[Opensim-users] Looking for help reproducing a user study in OpenSim

[Elizabeth Lowry]

Hi all,

I tried telling the individuals who answered my first email back in March
about this, but I haven't gotten any responses yet.

I'd really like to compare the results I'm getting from my study with
someone else's - I've posted instructions at
http://hokiegrid.cs.vt.edu/index.php?&page=smodul&id=34&btn=33&subbtn=34 and
I'd really like to talk to some of you about reproducing my experiment.
 Please?  It's for science!

Thank you,
Elizabeth Lowry


On Mon, Mar 22, 2010 at 10:29 AM, Elizabeth Lowry <emlowry at vt.edu> wrote:

> Hi all,
>
> My name is Elizabeth Lowry and I'm a Master's Student in the Computer
> Science program at Virginia Tech.
>
> As part of my thesis, I'm going to be running a user study using OpenSim.
>  I'll be packaging my setup, including the data collection tools, in an OAR,
> and I'm hoping some of you will be willing to reproduce my experiment using
> that OAR and let me compare your results to mine.
>
> The idea of the experiment is to measure the effect of levels of spatial
> presentation in a virtual environment on that environment's effectiveness.
>  I'll be presenting two lessons -- one on the photoelectric effect, a topic
> with a level of inherent spatial content, and one on a yet-to-be determined
> topic that isn't inherently spatial, like music or logic -- at three levels
> of spatial presentation -- as a slide show given in the virtual world, as a
> set of posters arranged in space (with the slides from the
> previously-mentioned slideshow as the posters), and as a set of full-on 3D
> exhibits (presenting the same information as the slides) taking advantage of
> a virtual environment's ability to present 3D objects.  Subjects will visit
> exactly one of the topic/level-of-spatial-presentation combinations for a
> set period of time and their learning will be measured by comparing their
> scores on quizzes before and after visiting.
>
> The question I'm hoping to answer is: How much effort is really worth it in
> the construction of a virtual learning environment?  And does this level of
> effort vary between topics that are inherently spatial and ones that aren't?
>  If the full-3D versions of the learning environments in the study lead to
> the greatest improvements in quiz scores, it'll indicate that the greater
> amount of effort required to build such environments pays off in better
> learning.
>
> Obviously, more work would need to be done in the future, whatever the
> results of this study -- but to get solid results on this study, I'd like
> your help.
>
> Is anyone on this list in a position to run a user study in OpenSim with 30
> or more participants by mid to late April?
>
> Thank you,
> Elizabeth Lowry
>
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