Abstract The following paper presents two stages of an action research project involving two oral proficiency courses held in the virtual world Second Life. Course 1 was conducted during the Autumn of 2007. Based on the experiences of this course, we redesigned many aspects of it in order to improve student activity in terms of oral participation and gave the course again in Spring 2008. By ana...

This paper presents a framework for using virtual worlds in the construction of teaching platforms for just-in-time training. In the critical economic situation that many companies are currently living, the need to update skills without leaving the workplace has become urgent. Employees are demanding training for higher performances, knowledge and skills, without requesting time to attend unive...

We decided to examine why people continue to use virtual worlds by studying a real example: the popular virtual world of Second Life. This involved building and testing a model of virtual worlds based on habit from both the habit/automaticity and instant automaticity perspectives, the latter based on utilitarian and hedonic goals. The results (for a sample of 339 users) suggested that continuan...

Virtual worlds such as Second Life have recently gained increased visibility from businesses seeking to market products “in-world” to virtual world participants. However, without understanding the sociological orientation of virtual participants, the effectiveness of marketing approaches in virtual worlds may be limited. This study utilizes a Delphi approach to determine the sociological orient...

In this work the educational capabilities of the virtual world Second Life are researched and tested. A virtual world is constructed to support education for sustainable development. The life and characteristics of the shark is studied as this fish has received a lot of negative publicity and is in the danger of extinction. A virtual museum was developed for this purpose. The research question ...

The significance of the earliest phase of decision making stems from the fact that decision makers 'frame' problems during this phase. These frames shape all subsequent decision making phases (Beach, 1997), fundamentally conditioning decision making outcomes (Daly et al., 2008). Avenues not considered at this stage are unlikely to be considered in the future (Adam, 2008). Further, decision maki...

There are now many virtual worlds in existence, a number of which have built considerable user bases. However, there is little empirical evidence to suggest what factors underpin their continued usage and success. This study set about determining why users continue to use virtual worlds, using the example of the popular virtual world of Second Life. The study adopts continuance theory and exten...

pre-world`s life determination of human destiny, inherent happiness and disaster always has been rejected by those believing in human`s free will. but apparently such a determination is in agreement with some quranic and traditional texts. in this paper it has been intended to offer an explanation and solution supporting pre-determination and free will both. this paper has compared allame tabat...

Grid technology offers numerous opportunities for the players involved. Despite the fact that the academic community has already exploited many of them, there is an evident reluctance from the business community to act likewise. Recent analysis reveals that the problem lies in overcoming certain business barriers rather than technological ones. At this stage understanding the real-life economic...

Educators, researchers, and online courses designers are increasingly investigating the use of 3-D shared virtual worlds for online education. This paper discusses the importance of social interaction in e-learning. We present the idea of using Second Life, a 3-D shared virtual world, in online courses. The researchers investigated the impact of using Second Life as a learning environment and a...