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

[Elizabeth Lowry]

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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