latest articles, news and stories from top researchers in related subjects.Notes
Hyperwave eKnowledge Suite, http://www.hyperwave.de
WebCT, http://www.webct.com/
Microsoft, http://www.microsoft.com
Centra Symposium, http://www.centra.com
Active Worlds, http://www.activeworlds.com/
The Sense 8 Product Line, http://www.sense8.com
ParallelGraphics, http://www.parallelgraphics.com/
Moove's Rose, http://www.moove.com
SmartVR, http://www.smartvr.com/
Worlds, http://www.worlds.com/
The Dive Home Page, http://www.sics.se/dive/
EVE prototype is available at http://ouranos.ceid.upatras.gr/vr
Web 3D Consortium—Humanoid Animation Working Group H-Anim 1.1 specification. 1999, http://www.h-anim.org/Specifications/H-Anim1.1/
Web 3D Consortium. The Virtual Reality Modeling Language (VRML)—Part 1: Functional specification and UTF-8 encoding”, 1997, http://www.web3d.org/technicalinfo/specifications/vrml97/index.htm
References
Bouras C, Philopoulos A, Tsiatsos T (2001, July) E-learning through distributed virtual environments. J Netw Comput Appl, Academic, 24(3):175–199
Bouras C, Psaltoulis D, Psaroudis C, Tsiatsos T (2001) Protocols for sharing educational virtual environments. In Proc. of 2001 international conference on software, telecommunications and computer networks (SoftCOM 2001) Split, Dubrovnik (Croatia) Ancona, Bari (Italy), 9–12 October 2001, Vol. II, pp 659–666
Bouras C, Psaltoulis D, Psaroudis C, Tsiatsos T (2002, August 17–19) An educational community using collaborative virtual environments. In: Proc. of 1st International Conference on Web-Based Learning, Hong Kong, China, pp 180–191
Broll W (1997, June 18–20) Bringing people together—an infrastructure for shared virtual worlds on the internet. In: Proc. of the IEEE WE-TICE '97 (Sixth international Workshop on Enabling Technologies: Infrastructure for Collaborative Enterprises). Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA, IEEE Computer Society, Las Alamitos
Broll W (1998) SmallTool—a toolkit for realizing shared virtual environments on the Internet. Distributed Systems Engineering Journal, Special Issue on Distributed Virtual Environments, Vol. 5. The British Computer Society, The Institution of Electrical Engineers and IOP, pp 118–128
Capin T, Pandzic I, Magnenat-Thalmann N, Thalmann D (1999) Avatars in networked virtual environments. Wiley, West Ussex England, ISBN 0-471-98863-4
Carlsson C, Hagsand O (1993) DIVE: a multi user virtual reality system. In: Proc. of IEEE 1993 virtual reality annual international symposium, VRAIS '93, IEEE Service Center, Piscataway, New Jersey, pp 394–400
Chee Y, Hooi, C (2002) C-VISions: socialized learning through collaborative, virtual, interactive simultations. In: Proc. of CSCL 2002: Conference on Computer Support for Collaborative Learning, Boulder, Colorado, Lawrence Erlbaum, Hillsdale, New Jersey, pp 687–696
Dalgarno B (2002, August) The potential of 3D virtual learning environments: a constructivist analysis. e-JIST Electronic Journal 5(2)
Dickey M (1999) 3D virtual worlds and learning: an analysis of the impact of design affordances and limitations in active worlds, Blaxxun interactive, and OnLive!traveler; and a study of the implementation of active worlds for formal and informal education. Dissertation, The Ohio State University
Dillenbourg P (1999) What do you mean by collaborative learning? In: Dillenbourg P (ed) Collaborative-learning: cognitive and computational approaches, Elsevier, Oxford, pp 1–19
Fussell SR, Kraut RE, Siegel J (2000, December 2–6) Coordination of communication: effects of shared visual context on collaborative work. In: Proc. of ACM CSCW'00, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, pp 21–30
Greenhalgh C (2000, February 20–24) Implementing multi-user virtual worlds (panel session): ideologies and issues. In: Proc. of the Web3D-VRML 2000 fifth symposium on virtual reality modeling language, Monterey, California, pp 149–154
Koubek A, Laister J, Kober S, Modera W, Aichinger R, Goren-Bar D, Aviram R, Comay O, Lior E, Kempf F, Leukert S, Wöhr A, Kumm J, Beckmann H, Kuljis J, Cohen A, Chen Ch, Lehmann H (2001, February 26) User processes in collaborative learning and basic user requirements for INVITE. Deliverable of INVITE (Intelligent Distributed Virtual Training Environment) project of the European Commission, INVITE Document Number: T2.1/T2.2-D.2.1-TJ-005
Moshman D (1982) Exogenous, endogenous and dialectical constructivism. Dev Rev 2:371–384
Oliveira M, Crowcroft J, Slater M (2000) Component framework infrastructure for virtual environments. In: Proc. of the third international conference on collaborative virtual environments 2000 (CVE 2000), San Francisco, California, pp 139–146
Oliveira C, Shen X, Georganas N (2000, November–December) Collaborative virtual environment for industrial training and e-Commerce. In: Proc. of workshop on application of virtual reality technologies for future telecommunication systems, IEEE Globecom'2000 Conference, San Francisco
Pandzic I, Capin T, Magnenat-Thalmann N, Thalman D (1996) Towards natural communication in networked collaborative virtual environments. In: Proc. of FIVE '96, Pisa, Italy
Pandzic I, Magnenat-Thalmann N, Thalmann D (1998) Realistic avatars and autonomous virtual humans in: VLNET networked virtual environments. In: Earnshaw R, Vince J (eds) Virtual worlds in the internet. IEEE Computer Society
Pandzic I, Joslin C, Magnenat-Thalmann N (2000, October 11–14) Trends in a collaborative virtual environment. In Proc. of international conference on software, telecommunications and computer networks-SoftCOM 2000, Split, Rijeka, Dubrovnik (Croatia), Trieste, Venice (Italy), pp 893–901
Redfern S, Galway N (2002) Collaborative virtual environments to support communication and community in internet-based distance education. Journal of Information Technology Education (JITE) 1(3):201–211
Spellmann P, Mosier J, Deus L, Carlson J (1997) Collaborative virtual workspace. In: Proc. of GROUP'97, Phoenix Arizona, ACM, pp 197–203
Acknowledgments
We would like to thank our partners of INVITE IST project for their co-operation and valuable results regarding the use of CVEs in e-learning. We also wish to thank D. Psaltoulis, and C. Psaroudis for their help in the implementation of EVE prototype, and Athina Rompou for the editing of this paper. Lastly, our thanks go to the independent reviewers of this paper, for their valuable comments and suggestions.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Bouras, C., Tsiatsos, T. Educational virtual environments: design rationale and architecture. Multimed Tools Appl 29, 153–173 (2006). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11042-006-0005-7
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11042-006-0005-7