[Game-based Learning] VS-Games 2011: Workshop on Leveraging the Potential of Virtual Worlds

[Kostas Anagnostou]

Workshop on Leveraging the Potential of Virtual Worlds

Scope

Since their launch, Virtual Worlds (VW) have been seen as a rapidly evolving trend that could play an important role in the future internet. VWs gained enormous popularity at the beginning of the decade and still maintain a strong fan base with 580 million people worldwide currently registered as virtual world users.

Due to the large number of users that they attract and the significant amount of time that users spend inside them, Virtual Environments offer a significant potential for organisations that want to reach out to a larger crowd such as businesses and government bodies. Moreover, Virtual Worlds provide the context inside which people interact with each other in many ways and therefore are rich in user generated content as well as social networking information. When properly leveraged, this information can bring value to a wide range of domains such as commercial applications, search engines and recommender systems. Finally, Virtual Worlds can be viewed as a micro-society with dynamics resembling those of real world societies, making them an ideal testbed for experimentation in a society simulation.

The objective of this workshop is to examine the ways in which the capabilities of Virtual Worlds can be exploited. We are interested in both technological and sociological approaches as well as in case studies showcasing the areas that can benefit from using Virtual Worlds and the challenges and risks involved.

Topics of interest

Researchers and practitioners are invited to present final results and work in progress. However, submissions have to be original research in the area of Virtual worlds. The topics of interest include but are not limited to:

• Managing Identity in a Virtual World: Trust, Privacy and Reputation
• Architectures for leveraging Virtual Worlds capabilities
• Integration of VW applications with enterprise IT systems
• VW Enterprise Applications layered on top of the core virtual world architecture – scenarios, architectures
• Making sense of VW content : Information retrieval and data mining mechanisms
• VW Applications in real life domains: health, education, cultural heritage, the environment and government services
• Modelling, simulation, virtualisation, scenario-building and evaluation
• Policy Simulation in Virtual Environments: case scenarios
• VW Economies : Modelling and trading systems in virtual worlds
• Virtual Worlds as a means for gathering public opinion
• Social Networks as sources of content
• Social Networks interoperability
• Interoperability and application portability between Virtual worlds and social networks

Special session organisers

• Prof. Theodora Varvarigou, National Technical University of Athens
• Konstantinos Tserpes, National Technical University of Athens
• Michal Jacovi, IBM Research Labs, Haifa
• Magdalini Kardara, National Technical University of Athens

Program Committee

• Fotis Aisopos (National Technical University of Athens, GR)
• Prof. Dimosthenis Anagnostopoulos (Harokopio University of Athens, GR)
• Dr. Vasiliki Andronikou (National Technical University of Athens, GR)
• Fanny Coudert (Katholieke Universiteit Leuven, BE)
• Prof. Anastastios Doulamis (Technical University of Crete, GR)
• Rania Hatzi (Harokopio University of Athens, GR)
• Bernard Horan (University of Essex, UK)
• Roman Klinger (Fraunhofer, SCAI, GE)
• Prof. Nikolaos Matsatsinis (Technical University of Athens, GR)
• Prof. Mara Nikolaidou, Harokopio University of Athens
• Prof. Vasilios Vescoukis (National Technical University of Athens, GR)

Important Deadlines

• Submission deadline: 01/01/2011
• Notification of acceptance or rejection: 09/01/2011
• Submission deadline for full versions: 17/01/2011

More information:

http://www.vs-games.org/

-- 
Kostas Anagnostou (PhD, MSc, DipEng)
Department of Informatics | Ionian University
Plateia Tsirigoti 7 | Corfu 49100 | Greece
tel : (+30) 26610 87757
http://www.ionio.gr/~kostasan/