Fluidez nos mundos virtuais: a participação nas comunidades virtuais do Second Life como forma de potencializar a experiência de consumo

Incrementar o conhecimento sobre o que contribui efetivamente para que ocorram interações bem sucedidas entre websites e os consumidores online, mais especificamente no mercado crescente dos mundos virtuais, é um assunto relevante para os pesquisadores e profissionais de administração de empresas. Vivemos em uma nova etapa da cultura do consumo, onde a experiência de consumo ganha relevância. Os jogos online, ambientados em mundos virtuais, são ilustrações muito apropriadas para representar a emergência do Marketing de Experiência, característico desta etapa. Os mundos virtuais, como o Second Life, podem ser classificados como “mundos de experiência”, e uma das suas principais características é a existência de comunidades virtuais. A interação entre usuários e o relacionamento social é fundamental para o enriquecimento da experiência de consumo nos mundos virtuais. A teoria da fluidez é um dos constructos mais utilizados para entender o comportamento do consumidor na internet e uma das formas de definir a natureza de experiências de consumo na internet. A utilização deste modelo (que vem sendo utilizado e aprimorado nos últimos 14 anos) é aconselhada para definir e medir a experiência de consumo na internet. A participação em comunidades virtuais pode ser um dos fatores que enriquecem a experiência de consumo nos mundos virtuais, percebida pela fluidez. O objetivo desta dissertação é entender se a participação em comunidades virtuais potencializa a experiência de consumo em mundos virtuais sociais, em especial no Second Life, tomando como base o conceito da fluidez. O objeto de estudo foram as comunidades virtuais do Second Life, durante o período da pesquisa que ocorreu entre o final de julho e o início de novembro de 2010. Para fazer a pesquisa de campo, empírica e exploratória, foi utilizada a metodologia da netnografia (etnografia virtual), descritiva por definição, como forma de atingir o objetivo proposto. Netnografia é a rigorosa e sistemática adaptação da etnografia especificamente alterada para as contingências do comportamento e interação online, isto é, ao estudo das comunidades virtuais. As atividades de pesquisa foram realizadas com observação participativa, isto é, com a participação, pelo pesquisador, no cotidiano do mundo virtual Second Life, que vivenciou, como um novato, a experiência de consumo em si. A dissertação aqui apresentada é o resultado do engajamento do pesquisador em uma imersão nas comunidades virtuais do Second Life. Foi concluído que experiência de consumo nos mundos virtuais é enriquecida pela participação em comunidades virtuais. A fluidez – percebida pela telepresença (imersão), perda de noção de tempo, envolvimento, prazer e diversão – é uma sensação que pode ser considerada típica e freqüente dos mundos virtuais e potencializada pela participação em comunidades virtuais. A participação em comunidades virtuais permite que os usuários vivenciem uma experiência rica, que seja ativa, responsiva, interativa e participativa, o que potencializa a experiência de consumo nos mundos virtuais.

Second Life en el aprendizaje de idiomas y la interacción social

Resumen en inglés. Resumen basado en el de la publicación. Capítulo incluido en el monográfico número 8 de la revista 'Tejuelo. Didáctica de la lengua y la literatura. Educación', titulado 'Comunicación social y educación'

LEVERAGING SANDBOX IMMERSIVE 3D VIRTUAL WORLDS TO DEVELOP DO-IT- YOURSELF TEACHING GAMES: IMPLEMENTATION TO MARKETING CASE STUDY TEACHING IN SECOND LIFE

Games are powerful and engaging. On average, one billion people spend at least 1 hour a day playing computer and videogames. This is even more true with the younger generations. Our students have become the < digital natives >, the < gamers >, the < virtual generation >. Research shows that those who are most at risk for failure in the traditional classroom setting, also spend more time than their counterparts, using video games. They might strive, given a different learning environment. Educators have the responsibility to align their teaching style to these younger generation learning styles. However, many academics resist the use of computer-assisted learning that has been "created elsewhere". This can be extrapolated to game-based teaching: even if educational games were more widely authored, their adoption would still be limited to the educators who feel a match between the authored games and their own beliefs and practices. Consequently, game-based teaching would be much more widespread if teachers could develop their own games, or at least customize them. Yet, the development and customization of teaching games are complex and costly. This research uses a design science methodology, leveraging gamification techniques, active and cooperative learning theories, as well as immersive sandbox 3D virtual worlds, to develop a method which allows management instructors to transform any off-the-shelf case study into an engaging collaborative gamified experience. This method is applied to marketing case studies, and uses the sandbox virtual world of Second Life. -- Les jeux sont puissants et motivants, En moyenne, un milliard de personnes passent au moins 1 heure par jour jouer à des jeux vidéo sur ordinateur. Ceci se vérifie encore plus avec les jeunes générations, Nos étudiants sont nés à l'ère du numérique, certains les appellent des < gamers >, d'autres la < génération virtuelle >. Les études montrent que les élèves qui se trouvent en échec scolaire dans les salles de classes traditionnelles, passent aussi plus de temps que leurs homologues à jouer à des jeux vidéo. lls pourraient potentiellement briller, si on leur proposait un autre environnement d'apprentissage. Les enseignants ont la responsabilité d'adapter leur style d'enseignement aux styles d'apprentissage de ces jeunes générations. Toutefois, de nombreux professeurs résistent lorsqu'il s'agit d'utiliser des contenus d'apprentissage assisté par ordinateur, développés par d'autres. Ceci peut être extrapolé à l'enseignement par les jeux : même si un plus grand nombre de jeux éducatifs était créé, leur adoption se limiterait tout de même aux éducateurs qui perçoivent une bonne adéquation entre ces jeux et leurs propres convictions et pratiques. Par conséquent, I'enseignement par les jeux serait bien plus répandu si les enseignants pouvaient développer leurs propres jeux, ou au moins les customiser. Mais le développement de jeux pédagogiques est complexe et coûteux. Cette recherche utilise une méthodologie Design Science pour développer, en s'appuyant sur des techniques de ludification, sur les théories de pédagogie active et d'apprentissage coopératif, ainsi que sur les mondes virtuels immersifs < bac à sable > en 3D, une méthode qui permet aux enseignants et formateurs de management, de transformer n'importe quelle étude de cas, provenant par exemple d'une centrale de cas, en une expérience ludique, collaborative et motivante. Cette méthode est appliquée aux études de cas Marketing dans le monde virtuel de Second Life.

A virtuális térben élő fogyasztó – A Second Life hatása a fogyasztói magatartásra (Consumer in the virtual world – Affect of the Second Life to the consumer behavior)

A virtuális szociális világok, úgy mint a Second Life, egyre nagyobb népszerűségre téve szert, hamar az üzleti érdeklődés középpontjában találták magukat. A szerző célja, hogy feltérképezze a virtuális identitás és a fogyasztói magatartás közötti kapcsolat mibenlétét a Second Life világában. Ezért először bemutatja, hogy miként működik a Second Life és milyen jellemzőkkel rendelkezik. Másodszor ismerteti, hogy az on-line identitásalkotás miként befolyásolja üzleti szempontból az individuális viselkedést. A Second Life vizsgálata során a virtuális identitás fogalmát használja föl, mely összevethető az egyén valódi életbeli identitásával. Harmadszor: rátér a kutatási részre, amely során a Second Life világában kialakított identitás jellemzőit vizsgálta. Négy virtuális identitástípust azonosított, melyeknek más és más kapcsolata van a virtuális fogyasztás jelenségével. Végezetül: kiemeli azokat az eredményeket és megállapításokat, melyeket a vállalatoknak különösképpen figyelembe kell venniük a pszichológiai nézőpont szempontjából ahhoz, hogy eredményesen szerepeljenek a virtuális világokban. ________ Given their increasing popularity, virtual worlds, such as Second Life, attracted the attention of the business media. The aim of the present article is to explore the relationship between virtual identity and consumer behaviour in Second Life. First, the author reviews Second Life functions and particular characteristics. Second, he illustrates how online identity construction affects one’s behaviour in such environments from a business perspective. Third, the author demonstrates his findings associated with identity construction in Second Life. More specifically, four different types of virtual identities can be identified, each with slightly different implications toward virtual consumption. Finally, he highlights the major points to which companies should pay particular attention in their virtual social world activities, focusing on the psychological mechanisms that influence people’s online behaviour and thinking.

Second life e transparência pública: perspectivas para o compartilhamento de dados

Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior (CAPES)

Design de produtos virtuais e transdisciplinaridade: cibercepção e construção de objetos em Second Life : um estudo acerca do design de relações

Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior (CAPES)

Creating Educational Immersive Environments Using a Computer Game Engine: Case Studies and Design Theory

This paper aims to crystallize recent research performed at the University of Worcester to investigate the feasibility of using the commercial game engine ‘Unreal Tournament 2004’ (UT2004) to produce ‘Educational Immersive Environments’ (EIEs) suitable for education and training. Our research has been supported by the UK Higher Education Academy. We discuss both practical and theoretical aspects of EIEs. The practical aspects include the production of EIEs to support high school physics education, the education of architects, and the learning of literacy by primary school children. This research is based on the development of our novel instructional medium, ‘UnrealPowerPoint’. Our fundamental guiding principles are that, first, pedagogy must inform technology, and second, that both teachers and pupils should be empowered to produce educational materials. Our work is informed by current educational theories such as constructivism, experiential learning and socio-cultural approaches as well as elements of instructional design and game principles.

Exploring Intrinsic Gender Identity Using Second Life

Virtual Worlds (VWs) provide an environment to understand and explore notions of gender and identity, particularly given the ability for users to experiment with gender in online worlds. Our study analyses gender identity using the virtual space of Second Life (SL) to explore experiences and responses to gender in an avatar. We introduced 46 novice users to the VW of SL in order to see if real life gender influenced their choices of avatar. Participants selected the gender of their original avatar and once they were used to SL, they were then asked to change the gender of that avatar. We used mixed methods research consisting of paper based questionnaires (n=34) and focus groups (n=46) conducted in SL. Nearly all participants chose an initial avatar that reflected their real-life gender with females (n=22) reporting higher levels of identification with this initial avatar. Females were significantly more concerned with the gender-specific appearance of their initial avatar. On swapping gender, females reported higher levels of discomfort and many changed back before 7 minutes. Males (n=24) did not report significant discomfort with their changed-gender avatar and did not revert back to their original avatar as quickly. Our findings suggest that female participants in this study tended to reinforce gender binaries through such things as clothing, hairstyles and behaviors of their avatars. Male participants were less likely to experience discomfort through changing the gender of their avatar (with the males noting they still perceived an avatar with a female appearance as male).

"Second Life": quando o cinema abdica de ser o lugar que nos habita por dentro

O projecto “Principais tendências no cinema português contemporâneo” nasceu no Departamento de Cinema da ESTC, com o objectivo de desenvolver investigação especializada a partir de um núcleo formado por alunos da Licenciatura em Cinema e do Mestrado em Desenvolvimento de Projecto Cinematográfico, a que se juntaram professores-investigadores membros do CIAC e convidados. O que agora se divulga corresponde a dois anos e meio de trabalho desenvolvido pela equipa de investigação, entre Abril de 2009 e Novembro de 2011. Dada a forma que ele foi adquirindo, preferimos renomeá-lo, para efeitos de divulgação, “Novas & velhas tendências no cinema português contemporâneo”.

Distance perception in immersive environments: the role of photorealism

Immersive environments (IE) are being increasingly used in order to perform psychophysical experiments. The versatility in terms of stimuli presentation and control and the less time-consuming procedures are their greatest strengths. However, to ensure that IE results can be generalized to real world scenarios we must first provide evidence that performance in IE is quantitatively indistinguishable from performance in real-world. Our goal was to perceptually validate distance perception for CAVE-like IEs. Participants performed a Frontal Matching Distance Task (Durgin & Li, 2011) in three different conditions: real-world scenario (RWS); photorealistic IE (IEPH) and non-photorealistic IE (IENPH). Underestimation of distance was found across all the conditions, with a significant difference between the three conditions (Wilks’ Lambda = .38, F(2,134)= 110.8, p<.01, significant pairwise differences with p<.01). We found a mean error of 2.3 meters for the RWS, 5 meters for the IEPH, and of 6 meters for the IENPH in a pooled data set of 5 participants. Results indicate that while having a photorealistic IE with perspective and stereoscopic depth cues might not be enough to elicit a real-world performance in distance judgment tasks, nevertheless this type of environment minimizes the discrepancy between simulation and real-world when compared with non-photorealistic IEs.

Suberization-the second life of an endodermal cell.

The endodermis is the innermost cortical cell layer that surrounds the central vasculature and deposits an apoplastic diffusion barrier known as the Casparian strip. Although discovered 150 years ago, the underlying mechanisms responsible for formation of the Casparian strips have only recently been investigated. However, the fate of the endodermal cell goes further than formation of Casparian strips as they undergo a second level of differentiation, defined by deposition of suberin as a secondary cell wall. The presence and function of endodermal suberin in root barriers has remained enigmatic, as its role in barrier formation is not clear, especially in respect to the already existing Casparian strips. In this review, we present recent advances in the understanding of suberin synthesis, transport to the secondary cell wall, developmental features and functions. We focus on some of the major unknown questions revolving the function of endodermal suberin, which we now have the means to investigate. We further provide thoughts on how this knowledge might expand our current models on the developmental and physiological adaptation of root in response to the environment.

El mundo virtual second life y su aplicación a la enseñanza del derecho.

Resumen tomado de la publicación

Encuentros en Second Life : presentación y explotación didáctica del E-LE en Second Life de acuerdo con los diferentes niveles del MCEL.

Se reflexiona sobre el uso de nuevas tecnologías, especialmente la virtual y muy específicamente en el mundo virtual de Second Life (SL), donde el Instituto Cervantes tiene representada su institución en una de las islas que componen dicho mundo. Se explica qué es Second Life y como se puede introducir y explotar en el aprendizaje de segundas lenguas proporcionando, además, una visita guiada. Se desarrollan actividades comunicativas para los niveles A1, A2, B1, B2 y C1.