D2.1 End User Definition and Needs

VirtualLife WP 2

D2.1 End Users definition and Needs

ABSTRACT This document presents the process of definition of the key domains of application for the VirtualLife platform and describes the down selection process leading to the identification of two applicative domains. The documents also presents the high level requirements for the two Domains of Application using ULM diagrams. AUTHORS Deep Blue MAIN CONTRIBUTORS All partners CATEGORY Public STATUS Draft DUE DELIVERY DATE 30/06/2008 (RELEASE 1) 05/05/2009 (RELEASE 2) 28/02/2010 (RELEASE 3) 15/11/2010 (RELEASE 4) ACTUAL DELIVERY DATE 15/11/2010 INTERNAL REVISION Last version on 18/01/2011 (revisions made by Cybernetica AS, Mathematics and Informatics Faculty Vilnius University, Panebarco Sas) DOCUMENT NAME VirtualLife_D2.1_EndUserDefinitionAndNeeds_REL04.pdf

Final Confidential 1 D2.1 End User Definition and Needs

Table of Contents 1 Introduction...... 5

2 The process of selection of the Applicative Domains ...... 5

2.1 Description of the VirtualLife Validation Methods and Phases...... 5

2.2 Selection and Identification of the Key Domains of Application...... 6

3 State of the Art of Virtual-worlds...... 7

3.1 Classification Criteria ...... 8

3.1.1 3D or graphic social networks ...... 9

3.1.1.1 Imvu...... 9

3.1.1.2 Redlightcenter...... 10

3.1.1.3 Kaneva...... 11

3.1.2 Virtual worlds ...... 11

3.1.2.1 Second Life...... 11

3.1.2.2 Active Worlds...... 12

3.1.2.3 Entropia Universe...... 13

3.1.2.4 Wonderland...... 14

3.1.2.5 Olive...... 16

3.1.2.6 RealXtend...... 17

3.1.2.7 Multiverse...... 18

3.2 Fields of Application...... 20

3.2.1 Education and training...... 20

3.2.2 Marketing, brand promotion, commercial applications ...... 22

3.2.3 Corporate use, teleworking, seminars, organisation of public events...... 23

3.2.4 Virtual worlds for kids and teens entertainment...... 27

3.2.5 Virtual worlds for the provision of services (public administrations, cultural initiatives, e-health)...... 27

3.3 Main Categories of Users...... 29

3.3.1 Users of the existing Vws...... 30

3.3.2 Users of the possible future applications of VW...... 30

Final Confidential 2 D2.1 End User Definition and Needs 4 Market Analysis...... 30

4.1 Questionnaires...... 31

4.1.1 Methodology: Sample Selection Strategy...... 31

4.1.2 Questioning Strategy...... 32

4.1.3 Questionnaire design...... 32

4.1.4 Collection of Information...... 33

4.1.5 Results and analysis...... 33

4.1.5.1 Overall characteristics of respondents...... 34

4.1.5.2 Summary of new focused needs...... 42

4.2 Workshop...... 42

4.2.1 Structure of the workshop...... 43

4.2.2 Outcomes...... 43

5 Key Domains of application...... 44

5.1 Down selection of the applicative domains...... 45

5.2 Selection of two applicative domains ...... 46

6 High level needs...... 48

6.1 Virtual Campus ...... 48

6.1.1 Scenario1: Spatial Geometry at school...... 51

6.1.2 Scenario2: Collaborative learning...... 52

6.1.3 Scenario3: Legal aspects in private universities...... 52

6.2 Street-car scenario ...... 53

6.2.1 Scenario 1: Test vectors...... 53

6.2.3 Scenario 2: Training...... 54

6.2.4 Scenario 3: Station layout...... 56

6.3 Final remarks...... 56

7 Appendix...... 56

8 Bibliography...... 56

Final Confidential 3 D2.1 End User Definition and Needs

Executive summary

This document intends to identify promising fields of applications for the VirtualLife platform. It will define two applicative domains, identify the related end-users and their needs through an iterative selection process. The final goal is to present to which user needs Virtual Life can respond. Part of the information that we provide must been seen as a revision and an update of the document that has already been released on 30 June 2008 and re-edited on May 2009 and February 2010.

Moreover, the present document intends to provide a documentation of the iterative process that has been followed for identifying the end users and their high-level requirements driving the customization of the platform at the end of the third year of the project, and the Validation and subsequent refinement of the VirtualLife platform during the last 9 months of the project. An initial description of the Validation roadmap setting the path for the forthcoming actions (further detailed in D10.1) focused on the two selected applicative domains is also provided.

Final Confidential 4 D2.1 End User Definition and Needs

1 Introduction

The document presents the process of generation of 7 applicative domains for the Virtual Life platform and the down selection of two key domains of application. It is structured in five main sections. The first section explains the methodology that has been defined and followed to identify the applicative domains and to select the key ones to focus the development and validation activities. This process was initially structured along two strands: study of the state of the art of Virtual Worlds applications (section 3) and the study of the potentialities and criticalities of the Market (through a questionnaire and workshop with potential stakeholders, section 4). State of the art, market opportunities, questionnaire and workshop outcomes were merged to obtain the definition of the suitable applicative domains and users (section 5). This brought to the identification of 2 key applicative domains that will be the focus of the next phases of development and validation of the project. For them, applicative scenarios, use cases and activity diagrams are defined (section 6).

2 The process of selection of the Applicative Domains

The process of selection of possible Domains of Application, the end-users identification and the high-level user requirements collection can be considered as a first step for the overall Evaluation and Validation of the VirtualLife platform as, shown in Figure 1. The Validation method used in VirtualLife, further described in the D10.1 Deliverable, will encompass aspects of Technical Assessment and User-centered Design, being based on the European Operational Concept Validation Methodology (E-OCVM). E-OCVM has emerged over more than 10 years from experiences gained in many European co-operative Air Traffic Management (ATM) R&D activities, involving R&D institutes, ATM service providers and industry mostly in the framework of EC and EUROCONTROL funded projects. E-OCVM aims to be a framework for carrying out R&D projects and activities. It has been applied in several R&D ICT project and customized for the ICT domain.

2.1 Description of the VirtualLife Validation Methods and Phases

The validation process will be based on two iterations, whose results will inform the development process in order to refine the VirtualLife environment according to the users’ needs. Specific aspects of the platform to be validated, either internally by tools and benchmarks or externally by end users, will be identified on the basis of the level of maturity of the different components of the system. First of all the relevant system features will be defined and possible exploitation markets and related end-users identified. High level validation objectives will be selected and discussed with the relevant stakeholders. Once identified the high level objectives, they will be broken up into detailed validation objectives. This process will be repeated several times to detail all the aspects of the validation objectives and will aim at identifying measurable indicators. Such indicators can provide information about the lower level of the detailed validation objectives, through measures taken during the validation sessions. Once identified the high level objectives and outlined the detailed level objectives, they will be associated to a validation methodology, proper validation exercises and qualitative and quantitative indicators to support the way results will be measured. Timing and roadmap for this activity will be defined and associated to appropriate documentation. On the basis of specific scenarios, end users will be involved in focus groups, usability tests, user experience evaluation activities and de-briefing sessions through semi-structured interviews and questionnaires. This will ensure the assessment of the degree of fulfilment of the

Final Confidential 5 D2.1 End User Definition and Needs users’ functional needs with respect to different dimensions such as user acceptance, market suitability, technical feasibility, reliability, scalability, usability, user experience and trust. After both validation sessions, the validation team will collect evaluation results and will map the results onto the validation objectives. The evaluation of a given validation objective may be based on a number of results from a number of different validation exercises. These results should be aggregated and used to evaluate the different levels of the detailed validation objectives up to the high-level validation objectives, with a bottom-up approach. The qualitative and quantitative results of the first iteration will be analysed and reported to the technical work packages to implement the required improvements.

Figure 1. Where we are in the Validation Structured Framework Planning.

2.2 Selection and Identification of the Key Domains of Application

The process of identification and selection of possible Key Domains of Application is based on different and complementary approaches integrated in a step-process composed by different consecutive phases.

First of all an extensive State of the Art about existing Virtual Worlds, their features and their limitations was carried out. Virtual Worlds were classified with respect to different dimensions, such as: Field of Application, Feature High-level Description, Users and Interaction modalities, Activities and Contents supported by the Platform, System and Tools, Strong and Weak aspects. More promising fields of application were selected with respect to their market relevance and the business opportunities foreseen for their exploitation in commercial and industrial contexts. After that, a Questionnaires with Virtual World users and experts was carried out. The overall purpose of the focused Questionnaire was to understand the views and the expectations of professionals working with Virtual Worlds with respect to possible application domains. In particular, feedbacks gathered with this survey have provided support for defining the context of use of the VirtualLife platform applied to Distance Education purposes. To integrate and complement the inputs collected by means of the questionnaires, an End-User Workshop was held in Rome, on Tuesday, July, 20th, 2010. The Workshop in Rome was a one- day focus group with potential VirtualLife end-users from different domains to simplify the list of possible application domains and select the most suitable ones. More than ten external stakeholders participated to the Workshop, brainstorming and thinking about concrete and useful projects and commercial application to be developed with VirtualLife. Thanks to external

Final Confidential 6 D2.1 End User Definition and Needs stakeholders inputs, a preliminary list of seven possible applicative domains, compliant with VirtualLife features, relevant from a business and commercial point of view and interesting for a broad and qualified audience, was produced. Then the selected domains have been mapped on the VirtualLife main features, i.e., the peer- to-peer architecture, the legal framework, the secure infrastructure, the scripting language, the search engine. The level of relevance and usefulness of the VirtualLife peculiarities with respect to the selected domains was highlighted.

Figure 2. The Applicative Domain Selection Process. Finally, two domains of application emerged: Virtual Campus and street-car. They are the basis for the starting of the Validation activities: they represent the domains with the best possibilities to demonstrate and exploit the VirtualLife features. The two key domains of application are described with respect to different dimensions, such as high level scenario objectives, system users, their activities and tasks, VirtuaLife tools and functionalities used and contents and outcomes produced. Different operational scenarios are better detail the VirtualLife functionalities used, the activities supported, the user's interactions with the platform and thus gather the users' high-level requirements.

3 State of the Art of Virtual-worlds

To find an exact definition for virtual worlds is not easy; we can find a generic but good definition on Wikipedia: “A virtual world is a computer-based simulated environment intended for its users to inhabit and interact via avatars.”

Final Confidential 7 D2.1 End User Definition and Needs In the framework of this project, and according to a widespread categorization, a virtual world needs an Internet connection in order to be visited, experienced, by a user, a visitor, etc…

Users participate in the world through avatars, “digital characters” that represent the users on screen and in interactions. Users can explore, meet other residents, socialize, participate in individual and group activities and create and trade items and services with other users.

It mirrors the real world in some ways - with people interacting. But people may choose to have animal or fantasy avatars. There are locations which are very similar to the real world. But there are also fantastic castles, tropical paradises and skyboxes set above the clouds where people can 'live' and work. Travel can be by conventional means such as walking or vehicles. But people can also fly or be 'teleported' from one area of the world to another.

Usually, a VW doesn't stop when you log out of the world. Like real life, it goes on when you're not there. But your actions persist so if you plant a tree in a VW, it stays planted, or if you display leaflets in your building, they will stay there - unless you let people take them away.

But in order to better understand what a VW is, we have to underline other characteristics:

• VW consists in virtual places, virtual objects and virtual agents called avatars (an avatar can be a person, an animal, a fantasy character, etc.);

• Users “experience” the VW using an avatar, more or less in the the same way they do while visiting a website using the mouse pointer, however, the difference is that the avatar is also part of the VW;

• The VW exists also when no user is visiting it;

• When a user is active through the avatar, this happens in the VW so the other users, with their own avatars, can see what is happening. In our analysis we have considered VW as defined in the previous paragraphs, but we have focused the analysis only on the three-dimensional immersive graphical experience.

3.1 Classification Criteria

This section presents the criteria of analysis used classify the list of Virtual Worlds, Each Virtual World is described and classified with respect to the following criteria:

• Field of Application: it briefly highlights the general purpose of the VW (entertainment, education, business,...)

• Short Description: brief description of the VW

• Users and Interaction modalities: specifies who are the users/avatars, and which are the basic human-machine interaction modalities and interactions among different users.

• Activities and Contents (supported by the platform): describes the activities supported by the platform, and the contents used and shared on the VW.

• System and tools (technical description): describes the technical aspects and functionalities.

• Strong and weak aspects: high level evaluation about the VW.

Final Confidential 8 D2.1 End User Definition and Needs 3.1.1 3D or graphic social networks

3.1.1.1 Imvu

This is a kind of 3D chat. To play Imvu you need to download the provided software. The user can create his homepage and interact with the homepages created from other users. An important feature is the possibility to modify the Avatar, changing clothes, shoes, hairstyles and other accessories. The main aim of this 3D chat is to allow users to meet people in animated 3D scenes. The graphics is good and the access is very simple and intuitive.

Field of Application Enternaiment

Short Description IMVU is a graphical instant messaging client developed by IMVU Inc. The first beta release dates back to April 2004.

Users and Interaction IMVU users are represented by a customizable male or female modalities avatar Avatars are cartoon-like and may either be human or altered to resemble other creatures. IMVU chat sessions occur in scenes, which are virtual environments owned by IMVU users. When users participate in chat sessions, their avatar appears within the scene, and their messages appear in chat bubbles above their avatar. While in rooms, IMVU users can move their avatars around to nodes through the room, often attached to furniture objects. IMVU also has public rooms, which are rooms created by users that are publicly available to any other users. Previously all rooms were private and required invitation from the room owner. Recently IMVU has created 'rooms' which are like scenes, but can be customized by placing and moving around furniture that the owner has bought separately. Avatar and rooms customization is a very strong selling point, and in fact IMVU provide a content creation program which allows member users to create their own in-game items in the 3D software application eds

Activities and Contents Chat, buy/sell goods, customize avatars and rooms, play games. (supported by the platform)

System and tools Sophisticated monetary system (relevant technical aspects/strategic wrt virtuallife's technologies)

Strong and weak IMVU has reached 50 million registered users, 10+ million unique aspects visitors per month and a $40+ million annualized revenue run rate. IMVU has the world's largest virtual goods catalog of more than four million items, almost all of which are created by its own members. A strong graphic social network with the world's largest virtual goods catalog of more than four million items, almost all of which are created by its own members; Strong business model (IMVU membership is free of charge; Credits for virtual products available for purchase; Subscriptions, promotions and other items also for sale) no other

Final Confidential 9 D2.1 End User Definition and Needs uses apart from entertainment and socialization.

3.1.1.2 Redlightcenter

This is the virtual copy of a real “red-light” district. In redlightcenter the members can download porn videos, have sex with other avatars and buy pornographic objects in real online sex-shops. The graphics is pretty good and the users can choose to download the complete software or the light version. The difference is in the graphic and the light version is good for the user who doesn’t have a good internet connection. The contents are really realistic but a complete interaction with other users, as well as the possibility to buy goods from shops is allowed only through a “complete” access, which has a monthly cost of 20$.

Field of Application Adult Enternaiment

Short Description RedLightCenter is an adult virtual world which is also bound to a web 2.0 social network. The 3d world is patterned after Amsterdam red-light district: buildings and textures has been modelled as they appear in real world. Utherverse is developing other worlds built from real cities (Vancouver and Las Vegas). The whole platform is divided in parallel worlds (dimensions) grouped together depending on the language spoken by the avatars.

Users and Interaction When the user registers a new account he can create his own modalities avatar in order to enter the 3d world and can customize it by changing his basic features (skin colour, facial morphs, clothes); moreover he has the possibility to add informations about him and upload photos into a web-based profile, that other users can access through the net with a simple web browser. The user can interact with other avatars depending on his account access: the standard user can use the world as a simple social network (talk, dance and generally socialize with other avatars), while the VIP user can access other kinds of interaction (getting naked, taking drugs, having sex) and can own private apartments, called Zabys. Zabys are places that can be furnished by the owner or all the other users who are allowed to; the owner of a Zaby can dictate his own rules within the Zaby perimeter (for example he gives the access just to the avatars who are in his friends list).

Activities and Contents Chat, create a web-based profile with personal information, socialize. (supported by the platform)

System and tools -- (relevant technical aspects/strategic wrt virtuallife's technologies)

Strong and weak Creators have done a drug experiment within the world: they aspects studied a way to reproduce the effects derived from the assumption of some kinds of drug such as ecstasy and marijuana. This way the user can virtually take drugs without having any negative effect in real life.

Final Confidential 10 D2.1 End User Definition and Needs 3.1.1.3 Kaneva

Kaneva is a virtual world and a 3D chat in the same time. The members can create an Avatar and also modify its appearance choosing a new look and buying objects like shirts, ear rings and everything an Avatar can wear. Every Avatar has a provided room, the Kaneva City Loft, which is possible to modify and decorate with photos and images you can load from your PC. An important feature, which also can be considered as a limit, is the economic link between Kaneva world and the real world. In fact in this virtual world you can buy the objects for the avatar and some furniture to put in your room just paying with a normal real credit card. Moreover it’s possible to bring music, videos and watch them in the 3D television available in every City Loft.

Field of Application Entertainment

Short Description Kaneva, developed by Kaneva Inc., can be considered an hybrid product, as it gives the social network a virtual world dimension. The first release of the Virtual World of Kaneva dates back to June 2006.

Users and Interaction Users can upload or link files (videos, photos, music files...) for modalities free and they can buy virtual objects (that Kaneva sells through a web catalog), but they are not allowed to create new objects. Users also have a sort of personal webpage which directly linked to their avatar and through which they can interact with other people and edit contents.

Activities and Contents Chat, upload or link files (videos, photos, music files...), customize their personal webpages. (supported by the platform)

System and tools They use Lua as scripting language and they allow/encourage (relevant technical users with basic scripting skills to create apps for Kaneva. They aspects/strategic wrt have also created a wiki page in order to give instructions about virtuallife's technologies) scripting.

Strong and weak Strong: it integrates social networking, shared media, games and aspects collaborative communities into an immersive 3D virtual world. Weak: no other uses apart from entertainment and socialization

3.1.2 Virtual worlds

3.1.2.1 Second Life

Second Life (SL) is a sophisticated and creative 3D virtual world created by its users. Resolution and graphics are of a good level, even though, according to some virtual worlds experts, it is considered to be lower than the technical level currently reached in this field. The avatars are fully customizable and users can buy every kind of accessories for them. Members can contribute enormously to the growth of the virtual world itself, and they retain the rights of their creations, which they can buy and sell with others users. The free access allows to get a basic account. A basic member can explore the entire world and interact with other users. To be allowed to own a terrain and build users need to obtain a premium access which cost

Final Confidential 11 D2.1 End User Definition and Needs $9.95/month. Some limits are linked to the fact that SL is sometimes seen as “non intuitive” and users need to have real dedication to be able to experience properly the world.

Field of Application Entertainment, education, business, advertising (multi purpose platform).

Short Description Second Life is one of the first 3d virtual world; it was launched by Linden Labs in 2003.

Users and Interaction Second Life is a 3D social world where Residents can interact with modalities each other using fully customizable avatars. Residents can own land, create and sell items, and create groups for other Residents to join and meet. With few restrictions on content, Second Life is one of the most popular social online worlds, where Residents are free to express themselves and their interests as their second life.

Activities and Contents Chat, voice-chat, create, customize avatars, buy and sell goods/land, stream video and music... (supported by the platform)

System and tools Second Life seems to give a great importance to user created (relevant technical content; the program contains an editor both for creating objects aspects/strategic wrt and for personaling avatars; the target is the non-technical user virtuallife's tech) this is the reason why Second Life developers have created a proprietary scripting language that is easy to use by a non- technical person.

Strong and weak First popular and widespread virtual world platform, it had the aspects advantage of being in the spotlight of media. The proprietary scripting language is easy for non-programmers but hated by software developers. The monetary system and the server-centric structure gave economic advantages to the creators, and thus enough budget to increasingly update the system; nonetheless the unilateral policies (see EULA) make this world a non- democratic system and a place not particularly suitable for enterprises.

3.1.2.2 Active Worlds

Activeworlds offers a comprehensive platform for efficiently delivering real-time interactive 3D content over the web. Activeworlds' 3D content is dynamic, visually compelling and most importantly provides users a richer, more exciting online experience. Applications for Activeworlds' 3D technology are as diverse, creative and exciting as the product itself.

Field of Application Entertainment, education, business, advertising

Short Description Activeworlds, by Active Worlds, Inc., was first launched in 1997.

Users and Interaction Activeworlds is a 3D world building platform and portal that was modalities originally designed to be a 3D web browser, Activeworlds is currently one of the oldest 3D virtual worlds in the market. Activeworlds currently hosts over 1000 3D virtual worlds where

Final Confidential 12 D2.1 End User Definition and Needs users can chat, play, shop, and build to their heart’s content. Activeworlds provides 3D modeling software called Truespace to its members for free. Truespace allows a user to model, animate, and render their creations in full 3D. Avatars are customizable only if the user is a citizen of Activeworlds. Users can upload and stream video, music, and scripted animations to their personal spaces. An Active Worlds citizen can buy space, create content, send documents to another citizens.

Activities and Contents -- (supported by the platform)

System and tools -- (relevant technical aspects/strategic wrt virtuallife's tech)

Strong and weak Active Worlds has an interesting business model; it has created a aspects network of partners (distributors, affiliates and solution partners) that helps the system to survive and replicate. Active worlds is free to download and use, however free accounts have limited access and privileges. The annual citizen fee is $70. Citizens can stake claims on land and build, while Tourist members may build in certain locations, however their buildings are not permanent and may be destroyed by any other member. They weren't able to create a currency and a proper scripting language.

3.1.2.3 Entropia Universe

Entropiauniverse is a virtual world in which the user can live a totally unreal life. In this platform the members play a role game and the graphical realism is very good. An important characteristic is the connection with the real world for what concerns economy. In fact, Entropiauniverse has introduced a currency called the “PED”, which is is fact a “real” currency with a fixed conversion rate with the dollar. A considerable limit is the complexity of the interface and the difficulty for a new user to understand how to play. In order to address this problem many users work as tutors to help new users.

Field of Application Entertainment, socialization, advertising

Short Description Entropia Universe, developed by Mindark, can be considered an hybrid product, as at present its platform hosts a MMORPG but it is also used for business purposes. The game was first launched in 2003 with the name of Project Entropia.

Users and Interaction modalities

Activities and Contents Customize spaceships, create new planets, sell/buy goods,

Final Confidential 13 D2.1 End User Definition and Needs (supported by the interact... platform)

System and tools Entropia Universe takes the MMORPG genre to the next level by (relevant technical offering a unique mixture of online entertainment, social aspects/strategic wrt networking and e-commerce through a ground breaking new virtuallife's tech) concept: the connection of a real economy to a gigantic three dimensional virtual universe”. The pay off is also more explicit: Entropia Universe – The first virtual universe with a real cash economy. The environment is set by the creators, but Mindark also provides a platform for building new planets.

Strong and weak It's just oriented to space related things, but it has two different aspects and interesting business model: - vs Players: there is free subscription to play the MMORPG but you pay as you play, your avatar has to be maintained, there are specific mechanisms (The normal service fee for an active user lies between 0.5 and 1.5 USD per hour) - vs. investors: as it is written in the website “Mindark offers its license-free Entropia Universe Planet Development Kit (EUPDK) to carefully selected corporations wishing to create their own planets within Entropia Universe. The offer is open to organizations around the globe with a strategy for a presence on the 3D web.“ They seem to attract investors with a revenue sharing business model: “Revenue is generated through micro-payments for products and services on a virtual planet(s). This model results in an average income of $1 per hour of activity,per user, which is shared between Mindark and the Planet Partner”

3.1.2.4 Wonderland

Open Wonderland is a 100% Java open source toolkit for creating collaborative 3D virtual worlds. Within those worlds, users can communicate with high-fidelity, immersive audio, share live desktop applications, and collaborate in an education, business, or government context. Wonderland is completely extensible; developers and graphic artists can extend its functionality to create entirely new worlds and add new features to existing worlds.

Field of Application Multi purposes

Short Description Wonderland is a Java open-source platform for creating collaborative virtual worlds.

Users and Interaction The main purpose of Wonderland is offering the customer an modalities extensible source which allows the creation of highly customizable 3d multi-user environments, dedicating a special attention to security, scalability, reliability and functionality issues. The project aims at filling in the gap of business services left by currently most used virtual worlds and that's the reason why the platform offers a large list of features which could be especially used for business purposes: - content creation: the platform allows the user to add 3d

Final Confidential 14 D2.1 End User Definition and Needs contents to the world in different ways, such as importing models created with external modeling softwares, creating objects using an in-world editor, adding Java3D code to the source - sharing applications: users within virtual worlds created from Wonderland source are allowed to run applications in-world such as Firefox, Open Office, PDF viewer, Shared Whiteboard, thus are able to arrange and manage a business meeting or a lesson or a conference of any type - recording: the platform provides both audio and video recording tools for capturing any kind of event which is occurring in-world - audio tools: two interesting audio features are Microphone and Cone of silence; the first one allows a speaker to be heard even if other users are not that closed to him while the second one lets users isolate conversations into a restricted area so that audio outside this area is not heard from inside and vice versa - telephone integration: Wonderland introduces telephone communication in virtual worlds: the platform provides a virtual telephone which can be used in order to manage calls to another virtual telephone or even to telephone in real world. The platform has been completely implemented in Java and relies on different open source projects which provide different technologies: Project Darkstar for the server software infrastructure, jVoiceBridge for immersive audio, Java 3D for the scene graph which is at the basis of the 3d world and scene manager, Project Looking Glass for 3d scene manager.

Activities and Contents (supported by the platform)

System and tools The architecture is based on clusters of server-clients (relevant technical aspects/strategic wrt virtuallife's tech)

Strong and weak Wonderland is a SUN Microsystem project and the platform is aspects released as an opensource package under the GPL license, that means that costumers can build their own world or even modify the code only within non-profit projects. Companies interested in selling products based on Wonderland must request a commercial license to SUN in order to keep the environment and eventual code integrations proprietary. With regard to scripting, the main goal is to provide script-based programmability from an arbitrary set of languages which support JSR-223, e.g. JPython or EcmaScript. The primary means of accomplishing this is to expose the Wonderland Java APIs as is. Of course this approach could raise a number of security issue.

Final Confidential 15 D2.1 End User Definition and Needs 3.1.2.5 Olive

OLIVE is an acronym that stands for On-Line Interactive Virtual Environment; it is a software platform that enables customers to deploy their own persistent 3d virtual worlds. It was created by Forterra Systems, but seems to have been acquired by SAIC, scientific, engineering and technology applications company headquartered in the United States ith numerous federal, state, and private sector clients. Since then, the focus of the platform is that of being used for developing collaboration, training and education projects at a very high level.

Field of Application Mainly collaboration, training and education.

Short Description OLIVE-based virtual worlds bring together physical presence, action, voice, data, and media in a realistic, context-specific simulated environment that can run in your IT environment to enhance collaboration. Here is a quick outline of the information you'll find on this web page.

Users and Interaction Forterra Systems, Inc. has developed the OLIVE platform in order modalities to allow customers to build their own private and realistic virtual worlds, based on an architecture which scales from single user applications up to thousands of concurrent users environments. OLIVE is mainly focused in offering building tools to create business and 3d simulation environments. OLIVE is presented as an open platform. Basically it is based on a suite of applications, tools and interfaces that provide the instruments needed in order to develop application-specific contents and scenarios as well as highly customized applications. The API layer can be easily extended because it provides a plug- in functionality which allows developers to integrate existing content with 3rd party applications and rely on 3rd party tools. The platform consists of a core component and other elements that define the basic architecture features: - OLIVE core implements some server processes, such as simulation, communication, application, database - the object framework and the object model allow to populate environments with pre-existing object types or to create new object models to import into the world - the network engine is in charge of managing communications between client and server and is integrated with the distributed physics component - the graphics component is based on rendering system, terrain manager, animation system and avatar framework. Along with these aspects, OLIVE provides a number of tools designed to help customers in creating customized environments, but they do not prevent developers from introducing their own plugins.

Activities and Contents (supported by the platform)

System and tools The architecture is based on clusters of server-clients (relevant technical

Final Confidential 16 D2.1 End User Definition and Needs aspects/strategic wrt virtuallife's tech)

Strong and weak Saic applies a B2B model as it aims at selling the platform as a aspects virtual world builder to companies interested in creating their own environments for business and simulations. The website is really exhaustive and the licence choice is vast. Very focused on training and education.

3.1.2.6 RealXtend realXtend is a project for creating an open-source virtual world platform which is intended to extend the capabilities of OpenSimulator to include features which are not available in the original Second Life project. It is funded by Oulu Innovation in Finland, as a cooperation by three Oulu based companies Evocativi, LudoCraft and Playsign. Like OpenSim, with which the project collaborates and from which it derives much of its code, realXtend is intended to allow individuals and groups to set up and browse their own virtual worlds without having to be connected to much-larger worlds like Second Life.

Field of Application Multi purposes.

Short Description RealXtend is an open-source platform which allows the user to create his own virtual world application.

Users and Interaction The platform is basically split into - RealXtend Viewer: open- modalities source browser, based on the SecondLife client; it lets the user enter and experience multi-user virtual worlds - RealXtend Server: open-source server, built with the OpenSim libraries; it provides a sample virtual world that the user can modify depending on his needs and network features allowing the audience to reach and access the world. The project is mainly focused on creating a standard in order to maintain compatibility among the virtual worlds built from its source. For this purpose developers worked hard on optimising the avatar structure in order to offer the audience a strong portability, which means that a user can access different virtual worlds using the same character; moreover the avatar is highly customizable (thanks to the avatar generator which allows the user to import and modify the character appearance) and programmable (in order to handle different tasks and manage communication and interaction). RealXtend includes some interesting features such as integrating web pages inworld, sharing documents, voice chat, python scripting and many other features are roadmapped such as support for video, integration with Skype, Google Spreadsheets and Open Office, lip synch and so on.

Activities and Contents --

Final Confidential 17 D2.1 End User Definition and Needs (supported by the platform)

System and tools The architecture is based on clusters of server-clients (relevant technical aspects/strategic wrt virtuallife's tech)

Strong and weak RealXtend is a non-profit project administered by Oulu aspects Innovation. The open-source formula was chosen with the main purpose (and hope) of allowing and speeding up the process of standardization of virtual worlds. So, why is realXtend free? The true value of the interconnected 3D worlds is in the applications, not the platform. With the free open source approach, realXtend can reach the highest possible number of users and developers. It is also the best way to maintain compatibility, when there is no competition between companies attempting to gain profit from selling their proprietary platforms. (http://www.realxtend.org/page.php?pg=main) RealXtend development is mainly supported by partners, contributors and investors. Besides partners can decide to sell services such as adapting the platform to customer needs, creating 3d models and customized avatars, creating applications which runs in the virtual world and so on.

3.1.2.7 Multiverse

Multiverse represents a meeting point between a MMOG (Massively Multiplayer Online Game) and a 3D virtual world. Multiverse solves the prohibitive challenge of game creation by providing developers with a comprehensive, pre-coded client-server infrastructure and tools, a wide range of free content including a complete game for modification and a built-in market of consumers. The Multiverse Network will give video game players a single program, the Multiverse Client, which allows them to play the MMOGs and visit all of the non-game virtual worlds built on the Multiverse platform.

Field of Application Any kind but mainly MMOG

Short Description Multiverse, by Multiverse Network, was funded in 2004 by a team of Netscape veterans. As the payoff clearly states (Multiverse – Changing the “virtual” world), Multiverse is not a virtual world, nor a MMORPG nor a 3d social network, but it is a complex tool that allows the creation of sophisticated virtual worlds and MMORPG. So Multiverse main target is the community of 3d developers. And in fact in the homepage this sentence is highlighted: What will you build?

Users and Interaction The main target of Multiverse's creators is not the final user but modalities the developer, so this information is quite unrelevant. Anyway to the developer, Multiverse offers: The Multiverse World Browser, the client application, runs on Windows XP and Vista and includes a state-of-the-art 3D engine

Final Confidential 18 D2.1 End User Definition and Needs that supports "next-gen" rendering features, and it is specifically designed to display large dynamic scenes that are common in MMOGs. The default interactions are avatars' movement and text chat. Extended functionality can be developed by world creators.

Activities and Contents (supported by the platform)

System and tools Is mainly a Client-Server Network model: (relevant technical On the Client, it has a program running which contains the aspects/strategic wrt graphics rendering engine that provides the 3D game experience virtuallife's tech) within worlds in The Multiverse Network. The Multiverse Master Server works as a sort of dual DNS and LDAP server. It Maintains all end-user account information and references to all worlds in the Multiverse. The client uses it to find a desired world and connect to it. The client also reconnects to the master server when a player- character moves from universe to universe. In a development configuration, we can bypass the master server and connect directly to the local world server.

Strong and weak Multiverse is for free as far as it is used and delivered to final aspects users for free. If a developer wants to create and re-sell a virtual world made with Multiverse or wants to create a commercial application, Multiverse creators requires for a 3% to 10% of the revenues (depending on different factors) Multiverse offers a number of flexible license options, including the opportunity to pay nothing upfront. Teams building atop the Multiverse platform always retain their intellectual property and control every aspect of what happens in their game or virtual world. Headquartered in Silicon Valley, Multiverse is led by a seasoned executive team and supported by an unmatched advisory board, which includes Academy Award-winning Director James Cameron, and Academy Award-winning Producer Jon Landau. Multiverse also delivers all the necessary infrastructure services, such as user management, content rating system, and billing/subscription management, necessary for developers to build commercial applications. So each virtual world made with multiverse can have a market and a monetary system. It has a very detailed website, where developers also have the opportunity of having a marketplace for exchanging virtual goods and additional assets.

Final Confidential 19 D2.1 End User Definition and Needs 3.2 Fields of Application

3.2.1 Education and training

According to the Metaverse Roadmap [1], one of the fields where the impact of virtual worlds will be more evident is education[2], an application which offers “great promise ahead”. From the market side as well there seem to be very interesting opportunities, judging from the estimates of the “Roadmap” which predicts that by 2016 non fiction games (gamebooks and other learning environments) will cover the 15% of the gaming market[3]. Indeed, the use of VWs for education and training applications seem to offer to teaching experts (and, consequently, to the education market) a new, wide and interesting world that they have just begun to explore in order to identify the possibilities it offers. The interest towards the sector is confirmed by the large number of academic institutions, research centres and private companies which are focusing their activities on the identification and testing of various 3D application for education and training. The research activities that are being carried out in this field are focused not only on the technical aspects but also on the exploration of new teaching methods and the identification of best practices that could help educators in taking the maximum advantage from the instruments offered by Virtual Learning Environments (VLEs). The Eduserve Foundation (http://www.eduserv.org.uk/foundation), an institution entirely dedicated to exploring and supporting ICT applications in learning and education, published in March 2008 a paper called “Measuring the impact of Second Life for educational purposes” [4], in which a series of UK academics were asked to reflect on the possibilities to assess and measure the impact of education initiatives implemented on this specific platform. The paper offered an opportunity to read the opinions of the academic world towards these new teaching instruments and many answers showed that for many professionals of the sector Virtual Learning Environments - VLEs - are “here to stay” and almost certainly they will become in the future a better medium than the 2D virtual learning spaces. However, this will happen provided that educators will find the right teaching approach which, according to some of the interviewees, should avoid the replication of a conventional classroom setting and the dynamics of traditional lectures. The paper illustrated the pedagogical concerns raised by the new tools offered by VLEs and showed that educators should reflect on the identification of new learning experiences, based on the opportunities that VLEs and 3D virtual worlds offer by enabling people “to experience things they might otherwise not be able to do”[5]. Promising trends in the application of VWs to the education and training fields have been identified as well by the “Horizon Report” version of 2007. This annual paper is published by the New Media Consortium (http://www.nmc.org)[6], an international not-for-profit consortium of over 260 learning-focused organizations (academic institutions, foundations, museums, corporate partners) whose activity is mainly dedicated to the exploration and use of new media and new technologies. The report is aimed at identifying those emerging technologies which are more likely to have an impact on higher education within one to five years. The 2007 paper highlights the importance that VWs will most probably have in the rapidly changing education environment, due to a series of sociological and economical factors like, for instance, the rising costs of traditional education coupled with the shrinking budgets, the appearance of new “working and part time” students which do not comply with the traditional full time resident student profile and need flexible didactic solutions, the rising demand of new interactive and participative experiences. According to the research, due to the “almost limitless opportunities” that VWs offer for the education sector, these technologies should start to be widely adopted (and should thus start to produce a significant impact on the education sector) in a timeframe of two to three years[7], and they could replicate a trend “that will echo the rise of the web in the mid-1990s”[8]. The advantages of virtual worlds for teaching and training activities have been explored as well by a series of research centres and academic institutions in focused papers, specific

Final Confidential 20 D2.1 End User Definition and Needs conferences and seminars and confirm the promising potential uses and applications of these tools. The advantages of virtual worlds for teaching and training activities have been explored by a series of research centres and academic institutions in focused papers, specific conferences and seminars and confirm the promising potential uses and applications of these tools. When summarized, the conclusions reached by educational experts suggest that the main potential benefits of 3D VLEs are the following[9]:

• Creation of a sense of community • Physical immediacy • Higher level of engagement of the student, enhancement of participation, richer interactions between students, expanded understanding of cultural, scientific, societal experiences (through the representation of 3D models and constructions allowing easy visualization of physical objects and materials, even those occurring at cosmic or nano scales). • Possibility to create role-play scenarios and experience other situations in a safe but compelling way, thus facilitating didactical and/or training approaches based on problem solving (particularly relevant for training in the medical sector or emergency response) • Possibility to obtain group situations that could otherwise be difficult to re-create with other media. • Possibility to build complex, networked and interactive applications (particularly relevant for specific disciplines such as arts and architecture); • Possibility to create a 'team' effect, as each student can see what the others are doing and interacts with their projects as they are being developed, thus facilitating peer to peer learning, testing, evaluation and reflection. • Possibility to build very effective learning spaces through the creation of settings that can respond to any subject or area of study and can be applied to almost all disciplines. Some relevant examples of virtual worlds current applications in the education and training fields can already be found, they include a wide range of training applications, as for instance, e-learning programmes, emergency training, medical training. The Virtual Incident Management Training, developed by the University of Mariland (together with Forterra systems, using the Olive platform) trains traffic management personnel and first respondents for effective response to traffic incidents.http://www.cattlab.umd.edu/index.php? page=research&a=00028 “Play to Train” developed in SL by Idahos University’s Idaho Bioterrorism Awareness and Preparedness program (IBAP) is a training for emergency response and medical training, http://play2train.us/wordpress. Various simulations for training in complex environments (for instance, oil industry) have been developed by the company Octaga http://www.octaga.com/joomla/i ndex.php? option=com_content&task=view&id=27&Itemid=76 SUMMIT – is a focused Stanford university’s research group dedicated to the use of Information technologies, and more specifically 3D environments, for training. Various projects have been developed in the framework of this research, for medical training as well as for emergency interventions http://summit.stanford.edu/research/simulation.html http://medblog.stanford.edu/summitnews/archives/2007/06/index.html#002545 It has to be mentioned that Stanford University is exploring other applications of virtual worlds in fields which are between training and medical-sociological research: social interaction and behavioural problems, learning processes through virtual worlds applications http://vhil.stanford.edu/

Final Confidential 21 D2.1 End User Definition and Needs Advantages of virtual environments in learning experiences are explored as well by various initiatives carried out by the American university of Santa Barbara’s (http://www.recveb.ucsb.edu/research_area_education.htm), by the Mac Arthur Foundation, focused on the link between education and immersive technologies (http://digitallearning.macfound.org/site/c.enJLKQNlFiG/b.3753467/), by the Eduserve Foundation (http://www.eduserv.org.uk/foundation) and by the project Games for Health developed by the Serious Games Initiative http://www.gamesforhealth.org/ NASA as well is exploring the educational advantages of immersive environment and has developed in SL the initiative CoLab for education as well for development and testing of prototypes http://colab.arc.nasa.gov/virtual The Italian University “Università Cattolica” has developed the project SIM CITY MANAGER for the training of city managers, training on urban development, management of municipal services, environmental and municipal energy efficiency…, based on the SimCity societies game. Finally, there are more than 70 universities, from all over the world, which have developed training environments in SL, for the provision of information, the organisation of seminars and conferences, the delivery of courses to their students.

3.2.2 Marketing, brand promotion, commercial applications

The data on Virtual worlds' registered users available in 2008 showed than in the second quarter of 2008 approximately 303 millions of users had access to 21 Virtual worlds, thus doubling the figure registered in the first quarter of the year (173.61 million registered users). Figures for the 4th quarter of 2009 indicated that there were more than 780 millions of registered accounts in virtual worlds (all age ranges are considered) and the figures seem to register another increase throughout 2010 when the overall number of users boasts to 1009 millions[10] This rising trend explains the strong interest of companies towards the possibilities offered by Virtual worlds in terms of marketing and branding strategies. However, analysts remind us that VWs offer opportunities but also challenges to companies wishing to enter this new dimension of marketing. Indeed, starting from 2007 there have been many cases of failed VWs marketing projects, which followed a period of enthusiasm in 2005-2006, when many brands and firms decided to start this new adventure. The main metaverse towards which firms directed their efforts was in recent years Second Life. Companies present in SL came (and come) from all the productive sectors, and represent industry (cars manufacturers, apparel producers, IT companies) as well as services (media, travel agencies, banks, real estate companies…)[11]. The vast majority of projects foresaw the opening of a store or the creation of a brand-centred “building” on a Second Life island (virtual show rooms). Even though the adopted strategies differed, according to marketing observers and analysts in the vast majority of cases the approach was a traditional one, and SL was used as a traditional advertising tool focused on product demonstration (demos) or, in some cases, on the possibility to purchase “virtual” reproductions and digital versions of brand products. Only in limited cases companies succeeded in offering new experiences to users and in adopting an innovative approach. This led to a high rate of failures, as underlined by a recent research by Gartner stating that “9 out of 10 business experiments in virtual worlds fail within 18 months”. However, the same research presents interesting estimates on the future use of VWs by companies. Gartner’s predictions states that by 2012 “70 per cent of organisations will have established their own private virtual worlds”. The market value of advertisement through VW seem to be increasing as well, according to estimates by Parks Associates, stating that the overall expenditure for US based companies has been of 15 million dollars for advertising activities, but it is expected to rise tenfold by 2012. This will be the result of a new approach towards the opportunities offered by VWs for marketing and branding, based on focused strategies, clear objectives, a better understanding of the “demographics, attitudes and expectations of virtual-world communities."[12]

Final Confidential 22 D2.1 End User Definition and Needs Recently released analysis and forecasts on virtual worlds’ evolution seem to confirm this prediction. This is the case of the document published by “Virtual Worlds Management”, the “Virtual Worlds Management Industry Forecast 2008” where selected observers, analysts and industry leaders have been asked to present their predictions for the future of the virtual worlds sector[13]. Many comments were focused on the fact that a new model of marketing strategies applied to virtual worlds will soon emerge. Companies will be more focused on the need to offer to their audience compelling, immersive, meaningful, experiences. In many cases, it is believed, companies will develop their own virtual world, instead of maintaining a space on a platform like Second Life. E-commerce applications as well will, most probably, be part of this scenario, as stated by the Metaverse roadmap according to which in a medium term “3D spaces will become an infinite shelf”, starting from large companies already experienced in e-commerce applications (such as Amazon). Marketing and branding fields could also take advantage from some 3D applications which, despite being still at an experimental stage, could play a considerable role in the forthcoming years. According to the Metaverse Roadmap, a particularly important aspect in this field is the encounter between the so called “mirror worlds” (Google Earth) and 3D and the possibility to enter geospatial 3D representations with an avatar. The release of Google Sketch Up can be considered a first step towards this direction. Google Sketch Up is a very intuitive and easy-to- use 3d modelling software, that is available for free, and allows any user to create 3d buildings to be visited through Google Earth viewer. This application, according to analysts, is particularly relevant for the tourism industry and a series of companies have already started to explore this field, through the elaboration in 3D of specific travel destinations, thus allowing the users to explore the locations they would like to visit[14]. An interesting example is offered by Disney, which allows visitors to access the 3d representations of some of its parks via Google Earth[15]. Concerning the ongoing marketing and branding initiatives, interesting applications of virtual worlds to marketing strategies, which illustrate the industry trend announced by the “Virtual Worlds Management Industry Forecast 2008” report, have already been developed by companies like Lego Lego Universe, Mattel, MTV. Lego VW (http://universe.lego.com/en-gb/media/default.aspx? category=148282§ion=148275&contentid=258110) is subscription based and comprises strong User Generated Content features and a strong use of communities and shared creation with an accent put on the challenging part of making new and original creations. Barbie Girls (http://www.barbiegirls.com/homeMtl.html), by Mattel Inc., was launched in April 2007 and totalled more 300 millions of users in 60 days. The Virtual World is meant to allow the visitors (86% of whom are young girls of 8 years or more) to “experience the brand” , through the participation to games and to a virtual community, through the presentation of products and, of course, through the possibility to shop on line.

3.2.3 Corporate use, teleworking, seminars, organisation of public events

Corporate use of VWs represent one major future application of VWs, according to analysts and observers of this specific industry. Sometimes this use could be indirectly linked to the marketing and advertising fields, as, in some cases, companies developing their own virtual world intend to provide to their customers a series of services while at the same time using the virtual space for internal activities. The potential applications of 3D spaces to corporate use by companies, that is, to activities related to training, corporate events/seminars, have been highlighted by the “Virtual Worlds Management Industry Forecast 2008”, in which various representatives of the emerging virtual worlds industry underlined that one of the rising trends in 2008 would be business applications of VW, focused around “education, corporate training, and work flow collaboration”[16].

Final Confidential 23 D2.1 End User Definition and Needs One major appeal of corporate applications of VWs is linked to the possibility to create collaborative workspaces for distant workers. In this respect, a specific factor should be considered, that is, the recent trends of the employment market (at European level as well as worldwide), showing a constant rise of alternative forms of work, more specifically of teleworking, in which work is done at home or in other places different from the working place, and involves the use of a pc [17]. The estimates show that approximately the 6% of the workers at EU level is involved in a form of telework for at least the 10% of their working time[18]. The development of ICT technologies as well as the strengthening of the services sector play a pivotal role in this rising trend. Beyond the obvious consequences of the above mentioned developments, there are also more subtle factors arising from the understanding that the technology will in perspective make the VW experience closer and closer to the real experience. Virtual persons could very well resemble in a short time the real persons with a degree of fidelity which is already available in the movie industry and perceived then as achievable. Moreover, in a world where young age and nice look are playing a role in everyone’s success (this is especially true in North America) the virtual persons might thus become a appealing tool for everybody, thus allowing users to present themselves to their “counterparts” with a “business like” appearance, even if they are working from home. Another “supporting” factor could be the progressive recognition by social partners (i.e. employers’ organisations, trade unions) of agreements recognising the role, and rights, of teleworkers [19]. Moreover, the tendency towards telework and towards the increased adoption of “virtual work places” can be linked to another factor highlighted by sociological analysis, that is, the retirement in 2008 of the first wave of “baby boomers” . It has been calculated that in United States, starting from 2008 and in the course of next five years approximately 20 millions of people will leave the labour market [20]. A survey indicated that “as many as 70% of boomers want to build their own small companies from a home setting” [21]. This factors, of course, attracts the attention of people working in the marketing sector or of specialists of traffic trends, but could play as well a very relevant role with regard to the adoption of new technologies by a part of the population approaching retirement and wishing to have an active working activity (note than in EU the “wave” of retirement of baby boomers was expected to start in 2010, the same applies to OECD countries [22]) .” This trend shows that there might be room for interesting applications of VWs in new forms of work, as underlined by a March 2008 report - prepared by the Virtual Worlds Consortium for Innovation and Learning. The report was focused on the potential application of virtual worlds for collaborative forms of work and provided comments on a survey involving more than 80 participants, based in US, Europe and to a smaller extent in Asia, belonging to the industrial and enterprise sectors as well as to the academic world. Even though, as underlined by the report, the interviewed participants were already involved in virtual worlds, particularly in Second Life, and thus had a higher knowledge of this field compared to the average population, still it is interesting to see that nearly 60% of them were extremely interested in the applications of these technologies for work and two thirds of them saw strong potentials for collaborative work. One major asset seems to be the fact that virtual worlds allow stronger interactions between collaborators, thus facilitating not only cross sectoral interactions (for instance between university and enterprise sectors) but also and particularly enabling the development of projects between distant geographic areas. Of course, respondents recognise that many technological limits still have to be addressed, particularly with regard to security aspects, interactions with other tools (for instance possibility to import works developed with products like Google sketch up), ease of use. New forms of works and, in a way, the rise of new collaboration models which emerged with the Web 2.0 development, seem thus to offer a promising ground for virtual worlds applications in the professional field. Another factor which could support further this development could be the rising market of video conferencing. This specific market has in Europe an overall value of more than a billion dollars (2008 data) and registers a constant rise[23]. Interesting enough, analysts underline the fact that this positive trend seems to be supported also by the recent constraints on business travels, due to time wasting and to the rising costs of plane travels

Final Confidential 24 D2.1 End User Definition and Needs (particularly of fuel). Concerns on the need to reduce CO2 emissions, linked to the positive publicity effects originating from environmentally “friendly” corporate behaviours, to the regulations which call companies to report their annual carbon emissions, and to security concerns (see the abrupt fall in revenues of all airlines immediately after 9/11), seem to play a role as well. The “Travelling light” [24] report issued in 2008 by WWF illustrated these trends and highlighted the fact that approximately 85% of the interviewed companies (350 UK based companies coming from different productive sectors) believed that videoconferencing will help them to strongly reduce their costs for business travel and, more specifically, for business flights. For many of the interviewed companies “virtual meetings are an attractive alternative to travelling for many types of meeting, from board meetings to project team updates” [25]. A specific linkage between the expected strengthening of the videoconferencing market and virtual worlds is done by the “Metaverse Roadmap” document, according to which “we’ll see in the next ten years the convergence of 3D virtual offices with immersive videoconferencing systems, and these platforms (accessible not only by businesses but also by home office users) will merge with tomorrows virtual worlds”. Of course, higher degrees of functionality and automation will be necessary in order to increase the performances of these tools. The above mentioned data show that corporate applications of virtual worlds could comprise several aspects of working activity, from the collaborative work to virtual meetings, not to mention training. Rising trends in support of collaborative spaces (Web 2.0 is based on this principle), as well as other economic or social factors (need to reduce travel costs, the development of telework) seem thus to pave the way for a wide range of applications by enterprises. For what concerns the applications, some very interesting corporate projects have been developed since 2006-2007, when this field started to attract larger companies which started mainly to work on the Second Life platform. The situation has now strongly evolved, and in 2010 we have various VWs platforms specifically dedicated to corporate use, collaborative work and virtual meetings. In some cases the virtual world is still in a development phase, but we considered that it would have been interesting to present the information in order to give an overview of the main trends of this “subsector” of virtual worlds applications. Applications range from the creation of virtual spaces for the organisation of seminars and conferences, for in company training activities, for the provision of customer care services, for collaborative work aimed at developing and/or testing product prototypes or complex projects (i.e architectural projects). As underlined by the Metaverse Roadmap report, virtual worlds can be seen as a "virtual testing ground”, low cost and low risk environments for prototyping physical products and for developing architectural projects. Sun Microsystems The company started its activities in Second Life in 2006 and is now regularly using the island that was created in SL for corporate use, meetings, seminars etc…An employee event took place in April 2008 and had an overall number of accesses on approximately 1.751 people, with an average presence of 185 people.[26] Moreover, Sun Microsystems has developed a specific toolkit for building virtual working spaces: Project Wonderland (http://openwonderland.org/) IBM – Business Centre IBM opened a business centre in SL in Spring 2007 and totalled more than 17,000 visitors in a few months. The objective, according to the information released by the company was to provide customers all around the world with constant support and assistance in almost fifteen different languages. In addition to the support by IBM employees, visitors (or better, visitors’ avatars) can access a virtual library with technical support books. SL was used mainly as a "show case" for demonstrating to customers the potential of virtual worlds. Xerox The ICT firm Xerox developed its innovation island in SL, where weekly meetings between company’s employees were held in order to discuss potential projects and applications of VW

Final Confidential 25 D2.1 End User Definition and Needs for the company. One of the objectives will be to demonstrate technology to company’s customers. Unilever The company developed an experimental project in SL, dedicated to the development of collaboration activities between teams scattered around the world. Cisco Cisco had a dedicated space in SL, based in several “Sims” Teleplace http://www.teleplace.com/ A platform specifically dedicated to the creation of virtual working spaces Sears Virtual Home http://www-03.ibm.com/press/us/en/pressrelease/20862.wss A virtual showroom for customer care developed by IBM. Representation of objects sold in real world shops, aimed at demonstrating to customers how selected electronic appliances and tools fit in the virtual space. Circuit City shops http://www-03.ibm.com/press/us/en/pressrelease/20800.wss In 2006, a virtual shop was developed in SL by IBM for the electronic devices seller Circuit city. The project started in 2006 and was aimed not only at presenting to customers 3D replicas of products that could be purchased either in “real world” shops of the brand or on the Web site, but offers as well to visitors the possibility to receive technical support and advice from the company’s personnel’s avatars. Studio Wikitecture project http://studiowikitecture.wordpress.com The project is developed in Second Life and is aimed at supporting collaboration and exchange of ideas in Architectural development, design, urban planning; Organisation of conferences, seminars, public events. We can say that Corporate applications of virtual worlds are still a “burgeoning” activity, experiencing changes, re-focusing of objectives, technological evolution, and a certain volatility and fragmentation for what concerns the business players (i.e. mergers and/or acquisitions) nevertheless, data and forecasts analysis made in 2009-2010 for the upcoming years seem to highlight a strong economic potential in this filed, with a consolidation of the market expected in 2013, after a couple of years of “early adoption phase”. Investments, and players' expectations seem to confirm this trend: a 2009 report by the consultancy “Think Balm”, specialised in the analysis of the immersive technologies market showed that approximately 75% of the interviewed players expected to increase their investments in immersive technologies in 2010[27]. Either in SL or through specific software (it must be underlined that many corporate players withdrew from SL or strongly down shifted their presence on the platform in 2009 and 2010), several corporate events have been organized by institutions and private companies. In April 2008 Cisco systems held a conference for its partners and resellers in a virtual space specifically developed by Unisfair, which attracted in 4 days almost 1.000 attendants per day coming from 90 different countries. This successful experience led to the organisation of a similar event in September 2009, when CISCO Systems held its annual sales meeting online, and gathered 19,000 attendees[27]. The New Media Consortium (NMC), an international not- for-profit consortium gathering over 260 learning-focused organizations dedicated to the exploration and use of new media and new technologies (based in US, Canada, Europe, Asia, Australia) created a campus in SL and a conference centre (NMC conference centre) where meetings and seminars are organized. IBM, despite a down shift of its activities in SL still carries

Final Confidential 26 D2.1 End User Definition and Needs out a considerable research effort in the exploration of virtual worlds for enterprise corporate use, and the company considers itself a being in the “forefront in exploring virtual worlds”, with “IBM researchers, consultants, and developers worldwide are developing and providing new ways of learning, collaborating and doing business in virtual worlds”[28]. The IBM Virtual Collaboration for Lotus Sametime project (for details, see: http://www- 03.ibm.com/press/us/en/pressrelease/27831.wss), built on Opensim and launched in 2009, goes in this direction.

3.2.4 Virtual worlds for kids and teens entertainment

When considering the development of the Virtual World market, one factor has to be underlined, the strong increase that most analysts and observers foresee for virtual worlds focused on kids and teens. Market analysis divide the age range between kids (7 years and under), “tweens” (8-12 years) and teens (13-18 years). Applications of VWs to the entertainment industry seem thus to be particularly focused on younger users and this seems to be “The” market on which industry operators are concentrating their efforts. Indeed, various factors seem to confirm that this is a field well worth an exploration, when thinking about possible users and applications of virtual worlds. The most recent data on registered users and those related to the steps that the industry is taking in terms of investment show that the trend has been strongly increasing from 2008 on and that it will probably continue in the next years. For instance, available information show that, in US, 24% of kids and teens (age range 3-18 years) have visited at least once a month a virtual world. Moreover, the specific report on Kids and Teens Online designed and implemented by the research company E-marketer shows that by 2011 53% of them will be visiting virtual worlds (or, as stated by the report, “will be going virtual”)[29]. With regard to virtual worlds “offer”, or the number of worlds available for young users, for a report prepared by the “Virtual worlds management” research group we can see that in 2008 there are more than 100 virtual worlds, either already operational ( “live” according to the definition of the report) or still in the experimental stage (“in development”), that are focused on younger users market (18 years and less). More specifically, in 2008 there were 60 worlds already completely operational while other 53 are in concepting, development, or testing phases[30]. These data produce a more striking effect when observed against the data on the number of registered users of some of the most popular kids and teens virtual worlds. Barbie girls, developed by Mattel and launched in April 2007, had more than 11 million members in 2008 and reached 17 millions of accounts at the end of 2009[31] . Neopets, launched in 1999, is considered to be the largest virtual world for kids and teens in terms of users and has something like 40 millions of registered users from all parts of the world (it operates in eleven different languages). Not surprisingly, this market sector is strongly linked to marketing application of VWs as, in fact, the most successful of them seem to follow some of the “golden rules” that marketing experts have identified for what concerns successful advertisement initiatives of virtual worlds: sense of engagement for the customer, different offers in terms of games, forums etc…This “entertainment focused” marketing strategy can be seen in Virtual Worlds like GoPets, Barbie girls and Neopets and by the VW of Lego.

3.2.5 Virtual worlds for the provision of services (public administrations, cultural initiatives, e-health)

In the second half of 2007 approximately 50 United States Federal agencies formed the Federal Consortium for Virtual Worlds. The aim of the association was to explore the possible applications of virtual worlds to governmental initiatives, like training, collaborative work or information provision to citizens. The Consortium organised two events, in November 2007 and April 2008 where initiatives related to this field were presented and opportunities as well as problems were discussed. During the spring 2008 event various initiatives related to VWs and

Final Confidential 27 D2.1 End User Definition and Needs developed by agencies of the United States have been illustrated, with a specific focus on training applications, for instance the virtual classroom developed by the US Department of Homeland Security aimed at allowing a secure environment for training and collaboration between students and teachers. This virtual classroom will be a part of a larger virtual world which is currently being developed for the US National Guard (the Virtual Worlds is named “Joint State Response Training System’s (JSRTS) Emergency Management Nexus (EM-Nexus)”. Other initiatives for applications of virtual worlds to training or activities like cultural interaction in view of the deployment of personnel abroad have been developed (and presented during the above mentioned meeting) by the US navy as well as by other US institutions, for instance by the State Department, which developed three different experimental initiatives in SL, in order to see whether there were possibilities to activate a “Public Diplomacy in Cyberspace”. This experimental effort, carried out by a series of governmental agencies, show us that in this field as well the tools offered by virtual world could lead to interesting applications. In Europe governments and governmental agencies have been experimenting solutions particularly through Second Life. European countries which have been working in this direction through SL have been, among others, Sweden (Swedish embassy) , Italy (Italian Cultural Institute, developed by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs), Estonia (Estonian embassy). At EU level the future path of ICT applications in government–related activities is analysed in various reports, aimed at identifying the challenges that the public sector will have to face in order to address the impact of long term societal and technological trends[32]. For instance, the success of 2.0 Web based applications, linked to the concept of the “user as a producer” represents for the public sector a challenge that should not be underestimated, as citizens are more and more used to use these tools for the establishment of collaborations in a wide range of fields, including public life, political participation, rating of public services. Citizens, as well as organisations and private companies, are thus becoming increasingly proactive. This factor is likely to have a considerable impact on various domains of government activity and can considerably affect the relations between citizens and government. Public administrations should thus consider these trends in their medium and long term E-Government strategies, in order to make the best use of the potential benefits they could bring with regard to e- participation and to the development of more customer oriented services. Other socio-economic trends which will bring wide changes in the medium term, and should thus be considered by public administrations, are related to the fact that the teenagers of today will become the users of tomorrow government services. These future potential “customers” are already immersed in ICT applications, they are growing up with virtual worlds and with the collaborative Web and they represent a scenario to which governments will have to respond. More “sophisticated”, proactive and demanding users, future demographic and socio-economic trends like the need of citizens to participate and the rise of an “Internet generation”, seem thus to be among the main factors that are likely to affect the future strategies for e- government applications. In this scenario, virtual worlds can represent one of the possible applications that public administrations could develop for soft issues (public relations, info services) as well as for other “core internal tasks” such as public participations to decisions of administrations, or provision of specific services to citizens. As already mentioned some experimental applications have already been developed by EU administrations, mainly in Second Life, through the creation of virtual embassies or cultural institutions where visitors can find useful information on a specific country. However, other possible applications are explored as well. This is the case with “Virtual City” a Dutch project which received in 2007 the good practice label from the ePractice portal supported by the EC and aimed at exchanging good practices in the field of eGovernment and eInclusion. The project intended, through the use of a virtual multi-user 3D world, to facilitate the collaboration of the citizens of three different Dutch towns for planning and reconstruction activities[33]. Other applications are related to the provision of e-health services. Second Health[34] is a British project developed in SL by the Medical School at the Imperial college, in collaboration with the National Physical Lab. The aim is to recreate in all its details an entire Hospital in SL, fully equipped and staffed, in order to familiarise visitors with the activity carried out in an hospital. While the project is used as well for medical training, it is intend to show how an hospital in the future might look like (the project has been developed according to the

Final Confidential 28 D2.1 End User Definition and Needs guidelines of the report Healthcare for London: a Framework for Action). The provision of specific medical information to citizens, developed also by other projects, like for instance the HealthInfo island in SL; might thus be the next level that could be reached through the use of virtual worlds for healthcare services, provided that privacy and security concerns will be duly tackled by the projects.

3.3 Main Categories of Users

What follows is a survey of virtual worlds users, taking into account their fields of activity as well as their technical requirements. We can imagine three general kinds of possible VW users: private users, companies and public administrations and then take into account their fields of activity to outline their technical requirements and needs. Private users mainly use VW for socialization. The VW is, in fact, a social-networking tool and therefore needs the features of this kind of applications: creation of a personal profile; interaction with other community members; emailing and messaging (online/offline) through chat, instant messaging and mobile; creation of a network of friends; presence and info update of friends; import audio/video/photo/live feed; sharing blog post/video/audio/photo/link; content search; accessibility (the system should be usable with special devices for people with visual impairments, for example); security and privacy. Private users also exploit VW for businesses (to start a new business or to improve an existing one), but this kind of use can be assimilated to companies’ usage of VW. Companies use VW for different purposes: as a social networking application to improve communications, file sharing, etc.; as a marketing tool to promote their own activities, products and services (as a web site, a spot, PR); as a working platform to deploy in their own products and services; as a business tool to increase their own profit. So, the VW should present the following features, in addition to the features needed by private user: economic system for commercial exchange (currency support, for example); e-commerce tools; a legal framework; statistical and research tools. Finally, public administrations could use VW to offer new services to their use base, to promote their own activities, to improve internal communications. Public administrations needs are included in previous specifications. From a technical point of view, a VW should be as much user friendly as possible (user interaction with the VW should be perceptual and aided by an online help system), not request high performing pc but also assure a high experience quality.

Final Confidential 29 D2.1 End User Definition and Needs 3.3.1 Users of the existing Vws

A recent research made by K Zero (a company focused on marketing dynamics relating to virtual worlds) analyze virtual world populations, usage analysis of residents inside these worlds as well as examination of marketing strategies for brand owners. This analysis shows total registered accounts across a wide-range of different virtual worlds with accompanying average age and year of formation, including VW currently in development. The young age of large part of people resident in existing VW let us think that they are more familiar with technologies and more used to 3d environments thanks to game consoles. Their usage of VW has reference to social processes. We could consider Second Life an anomaly in this context with the average age of his over 14 Millions of resident user over thirty years, but it is especially an important issue for our analysis. Companies typically use VWs as a marketing and promotion tool. A new medium for commercial and branding strategies focused on specific targets, categorized by: •age range (many users are kids or teenagers) •technical level •field of application: companies for corporate use, marketing and promotion, customer care; public administrations for public relations with citizens and training; cultural organisations, medical institutions; bodies linked to Education and training; private users.

3.3.2 Users of the possible future applications of VW

The list below provides some users of the possible future applications of virtual worlds:

1. Enterprises for virtual office applications, repository of documents, corporate use (training, seminars, meetings). 2. Enterprises for virtual commerce activities, customer care. 3. Public administrations for the provision of specific services, for e-procurement activities, for the issuing of documents, medical assistance, collaborative planning initiatives. 4. Private users, for social networking, games, development of specific projects like architectural development. According to what has emerged from the analysis of the most promising fields of application, we can identify three main groups of users to focus: 1. Private organisations (companies, “corporate users”) 2. Public organizations (public administrations, universities) 3. Private users, according to their technological competencies’ level (basic, advanced)

4 Market Analysis

In this section are reported the market analysis for business and commercial applications of Virtual Worlds and a preliminary list of general needs relevant for Virtual World users of different kinds. Two complementary approaches are used: a set of Questionnaires for professional Virtual World users and the organization of a VirtualLife Workshop. The Questionnaires were developed mainly for distance learning applications.

Final Confidential 30 D2.1 End User Definition and Needs 4.1 Questionnaires

The overall purpose of the focused questionnaire was to understand the views and the expectations of professionals working in the field of distance learning with regard to the use of a virtual world platform to distance learning applications. The underlying goal was thus to receive feedbacks on a series of issues that the VirtualLife platform could present to its users, in terms of functionality and performance. The results of the questionnaire have subsequently been prioritized against a set of criteria defined according to the MOSCOW approach (already adopted in the “phase 1” of requirements’ definition. Another aim of the focused analysis has been the monitoring of the compliance of VirtualLife environment to the education scenario and the parallel fine-tuning of VirtualLife development towards user-driven needs. The feedbacks gathered with this survey have provided support for defining the context of use of the VirtualLife platform applied to distance education purposes. Moreover, it is also important to highlight the fact that the users involved in this phase will be asked to cooperate in the following validation activity. The full list of results is included in the report as an annex.

4.1.1 Methodology: Sample Selection Strategy

The goal of this focused requirements analysis, that is, to concentrate the inquiry on the features that a virtual world platform should present for a successful application to a distance learning scenario, required to involve in the investigation interviewees with a wide experience in the field of distance teaching and training, albeit with different technical backgrounds and different levels of familiarity with web 2.0 tools. The underlying idea was to collect opinions from various segments of the “value chain” dealing with distance learning activities: companies working in the development of e-learning solutions, educators (tutors and teachers), students, educational technologists. The latter definition includes professionals (usually educators) involved in the integration of technological solutions with educational and pedagogical goals, they are thus in the front line for what concerns platform selection. The intent was to run a qualitative analysis in a specific environment population. Our sample selection was thus based on purposive sampling, as common in a qualitative research in a limited population.

For the purposes of the inquiry the panel had to comprise members who were active users of virtual worlds (whether or not applied to education activities) or who had at least some experience with virtual environments, but the decision was taken to include as well, when possible, members (namely, educators) who had a strong interest towards new didactic approaches and ICT tools applied to distance education, even if they were not experienced in using virtual worlds. The goal was to obtain some information on the openness and interest of this specific category (i.e. educators using ICT tools but not experienced in virtual worlds) towards the possibility of using a virtual environment for e-learning purposes, as it would have provided a useful additional input when addressing usability and accessibility issues of the VirtualLife platform.

A first phase of work has been based on a scouting activity which allowed to identify a list of organizations and professionals who could be interviewed. This analysis phase considered organizations/professionals who were undertaking activities in the field of distance learning and education, with a specific attention towards research activity (pedagogic research for instance) exploring the use of virtual worlds for distance education applications. The result was a list of approximately 100 possible respondents (either individuals working for organizations or free- lance professionals) who could be involved in the inquiry. In some cases respondents were already in contact, for professional purposes, with some of the consortium partners, however,

Final Confidential 31 D2.1 End User Definition and Needs the majority of them were contacted by e-mail. Reminder phone calls were subsequently made, to a restricted panel (to those respondents who, due to their specific field of activity, were considered particularly relevant for the inquiry) in order to present to them the project and the overall goal of the survey. Moreover, with the aim of enlarging as much a possible the potential respondent’s panel, the VirtualLife project and the inquiry were publicized through selected social and professional networks (Linkedin, Facebook), this was done through the registration to discussion groups dedicated to professionals working in fields linking e-learning and virtual worlds.

4.1.2 Questioning Strategy

Potential respondents, as already mentioned, were mainly contacted by e-mail. The mail text contained a presentation of the VirtualLife project as well as an explanation of the application scenario (the “campus scenario”) selected by the consortium; potential respondents were informed as well that a video demo of the platform was accessible from the Web page of the project. Moreover, each e-mail was specifically targeted to the addressees’ activity and field of research, in order to underline the possible links and synergies with the project itself. Phone calls were subsequently made to a restricted number of possible respondents as a “follow up”. This restricted list comprised approximately 40 subjects that were considered as particularly relevant for this phase of the inquiry, due to the activity they were carrying out in the field of virtual worlds applied to distance learning scenarios. The questionnaire was introduced by a short presentation of the VirtualLife project and of the inquiry’s goals and approach, as well as by an exposition of the reasons that led to the selection of the “campus scenario”. The questionnaire, in its overall structure, approach and contents, was specifically targeted at respondents involved, at different levels, in areas related to distance learning and training. Each section was introduced by a short description of the specific topic it dealt with, in order to avoid any misunderstanding or difficulty for respondents. A list of definitions was provided, as well as an e-mail address to which, if needed, participants could write for clarifications.

4.1.3 Questionnaire design

The information gathered through the inquiry was to be used for different purposes. The main goal was to understand the opinions of respondents with regard to a series of features that the platform could/should present if applied to distance learning scenarios. Performance aspects were investigated as well. The list of features that had to be addressed by the focused questionnaire has been decided in collaboration with the consortium partners, based on what had been highlighted by the general questionnaire (expectations of users with regard to general features that a virtual world platform should present) and on consortium partners’ inputs, including inputs from the revised exploitation plan, which included a detailed analysis (characteristics, “pros and cons”) of the features offered by the main virtual worlds platforms present on the market, many of which are used for e-learning applications. A list of possible features considered as relevant for e-learning applications was thus prepared, each of them was subsequently divided in a series of specific questions. The main intent was to understand how these features were perceived by respondents (were they considered important? If yes, to what extent? ) in order to provide inputs for the prioritarisation process, but the goal was also to rate the extent of respondents’ openness towards the possibility of being technically involved, as a virtual world user, in the creation of “in world” content. Some of the questions were thus aimed at measuring respondents’ overall technical level/knowledge and their interest towards the possibility of being themselves creators of the environments that would be used for didactical activity. The information is relevant for what concerns the overall

Final Confidential 32 D2.1 End User Definition and Needs usability level that should be attained by the platform. Another important objective was to understand the use that respondents were doing of virtual worlds applied to education, or how they expected to use them, thus providing important information of the most likely scenarios that could be developed. The questionnaire had 40 questions falling in the following categories: 1.Features related to the Search engine 2.Features related to User Generated Content 3.Features enabling the integration with the Web 4.Features enabling the integration with Desktop applications 5.Features enabling the communication and interaction between users The inquiry comprised closed questions as well as open questions, in order to obtain quantitative and qualitative data. Closed format questions included multiple choice (in some cases respondents were asked to “score” the different available options in order to show their preferred choices) and Likert Scale questions (i.e. respondent is asked to measure a given statement, or option, against a rating scale, a five points scale was used for the inquiry). The “open” nature of some of the questions was aimed at allowing respondents to provide additional details in their answers, or at clarifying their point of view. It is important to underline that some of the questions were aimed at obtaining qualitative feedbacks, not translatable into specific user requirements. Furthermore, given that the respondents’ panel was designed in order to include various categories of potential users, with different technical levels and different approaches towards virtual environments, it was mandatory, in order to make the best use of the obtained feedback, to correlate the responses to some background data of respondents. To this end, the questionnaire contained a first general section aimed at gathering demographic information and data on the professional activity of respondents. In this “introductory” section respondents were asked as well to provide information on their overall knowledge on virtual words and MMORPGS and on the applications of these platforms to distance education, a specific question on “pros” and “cons” of other platforms applied to distance education were asked as well, in order to obtain some comparison tools.

4.1.4 Collection of Information

The questionnaire was available both as a “static” version and as an interactive version. A first round of questionnaires was sent by mail, as a word attachment, to a first group of respondents with whom consortium partners were already in contacts, who acted as “testers” of the questionnaire. In order to streamline all the procedure (and to enlarge the potential respondents’ panel), the questionnaire was subsequently uploaded on a Web site (http://www.questionpro.com/). A Web link to the survey was inserted in the Web page of the VirtualLife project. The “QuestionPro” Web site provides a range of tools (statistics and analysis tools) for the elaborations of the results

4.1.5 Results and analysis

According to the QuestionPro Web site, which contains tools for the analysis of participants’ statistics, the questionnaire has been viewed (i.e the form has been opened) approximately 600 times and was started by 101 people. 29 respondents completed the questionnaire, this gives a completion rate of approximately 28%. The average time needed by respondents for filling the questionnaire has been of 20 minutes.

Final Confidential 33 D2.1 End User Definition and Needs 4.1.5.1 Overall characteristics of respondents

Background information, demographics The average age of respondents was of 38 years (with a spectrum ranging from 22 to 58 years), responses came from EU countries, Russia and US. For what concerns the field of activity, 11 respondents worked for private companies, 5 qualified themselves as self employed or free-lance. The rest of respondents belonged to academic institutions (Universities) or Public bodies and were either educators (professors, researchers, lecturers) or students. A more detailed analysis of respondent’s field of activity shows that, for what concerns companies, the sector of activity is elated for the majority of them, to the ICT sector, more specifically to the e-learning, Web 2.0 and multimedia sectors (6 companies), the core activity areas of the other companies were related to ICT and management consulting (including the development of corporate training activities). Free-lance o self employed respondents were working mainly as teachers/tutors in e-learning activities developed in virtual environments, one respondent was a journalist specialized in new media and virtual environments. Universities, as already mentioned, took part as well to the survey: nine higher education institutes were involved. Respondents fell under the category of professor and/or researcher (5 respondents) and students (4). Professors and researchers were all involved in specific activities related to distance education or technology applied to education, nearly all of them (with only one exception) were using or have being using, virtual environments for their didactic activity. Students were involved with virtual worlds for the purposes of their academic activity (one of the students is working on a PHD related to virtual worlds and education). Other respondents were working for public bodies, more specifically, for a public institute in charge of training of public administrations (e-training), a museum and a sectoral association (national level organization, and providing training programmes for SMEs). Software tools, familiarity with Web 2.0, Virtual worlds and MMORPGS The majority of respondents are using Windows as main platform (approximately 58%) and 17% are using Apple Platforms, however, a 24% seems to use different platforms at the same time (mainly a combination of Windows and MAcOS, in a few cases Linux appears as well). Not surprisingly, the majority of respondents (82%) are familiar with Web 2.0 tools, and use them very frequently (for the majority of them, daily). Networks such as Facebook, Twitter and Linkedin are used by the majority of respondents. Other tools are used for specific purposes, mainly by tutors and educators: virtual conference rooms such as Dimdim and Elluminate, virtual learning environments such as Moodle, slide share tools (such as SlideShare), digital publishing platforms (Issu), wikis. The majority of respondents visit blogs very frequently, few of them are running a blog themselves. These data show that, particularly for what concerns ICT applied to education purposes, interaction with 2.0 tools is, in fact, mandatory. Other specific questions of the inquiry will address this aspect from the perspective of the integration with virtual worlds, however, the trend seems to be clear. The available data show high level of familiarity with 2D and 3D computer graphic tools (72,4% of respondents use them Photoshop seems to be the most popular tool (used by 48,2%), 3D Studio Max and Maya are used to a less extent , Gimp is mentioned by 10% of respondents while Google Sketchup is mentioned only once. The information indicates the interaction between the virtual world and computer graphic tools (i.e the upload of objects created outside) is likely and should be supported. A series of questions were dedicated at understanding the familiarity that respondents had with platforms dedicated to on-line gaming, with virtual world in general and with virtual worlds applied to education, with the aim of obtaining some information concerning the benchmark that respondents’ had in mind in providing answers to the questionnaire. The majority of

Final Confidential 34 D2.1 End User Definition and Needs respondents (58,6%) declared that they have never played with MMORPGS. For the majority of those who declared to play or to have played with MMORPGS, the most popular game seems to be, by far, World of Warcraft (followed by Entropia Universe). A much stronger familiarity is experienced with virtual worlds in general, as 79,3% of respondents declare that they have visited a virtual world. Second Life or There were given as examples in the heading of the question, and Second Life is by far the virtual world most mentioned by our respondents: 75,8% of them declare that it is the virtual environment that they visit or have visited, (SL is visited “very frequently” by approximately the 50% of respondents). The other platforms mentioned by respondents are Open Sim, There and Kaneva, however, some interest is attracted as well by other environments and some respondents mentioned Olive, Virtual Laguna Beach, Metaplace, Blue Mars and ReactionGrid. It is interesting to see that some respondents, while providing information on the knowledge they had of virtual environments, specified that their visits to one or more platforms were driven by research goals, the impression is that exploration play an important role, particularly for professionals involved in teaching and tutoring activities, as they seem to be regularly testing and monitoring “what is going on” in this community. Topic A: The “Campus scenario” The set of questions dedicated to the “Campus scenario” were aimed at understanding the perception of respondents with regard to the general approach and features that the virtual world should present, should it be used for an education projects. This implied general aspects of the world, including permission and limitations as well as performance criteria. The goal was in fact to understand how did respondents imagine to use a virtual world, what they would like to develop, also in terms of “management” of the students (i.e. permission, limits). The first questions were aimed at understanding the level of familiarity that respondents had with virtual worlds scenarios developed for education purposes. There seems to be a balance among respondents when it comes to familiarity with virtual worlds applied to (o dedicated to) education purposes: 50% have never visited this kind of platforms whereas 33,3% visited them frequently and 16,7% a few times (this makes a total 49,9%). If analyzed against the professional background of respondents, not surprisingly, the data show that almost all respondents with high specialization in e-learning from the “tutoring” perspective (this means mainly professors, tutors and researchers) have a good knowledge of virtual worlds dedicated to distance education and are exploring this instrument. Second Life is, again, the most visited platform. An important information was represented by the point of view of respondents for what concerns the “pros” and “cons” of virtual worlds dedicated to educational purposes that respondents used and/or visited. Being SL the most visited/used platform also for what concerns education projects, the feedbacks are thus related mainly to this platform (but other platforms, namely Open Sim, are mentioned as well). In describing their opinions with regard to the features that they liked/disliked, respondents focus their attention on very different aspects, depending on their area of interest, familiarity with this ”medium” and professional activity. We thus find comments on specific scenarios that have been visited (for instance medical training scenarios), comments on very general features along with more detailed opinions. Despite these discrepancies, some interesting conclusions can be drawn on the general perception that our respondent seem to have of the e-learning/training applications in the virtual worlds. The majority of responses seem to indicate in ease of use, flexibility and immersiveness the most appealing features of the virtual worlds that they have visited, in some cases SL was specifically mentioned in relation to these features. Understandably, educators and tutors seem to focus their attention on the features that support their work (tools supporting collaborative creation, possibility to upload training materials, possibility to use educational tools such as slide presenters etc…). The “negative” features are analyzed from the same perspective (i.e. educational purposes) and specific limits seem to be represented by the difficulty of uploading a large range of file types, the limitations on the number of participants that can be present “in world” simultaneously, the difficult interaction with Web apps, the limits (namely of SL ) of primitives, limits of the inventory (defined as “unreliable”), limits on physics and the obstacle (always for SL) for what concerns the access of visitors under 18 years of age.

Final Confidential 35 D2.1 End User Definition and Needs Interesting information is revealed by the question related to performance of a virtual world platform used for education purposes. When asked how many students should be supported by the system at the same time 36,7% chose the option “from 1 to 20”, another 30% supported the possibility of hosting up to 50 students (from 20 to 50). When compared with the professional area of respondents, result show that from the teachers and tutors perspective (i.e. for approximately for 90% of respondents falling into this category), it is not mandatory that the virtual world platform supports a large number of visitors, at least for what concerns lessons. An explanation is given by one of respondents who states that “it depends on the kind of training/learning. If it’s a practical workshop, it will be almost impossible to manage a group of more than 20 students. (…) for a talk or a theoretical class (…) up to 100 students would be fine”. It is thus an issue related to the didactic approach and to the possibilities of managing a large number of visitors when delivering an effective lecture which, we assume, should ensure a good level of interaction and collaboration between the student and the teacher/tutor. The possibility of holding exams in the virtual world is appreciated by the majority of respondents (36,6% consider this option extremely interesting, 23,3% interesting. When asked whether it could be interesting to have the possibility to limit the access of students-trainees to specific areas of the virtual world, respondents seemed to evaluate positively the option (40% found it very interesting, 33,3% interesting). Both questions were aimed at understanding whether users would be interested in using the platform for activities that are not limited to the provision of courses, thus taking advantage of the tool for other aspects of the didactic activity, namely, exams and tests (thus expanding its application possibilities), this would have provided an important input also for designing specific use cases. Furthermore, the option of limiting the access to some areas of the world would allow the management of different classes as, for instance, the organization of tests (while the student A is undertaking the test, student B and C are not allowed to enter or interact with the environment or with objects). The information is relevant for the evaluation of permission scenarios. Respondents appreciated the possibility of having a set of pre-built environments and tools (55% find the possibility extremely interesting, 27% interesting). This shows that an effort in the sense of facilitating users with “ready made” materials would be welcomed. In another question, respondents were specifically asked whether they were taking part to a distance learning or training project developed in a virtual world and the majority (62%) answered in the negative, however, 70% declared, in answering the following question, that they would be interested in developing such a project, thus confirming a strong interest towards the potential and value of virtual worlds for education application. Scenarios that respondents foresee, when asked to explain which kind of training-education project they would like to develop, vary a lot and included: •Development of e-learning activities in the scientific field; •Creation of a virtual art museum and the provision of art and design courses; •Language courses, including role playing for teaching languages; •Leardership development training, coaching, role playing, business simulations, team building •Virtual project management, virtual quality management •Corporate training •Activation of tools such as videoconferencing, creation of a library of e-books. Needs: A_01_01: number of users supported up to 20 (related to Uint_11) A_01_02: number of users supported up to 50 (related to Uint_11) A_02: library with pre-built scenarios-environment and tools A_03: limitation of access to objects and areas (special permissions)

Final Confidential 36 D2.1 End User Definition and Needs Qualitative additional indications: 1) A specific exam environment is useful for e-learning purposes Topic B: The Search engine One of the features explored by the inquiry was related to the Search engine. The goal of this set of questions was to obtain feedback on specific aspects on the search engine architecture, particularly ranking, listing, and privacy issues. Participants were thus asked to evaluate and rate different options related to these functionalities and to give some feedback on the “tasks” that the search engine should perform. The search engine is perceived as a very important component for the vast majority of respondents (53,3% very important, 40% important). When asked which elements they would like to be able to search, apart from entity types such as avatars, objects, zones, respondents seemed to appreciate (this option produced a scoring of 3,79) the possibility to search for specific information in the users’ profiles (e.g. institution/organization to which the user belongs, fields of expertise/interest, hobbies etc…). The next choice (scoring of 3,25) was the search for specific locations inside a zone. However, it is interesting to note that the majority of respondents chose the category other” (meaning: other items they would like to be searched) and some of them expressed in an open ended question some clarifications on this aspect, that should include for instance: Search of threads in forums active inside the VW

Links to different locations and displaying the content of the locations

Possibility of searching into text, image, videos, documents or learning objects

Search of events, by keyword or tag, search by date Concerning the protection of data that could be searched by the search engine, this seems to be a sensitive issue for our respondents. The majority of them appreciated the possibility of limiting the access to part of the information (i.e. to limit the access of other users to selected information by allowing the user to decide the level of data exposure). 44,8% found the option extremely important, 27,5% important, this gives and overall percentage of 72,4% of respondents rating positively this option. When asked which category of information they would like to protect, respondents seemed to be particularly interested in protecting objects (this option had a score of 2,92) thus confirming that issues related to property and, indirectly, to property rights, seem to be still extremely relevant to VW users, along with security issues. The next selected option was “documents and files”. Here, again, a high score was given to the option “other” (the majority of respondents chose in fact this possibility) and, when asked to clarify their views, by explaining which categories of items not present in the “default” list that was included in the question, respondents indicated for instance: Current position The possibility to tag users in specific user groups, in order to allow the search engine to view information that otherwise would not be visible

Position, on line off line status Protection of private conversation (according to this respondent, it is an issue in SL) Ims, note cards, announcements The last question of this group was aimed at exploring more in detail which kind of personal information seemed to be more “sensitive” to users. Gender, name and age received the highest scores, however some other suggestions were received as well, for instance: Contact information (including mail, address etc.)

Final Confidential 37 D2.1 End User Definition and Needs Possibility for the users to decide whether the information is accessible by all the other users or only by a selected group, a possibility that should be applied to “each field of the registration form or content uploaded”

On line status Personal information (for instance detailed personal information on health status). We assume that this answer could be related to the participation to scenarios focused on medical topics. Needs: B_01: accessibility of data within the search engine mechanism B_02: ranking system within the search engine Qualitative additional indications: 1) if additional information have to be provided as search criteria, the preferred ones are: - specific information in the users’ profiles - search of users or groups of users - search of specific locations inside a zone - search of events - search of training materials

2) privacy and security protection within the search engine with regard to:

• objects • other • documents and files • personal data

Topic C: User Generated Content The level of interaction with the environment and the modalities through which this interaction takes place are among the main issues that users take into consideration when evaluating choices for a virtual world platform, this is particularly true when applied to distance learning and training scenarios. This group of questions had thus the purpose of understanding not only the general point of view of respondents on this issue, but also their attitude (in terms of general openness and technical skills) towards the possibility to use themselves a set of creation tools, thus providing valuable information on the usability aspects that should be considered. The set of “background” questions included in the first section of inquiry provided some interesting inputs, namely in terms of familiarity with specific graphic tools, that can be completed by the results of this part of the inquiry. Not surprisingly, interaction is rated as relevant important by all respondents (86,2% extremely important, 13,7% important), and the majority of respondents (80%) declare that they would be extremely interested in having the possibility to create interactive objects in the virtual world. Familiarity with scripting languages is balanced (50% of respondents declare that they are familiar with programming languages, 50% provided a negative response) and the most popular scripting language is Javascript (32,3% use it), followed by PHP; the other language that was mentioned (by 20% of respondents) in the open ended text box was LSL (Linden Scripting Language). This is an important input for what concerns not only the technical skills of respondents, but also, we could say, the “didactic” approach that should be followed in developing the documentation aimed at supporting the scripting language implemented by VirtualLife (based on Lua).

Final Confidential 38 D2.1 End User Definition and Needs Respondents seem to be very interested in the possibility of having at their disposal a set of pre-built interactive objects that could be selected from a library (79,3% found the possibility very relevant and relevant), but they seem interested as well in the possibility of commissioning the creation and animation of objects to specialized developers (but here answers are more balanced between the option “extremely interested” and the other options). The creation and animation of objects done by themselves or in collaboration with students/trainees is evaluated positively (72,4% found it extremely interesting and interesting), thus confirming the trend towards collaboration and interaction that has been highlighted by other parts of the inquiry. Overall, the answers to these questions seem to show that the potential users, due to the different levels of their technical skills and interests, have a rather balanced position for what concerns UGC. We could draw the conclusion that they appreciate the idea of having “ready” objects, but do not reject the possibility of using the work of other developers, furthermore, they tend to appreciate the possibility to be “active creators” of the content. This could indicate that the VirtualLife platform should be extremely flexible and at the same time powerful, thus allowing wide possibilities of creation to those (external developers or skilled users) who are ready to work on development of complex content, while at the same time facilitating the work to other users, through the availability of “ready made” content and creation tools that would allow for instance the creation of more basic content. Positive responses are produced as well for what concerns the possibility to import in world materials created through 3D content creation tools and the software which would be more used, would be Google Sketchup Pro, followed by 3D studio Max and to a less extent, Maya. This answer seems to differ from what respondents answered in the first part of the inquiry, when they indicated with which 2D and 3D computer graphic tools they had higher levels of familiarity. That question was not related to content creation in virtual worlds, it was a general question of the attitudes of respondents, and the most popular tool (we underline that 2D tools were included as well in the question) seemed to be Photoshop, whereas Google SkechUp was mentioned only once. Nevertheless, when it comes to the creation of 3D content, we can assume that Google SketchUp, for its “intuitiveness” and ease of use (the free download could play a role as well in this answer) seems to be more accessible by our sample of potential users who, with a few exceptions, are not professional users of graphic software tools, still, they appreciate to a certain extent the possibility to be able to create 3D objects/content without encountering major difficulties. Other 3D creation tools which were mentioned by 2 respondents were Archicad, and Lightwave. Being the procedure of importing external content rather difficult in platforms such as SL, this information is relevant for what concerns our project’s development work in the direction of facilitating the interaction with content that is external to the virtual world, in this specific case, this would mean supporting the import of 3D content created “outside” the world. It can be interesting to underline that, of course, respondents who seemed to be more “keen” on creating objects themselves or in collaboration with students, were those who declared to be familiar with scripting languages: 66,7% of them chose the option of collaborative creation and 60% would have been interested in having the possibility to upload in the virtual world materials created with 3D content creation tools. Needs C_01: A specific object library is needed for non-professional users C_02: import inworld of contents created by other sources (3D contents creation tools) Qualitative additional indications: More used 3D software: • Google Sketchup Pro • 3ds Max • Maya

Final Confidential 39 D2.1 End User Definition and Needs Topic D: Integration with the Web This section portrays respondents’ perception towards the possibilities of integrating Web content into the virtual world. We have already seen that for what concerns respondents’ actively involved in education activities, the integration between different applications that could facilitate their work (or their studies, in case of students) seem to play an important role. Integration with the Web goes in fact in the same direction and makes the virtual world open to many other tools and sources of information, thus enriching users’ experience. Overall, 86,2 % of respondents consider as extremely interesting and interesting the possibility to access the Web from the virtual world. The opposite option (accessing the virtual world from the Web, for instance through a link included in a Web page) is appreciated by 79,3% of respondents. When it comes to the preferred scenario (or options) for accessing the Web from inside the virtual world, the higher score is given by respondents to the possibility of activating from inside the world a browser which would thus open a normal 2D page outside the world. Music seems to be the most preferred option among the choices given to respondents, who were asked to indicate which kind of Web content they would like to upload in world, this option was followed by photos, videos, and active Web pages (not static but constantly updated). These other options were appreciated in a more balanced way (with less discrepancies between the scores indicated by respondents). Apart from the options that had been included in the question (music, videos, photos, active web pages), respondents mentioned as “other” material they would be interested in importing:

• Web pages made in flash

• Live video from a Webcam

• Web 2.0 tool sites; Web 2.0 services via API

• Documents According to one respondent all the options mentioned in the question should be available. The possibility of “importing in-world interactive Web content (e.g. not static html pages but, for instance, web content that is automatically and constantly updated or Web pages with which the user could interact, by clicking the links etc…)” is appreciated by the 85,7% of respondents who seem to evaluate positively (72,4 %) also the possible integration of the virtual world scenario with Web 2.0 applications such as blogs and/or social networks (e.g. Twitter, Facebook). This set if questions show that there is a clear demand of integration between virtual worlds and other tools used by respondents for professional reasons and for other purposes. We have already seen that respondents declared a high level of knowledge and use of all Web 2.0 tools, in some cases of tools specifically dedicated to teaching and training. The result seems to be the need to abandon the conception of the virtual world as an isolated medium (the so called “walled gardens”). Needs D_01: access to web contents from both in-world and normal browser D_02: access to VL from an url D_03: integration with Web 2.0 tools D_04: dynamic web contents available from in-world (normal web interactions, not only static pages) Qualitative additional indications: Possibility to import music/video/pictures

Topic E: Access to PC Apps and collaboration tools The trend towards an increased integration of virtual worlds with other media and tools concerns as well the possibility of using “in world” a series of desktop productivity tools (in our

Final Confidential 40 D2.1 End User Definition and Needs inquiry this meant word processing tools, spreadsheets, presentation packages etc.). 75,8% of respondents declared that they rate the integration between the virtual world and desktop productivity tools as extremely important and important. The possibility to edit/modify a given document from inside the virtual world is considered as extremely interesting and interesting for the 68,8% of respondents. This, again, shows that the panel of our respondents consider the possibility of using different tools and instruments for enhancing and facilitating the “in world” collaboration. A specific question addressed the topic of having “in world” the possibility of displaying a 3D representation of users’ desktop, including, if applicable, all customized applications and widgets”. The option was rated as very interesting and interesting by more than a half of respondents (51,6%), a further 27,5% seem to be “equidistant” for what concerns the level of interest they have towards this specific feature (being this a question based on Likert scale, they chose the middle category between “extremely interested” and “not interested at all”). This is a someway newer feature, used mainly by virtual worlds applied to corporate training or, more generally, to corporate applications and it was interesting to see whether it could have been an interesting feature for our respondents. The answer shows that respondents seem to be very interested in this aspect but do not consider it as a high priority feature. Needs E_01: obtain the integration between virtual worlds and desktop productivity tools E_02: modify/editing given documents from inside the virtual world E_03: collaboration tool to modify/editing a document E_04: 3D representation of the desktop

Topic F: Communication and interaction between users The last set of questions was related to features supporting the communication and interaction between users. The aim was not only to understand the expectations of respondents with regard to communication tools but also to investigate the forms of interaction between the avatars that respondents foresee. When asked about the feature that they would prefer to see implemented in a virtual world, for enabling communication between users, respondents seem to prefer the option of instant messaging (IMs), which receives a score of 2.64. However, responses seem to be in fact rather balanced between the options that were provided in the question: the next most preferred option was “voice chat” (score of 2.46), followed by “integration with Skype” (score of 2.41) and by the least chosen option “text chat” (2.29). In the results of the following question, related to the possibility to communicate from inside the virtual world with contacts that our outside (“Would you be interested in the possibility to communicate from the virtual world with your contacts even if they are not in-world (for instance, by sending from the virtual world an e-mail to your contacts”) we see a clearer trend in the responses, as the vast majority of respondents (86,21%) found this possibility extremely interesting and interesting. The last two questions of the inquiry were related to the possible forms of interaction between avatars. The highest score was given to the option foreseeing of a communication based on facial expressions (score of 2.24), followed by “movements “ and “physical” interaction with other avatars (score of 2.00) and gestures (1.71). An interesting opinion on this communication aspect can be found in one of the open ended comments added by one of our respondents, according to whom facial expressions should not be seen as a major concern for communicating “in world”, despite the fact that it is an open and very discussed issue. On the contrary, according to this respondent (who works as a teacher in SL), the danger while delivering a course could be to focus too much attention on this aspect (expressions) thus loosing the general sight of the classroom. The suggestion is to keep in mind the a virtual world is very different from the real one, also for what concerns the possible forms of interaction and communication between participants.

Final Confidential 41 D2.1 End User Definition and Needs A last question (which, in a way, can be put in relation to this last comment) was dedicated at understanding how respondents rated the level of realism of avatars (including gestures, coordination with voice etc…). Respondents were asked to considerer this feature in relation to the type of use they would do, or intend to do, of the virtual world, given that there are specific applications that require, as a mandatory feature, a very high level of realism (emergency training, medical training), while other applications do not need to follow this approach. 86,2% of respondents rated the option of high realism level as extremely important and important. Needs: F_01: communication system from in-world to outside F_02: Need for realism/movements of avatars Qualitative additional indications Facial expressions and gestures (interaction between avatars)

4.1.5.2 Summary of new focused needs

A_01_01: number of users supported up to 20 (related to Uint_11) A_01_02: number of users supported up to 50 (related to Uint_11) A_02: library with pre-built scenarios-environment and tools A_04: limitation of access to objects and areas (special permissions) B_01: accessibility of data within the search engine mechanism B_02: ranking system within the search engine C_01: A specific object library is needed for non-professional users C_02: import inworld of contents created by other sources (3D contents creation tools) D_01: access to web contents from both in-world and normal browser D_02: access to VL from an url D_03: integration with Web 2.0 tools D_04: dynamic web contents available from in-world (normal web interactions, not only static pages) E_01: obtain the integration between virtual worlds and desktop productivity tools E_02: modify/editing given documents from inside the virtual world E_03: collaboration tool to modify/editing a document E_04: 3D representation of the desktop F_01: communication system from in-world to outside F_02: Need for realism/movements of avatars

4.2 Workshop

On Tuesday, July, 20th, 2010 the First VirtualLife Workshop took place in Rome – Italy. The workshop was attended both by the VirtualLife Consortium and 10 external stakeholders.The main objective of the workshop was that of having inputs about possible application for the platform. Concrete ideas that can become opportunities not only for the consortium, but especially for the stakeholders; the aim was not that of selling the platform, but that of nurturing the participants interest towards it, and let them brainstorm and thinking about concrete and useful projects and commercial application to be developed with it.

Final Confidential 42 D2.1 End User Definition and Needs 4.2.1 Structure of the workshop

The participants were people coming from in industry, education, commerce and university experiences.

The workshop started with a very brief presentation of the Project, supported by the demo videos realized since now. Then some of the partners performed an interactive demo of it (about 30 minutes). The brainstorming part started with some very interesting considerations focused on the problematical issues and most valuable features of virtual worlds in general, based on the participants' experiences.

Among the problematical issues identified within the e-learning sector, the difficulty of exploiting the persistency of the virtual environment (people have no reason of using virtual environment outside the lesson or the activity) and the difficulty in involving students in the construction of tools. In particular the fact of having participants able to build things by themselves seems to be essential as courses and activities need a continuous and active support, as the distance and virtual learning experience can be conceived as a sort of work in progress.

Some participants have suggested that an answer to the problem of involving users can be found in the construction of a very strong community, making the learning space a sort of “emotional place”. The possibility to change the appearance of the avatar could be also very appealing and can support the creation of an emotional place. Moreover most of the students tend to conceive a virtual world as a game, and this makes difficult the transition from the real classroom to the virtual environment. Shifting to experiences with customers, the attention has been focused on the difficulty of industrial customers in understanding the correct use of a real time application and distinguishing it from a simply 3d graphic simulation. The frequent demand for high standard of graphic quality is incompatible with common real time systems.

After this first wide approach to the complexity of the use of virtual worlds, the focus of the discussion has been put on considerations about the most interesting features of VirtualLife.

4.2.2 Outcomes

Main outcomes of the workshop were structured considerations about the impact and industrial relevance of the VirtualLife platform main features and functionalities and a list of relevant application domain from a scientific, industrial and commercial point of view.

Identity and Security

The strong connection between real and virtual identity can be useful but also risky, as in many cases people don't want to disclosure their real identity; in this case the different level of accesses and the security infrastructure that VirtualLife implements can guarantee a correct management of identities and private information.

Scripting Language

The use of a very flexible and customizable scripting language is seen as a key value as it can support:

• a wide range of possibilities of manipulating objects and conducting experiments

• the connection between an external already existing database and objects of the 3d virtual world

• the possibility of integrating social network systems within the platform (trying to answer also to the need of creating a more involving and emotional place)

Final Confidential 43 D2.1 End User Definition and Needs • the possibility of having very complex autonomous avatars / objects / robots with specific behaviors (a feature that was particularly appreciated by an industrial participant

Virtual constitution and Rules

Having an editable virtual constitution can be useful from several points of view. One of the problems highlighted by the participants is the widespread digital pollution; the virtual constitution can contain rules for managing this issues and of course rules can be autonomously and democratically set in each nation. A feature that is highly demanded both by the educational and the industrial participants is the possibility of logging and recording things in world mainly for research or analysis purposes; in this case too constitution can help dealing with privacy issues.

Peer-to-peer Infrastructure

It is seen as an interesting feature as it reduces costs and allows to be independent from huge central servers.

Highlighted Scenarios

Below the list of scenarios that were suggested by participants merging the features of the platform with their personal experiences and fields of application; starting from these suggestions, the consortium has conducted an analysis of them in order to choose two scenarios to develop for the validation of the platform:

1. learning platform

2. simulation of critical and emergency situations

3. use and promotion of complex machinery

4. anatomy lesson

5. civil education

6. distance learning

7. 3D storyboard for movies (both for actors and for animated movies)

5 Key Domains of application

The process described so far has been an extensive process of generation of high level concepts about the possible domains of application of the VL platform. This process has shown the versatility of VL and the wide interest that such a platform generates in all the stakeholders contacted. State of the art, market opportunities, questionnaire and workshop have narrowed the definition of the suitable applicative domains and users, and brought to the identification of a first selection of 7 applicative domains. The selection took into account the potentialities described above and balanced them with the challenges of a research and development project. While from one point of view we strive to nail down the applicative part of the project into the actual needs and users, from another point of view we want to adopt a visionary approach allowing the exploration of new ideas (e.g. e-municipality, space explorations fans) or new potentialities for an already exploited domain (e.g. virtual campus). As result of these considerations, seven strategic and challenging applicative domains were selected:

Final Confidential 44 D2.1 End User Definition and Needs 1. Virtual Campus: VL platform is exploited for teaching and learning technical and scientific disciplines especially related to the presentation of visually complex three- dimensional concepts (solid geometry, chemical molecules compositions, architecture and industrial design,...). Students, teachers and administrative staffs are the main users in this applicative domain.

2. E-municipality: VL is exploited to allow citizens accessing the platform to suggest ideas and/or share different solutions for urban planning (i.e. participate to the restyling of a public park). The use of VL platform aims at enhancing a participatory design democracy where the platform eases the increasing of awareness, and gathering of opinions; and allow citizens to express their preferences, and suggest solutions. This would help the municipality in delivering services that take into account citizens' needs, opinions and votes. Within this applicative domain, municipality citizens and administrations, urbanists, architects are considered the main users to focus on.

3. Collaborative environment for space fans: VL exploitation is mainly focused on the collaborative aspects related to a 3D environment. Using VL as a platform for space fans would allow the reproduction of a 3D space augmented environment, in which researchers and passionate people about the solar system could access the platform and collaborate in the construction of the visual characteristics, reproduce the mechanisms of functioning, add information and curiosities about the solar system and its behaviours. The same platform could be used both for engagement purposes and for more educational activities.

4. Drill for emergency situations: VL could be exploited to simulate people behaviors in emergency situations. The platform could effectively be used to simulate crowd animation for simulating behaviours and motion of people in emergency situations for safety systems. It has to be based on animation models which allows to consider influence of emergency phenomena such as smoke or toxic gases, security threats,... in the behaviour of the people in charge of ensuring the security. In order to get real time performances the framework is based on graphics, which allows to simulate crowds of thousands individuals at interactive framerate.

5. Street-car: VL can be exploited to produce testing of very complex and routinary activities; train the personnel of remote stations or new ones; simulate the design of the station layout.

6. (Anti-mines) Robots, UAVs: in this sector the features of the VL platform allow the realisation of prototypes, simulations and implementation of complex and delicate machines. In particular this applicative domain foresees the use of VL as a platform to Design (semi-)autonomous agents performing complex tasks in safety critical environments; to assess agents functionalities and performances through extensive simulations in realistic 3D environments and what-if-scenarios. Three main dimensions are explored: the physical/structural aspects, the behavioural logic (decision making algorithm), the possible cooperation and interaction among agents (scalability aspects).

7. 3D application for disabilities: VL can be exploited to provide a 3D environment to support learning activities for disabled people. Two main applications have been discussed: design activities to support autistic children in developing collaboration abilities through VL; design an environment to enable disabled adults to access a wide range of services supporting them in the creation of new job opportunities and to work and interact with public administrations.

5.1 Down selection of the applicative domains

Final Confidential 45 D2.1 End User Definition and Needs Each application domain has been evaluated through a down selection process involving the technical partners of the project. This activity took into consideration the convergence of three elements:

1. Key features of the VL platform:

a. Legal framework: The collaboration among users is achieved through the definition of common rules that take care of all the involved cultures. This feature is related to the extent to which the applicative domain can benefit of a legal framework exploited trough the design of juridical flows and contracts among participants

b. 3D interaction and visualisation features: 3D interaction techniques are used to execute different types of tasks in 3D space. This feature is related to the extent to which these functionalities are crucial in the applicative domain: selection and manipulation of an object; navigation; visualization of complex objects, as well as their exploration; persistence of the world.

c. Scripting language: This feature is related to the extent to which in the selected domain it is foreseen the creation of interactive objects (e.g. devices, vehicles, animated sculptures, etc.) and the use of “factory objects” (i.e. objects which create other objects procedurally).

d. Peer to peer infrastructure: This feature is related to the extent to which the communication system will benefit from a peer-to-peer infrastructure, in which the resulting Virtual World will not be hosted on a central server cluster but will be based on a network of Virtual Zone Servers (VZ Servers) controlled by the users.

e. Secure infrastructure: This feature is related to the extent to which the applicative domain could benefit from the adoption of a public-key infrastructure where parties identify themselves using certificates. The use of the widely adopted X.509 certificate standard allows people to re-use existing identification mechanisms in the virtual worlds.

f. Collaboration in virtual environment: the 3D features above described allow to overcome time and space constraints when collaborating. This feature is related to the extent to which the applicative domain analysed allows the exploitation of a collaborative attitude to carry out activities in VL

2. Level of innovation and research interests (balance between user requirements and design challenges within the project): it refers to the extent to which the applicative domain is considered challenging enough with respect to the research objectives set in the proposal for the project. A medium-high scale is applied.

3. Technical feasibility: it refers to the extent to which the implementation of a validation scenario in the selected domain costs from scratch new technical development.

5.2 Selection of two applicative domains

The table below show the results of the down selection process. The last column (Priority) indicates the level of interest assigned to each applicative domain, on the basis of the evaluation of the three elements: key features, level of innovation and technical feasibility.

Final Confidential 46 D2.1 End User Definition and Needs

Applicative domain VL key features Level of innovation Technical feasibility Priority and research interest

1. Virtual Campus - legal framework Medium, but the domain High feasibility 1 - 3D interaction and is very versatile visualisation features (space and time navigation) - scripting language - secure infrastructure

2. E-municipality - legal framework High Low feasibility: it implies 2 - secure infrastructure high effort in - scripting tools personalising the platform, realism and flexibility of the tools is crucial in validating a scenario in this applicative domain.

3. Collaborative - 3D interaction features Medium Low feasibility: it implies 3 environment for space (space and time high effort in exploration fans navigation) personalising the - collaboration in virtual platform, realism and environments flexibility of the tools is - scripting tools crucial in validating a scenario in this applicative domain.

4. Drill for emergency - peer to peer High Low feasibility: need of a 2 situations architecture complex behavioural model engine that is out of the scopes of the project

5. Street-car - scripting language High High feasibility 1 - scripting tools - 3D interaction and visualisation features

6. Robots - peer to peer Medium Low feasibility: need of a 3 architecture complex behavioural - 3D interaction and model engine that is out visualisation features of the scopes of the project

7. 3D applications for - 3D interaction features Medium Low feasibility: it requires 3 disabilities (space and time a very complex design navigation) phase to identify users needs

The evaluation was done focusing on the two higher scores for the criteria number 2 and 3, plus trying to cover all the main features of the platform (criteria 1).

The result of this evaluation brought to the identification of two applicative domains: Virtual Campus and Street-car. These two domains are those in which the validation activities will be carried out.

Final Confidential 47 D2.1 End User Definition and Needs 6 High level needs

This section is dedicated to the High Level Needs. It provides a description of desirable behaviours and properties of the platform necessary to carry out the activities designed and engage in a practice meaningful to the users. This section describes what is needed from the end-user’s point of view and not how this is to be achieved. High Level needs here encompass both functional requirements as well as non functional requirements such as interoperability with existing systems, maintainability, safety, usability, etc. Therefore, they can also refer to circumstances and context constraints relevant to a certain activity.

The following sections will present the envisioning scenarios and extract from them a first high level list of requirements explicit in use cases and activity diagrams.

In the design process of VL, the envisioning scenarios have been used to envision the future platform's exploitation in the two domains selected through the process described in this document. Such scenarios represent a way to embody ideas and exploring the possibilities of support. Envisioning scenarios were defined and detailed in close interaction with stakeholders, including potential end-users and operational experts.

They are presented in some tables detailing the effects of the exploitation of VirtualLife in the two selected domains of application. Beside each envisioning scenario, use cases and activity diagrams detail the interactions and the actors involved in the processes defined.

6.1 Virtual Campus

HIGH LEVEL OBJECTIVES 1. Experiential learning of scientific and technical subjects 2. Sharing and collaboration among communities 3. Tools for managing legal aspects in private universities KEY USERS System administrator: university technical staff End user: student/teacher Content producer: teacher, external software developer/graphic designer, students (after ad hoc training) Nation/zone administrator: university administrative and technical staff ACTIVITIES a. System administrator: server set up and management, support to internal users b. End users: 1b. Teacher : lesson preparation, lesson delivery, interaction with students and environments (created objects), formative and summative assessment 1.2b. Student: lesson participation, interactions with teacher, other students and environment, feedback about coursers and teachers 2.3b. Content producer: teacher, external software developer/graphic designer, students (after ad hoc training) – 3D objects import, creation and behaviour modelling 3.4b. Nation/zone administrator: contract management, auditing, scheduling, copyright management CONTENTS - Lessons on scientific and technical subjects: geometry= interactive geometric models; chemistry= import molecules models, design= editor

Final Confidential 48 D2.1 End User Definition and Needs potentialities, architecture= import complex geometries) - Students’ Project, collaboration. - Contracts, feedback, reputation to assess professors and marks (legal framework). - Online dispute resolution (related to 3) VL KEY → legal framework FEATURES → 3D interaction and visualisation features (space and time navigation) → scripting language → secure infrastructure

Figure 3. Use Case virtual campus.

Final Confidential 49 D2.1 End User Definition and Needs

Figure 4. Activity diagram virtual campus – student.

Figure 5. Activity diagram virtual campus – teacher.

Final Confidential 50 D2.1 End User Definition and Needs

Figure 6. Activity diagram virtual campus – university staff.

6.1.1 Scenario1: Spatial Geometry at school

Spatial geometry learning is an important objective and a difficult one, mainly because students have intrinsic difficulties in visualising three dimensional objects. Thus, the use of VL to display interactive images of 3D construction should be helpful for overcoming this barrier. The application is designed for constructing, observing and manipulating geometrical figures. It allows an intuitive and adaptable access to the solid features: being intuitive it can be used by students trying to learn about the subject; being adaptable, it allows the teacher to decide, with respect to his own pedagogy, which primitives and operations will be made available to the student. The exercises for this scenario can be the following:

1. Observation: allows students to see and understand the third dimension by changing the spatial system of reference (axes, floor, etc.), choosing perspective ('cavalière', vanishing point, etc.), modifying the observer's point of view; displaying visual feedback on objects, etc.

2. Construction: allows a dynamic construction of geometrical figures from elementary objects (points, lines, planes, etc.) and construction primitives (intersection, parallel, perpendicular, etc.).

Final Confidential 51 D2.1 End User Definition and Needs 3. Exploration: allows students to explore and discover geometrical properties of the figure (deforming it by directly dragging base-points, changing observer's point of view, etc.).

6.1.2 Scenario2: Collaborative learning

Collaborative Learning is encouraged to allow people to learn together. The prime idea is to focus on group learning processes with the means of collaborative 3D platform for the support of learning groups, which can participate in tutor-centred learning sessions or also learn together synchronously and asynchronously. The main advantage of this scenario is that it creates nearness and social presence. For synchronous communication an audio channel and the possibility for text chat as well as application sharing can be available. In addition various tools will be implemented: tools for observing learner(s) actions, space for self organise group learning activities.

Students can work as a group in the VirtualLife 3D environment and forget to be in front of a computer as they see the other participants and their actions. This can be the basis for the methodological innovations focused on: Open, participatory and reflective collaborative e- learning, supported by modern pedagogical paradigms as social constructivism and organisational learning theories.

6.1.3 Scenario3: Legal aspects in private universities

Legal relationships on a Virtual Campus occur between the university/Virtual Campus Provider, the lecturer/tutor, and the students. These contracts may be concluded online and need to cover questions like data protection and intellectual property law, as these aspects particularly arise in an online learning environment. They may also provide for clauses which implement (online) dispute resolution or other third party involvement, e.g. of a neutral auditor who assesses the fulfilment of contractual duties.

The contractual relationship between the university and a student, who joins the course online, classifies as a distance learning contract. With regard to the countries to which the contract partners belong, specific national consumer protection law may be applicable and has to be considered for the contractual agreement.

The contractual relationship between the university and the lecturer/tutor is presumably classified as an employment contract and thus specifically depend on national labour law. The parties therefore have to consider certain restrictions to the freedom of contract. Within the contractual relationship the Virtual Campus Provider and the lecturer may also agree upon how the provided teaching material may be used, e.g. with open use, licensed used, etc.

The contract flow management of VirtualLife enables the parties to conclude the necessary contracts. The provided model contracts can neither claim for completeness nor for accuracy and have to be tailored for the particular relationship. They do, however, ease the process of negotiation by providing a guideline for aspects that need to be considered on a Virtual Campus and by suggesting a possible wording. The annotations which are encompassed with the draft clauses concentrate the parties attention to aspects that are of particular importance for this kind of contractual agreements.

Final Confidential 52 D2.1 End User Definition and Needs 6.2 Street-car scenario

1. Simulation of “realistic” scenarios HIGH LEVEL 2. Validation of an architecture OBJECTIVES KEY USERS End users: Drivers, validators Content producer: external software developer/graphic designer ACTIVITIES a. Design and implementation of test vectors b. Design of physical and spacial training modules (graphical and contents design) c. Design the station layout d. Design of training and testing scenarios. CONTENTS - Graphical representation of the rail infrastructure, of switches and signals and of their logical properties - 3D Graphical representation of the station - Specific scenarios describing real situations and critical events, fault injection. VL KEY → scripting language FEATURES → scripting tools → 3D interaction and visualisation features

6.2.1 Scenario 1: Test vectors

6.2.2 Design and implementation of test vectors for controlling signals systems in the railways domain (validation of the geometrical, physical and logical aspects).

Figure 7. Use Case test vector.

Final Confidential 53 D2.1 End User Definition and Needs

Figure 8. Activity diagram test vector generator.

6.2.3 Scenario 2: Training

Training of the personnel in charge of the signal controlling system of a railway station. Training on the control panel for the person in charge of the station. Training for emergency in remote/complex stations not guarded.

Final Confidential 54 D2.1 End User Definition and Needs

Figure 9. Use Case training – station master.

Figure 10. Activity Diagram Training – trainer.

Final Confidential 55 D2.1 End User Definition and Needs

Figure 11. Activity Diagram training – trainee.

6.2.4 Scenario 3: Station layout

Design the station layout, definition the functionalities and the communication with the client to guarantee a better economical evaluation of the project.

6.3 Final remarks

This document reports the selection and down selection process that brought to the identification of 2 applicative domains and scenarios for the VirtualLife platform. The scenarios identified, and the whole process described, play an essential role in supporting the construction of a sound and compelling exploitation strategy for the platform. They represent a test bed for concepts, and facilitate the sharing of the values and the qualities of VirtualLife.

The virtual campus and street-car scenarios represent the products to be implemented in the next phases of the project and they will be the basis of the validation process (WP10).

7 Appendix

This section contains the questionnaire.

Final Confidential 56

GENERAL QUESTIONNAIRE

1. Background

This questionnaire is part of the VirtualLife project, funded by the EC under the 7 th framework programme.

We would be very grateful if you have the time to fill this questionnaire, the result of which will help us to define our further steps for the development of VirtualLife.

1.1 The VirtualLife project

The “VirtualLife” project aims to provide an immersive and secure environment, combining a high quality 3D virtual experience with the trustiness of a secure communication infrastructure.

VirtualLife constitutes a new form of civil organization, aimed at the creation of secure and ruled places within the virtual world, where important transactions can occur.

The aggregation in communities and the collaboration between users is encouraged in order to reach a management of common and private interests. This collaboration is achieved through the definition of common rules that take care of all the involved cultures.

A standard collection of laws, the Virtual Constitution, finalized to the creation and regulation of a secure and trusted environment (Virtual Nation) will be studied.

The project is implemented by an international consortium of 9 partners.

1.2 Structure of the questionnaire

The questions are provided in four 4 main sections:

a) General questions

b) Questions on security aspects related to virtual worlds

1

c) Questions on graphical aspects of the virtual worlds and content creation- customisation possibilities and on the relevance that these aspects have for the respondent

d) Other general questions on technical features.

1.3 Definitions of terms

Virtual world : software programs that provide a virtual environment such as Second Life, There, Active Worlds. For the purpose of this document we include in this category also the massively multiplayer online role playing games (MMORPG) such as World of Warcraft and Everquest.

Virtual environment : the virtual world including the landscape, avatars, animations and objects.

Avatar : software-rendered, customizable representations of humans or humanoids. The avatar is the representation of the user inside the virtual world.

In-world : what takes place inside the virtual world.

Certification authority : certificate authority or certification authority (CA) is an entity (commercial entity as well as public institution) that issues digital certificates for use by other parties. It is an example of a trusted third party .

Graphical use interface (GUI) : A graphical user interface (GUI) is a human-computer interface (i.e., a way for that humans to interact with computers) uses windows, icons and menus and which can be manipulated by a mouse (and often to a limited extent by a keyboard). GUIs make computer operations more intuitive, and thus easier to learn and use. In virtual worlds graphical user interfaces with menus and windows allow the user to interact with the “world” (in order to move the avatar, create and customise objects, chat with other users etc...).

2

1.4 Your Profile

Name: ______

Age: ______

Gender: ______

Company / Industry: ______

Job Title: ______

Field of activity: ______

What are your key responsibilities?

______

What platform and operating system do you use?

______

2. QUESTIONNAIRE

2.1 General questions about respondents’ experiences in virtual worlds

2.1.1 Have you already visited a virtual world?

Never

A few times

Often

3

2.1.2 If yes, which virtual world did you visit?

______

2.1.3 Which features of the visited virtual world did you like the best?

______

2.1.4 What did you not like?

______

2.1.5 Are you using any virtual world for professional reasons?

______

2.1.6 If yes, for what kind of project- application?

Training, distance learning

Marketing, entertainment

Provision of services

Game industry

Other (could you please specify?):

4

______

2.1.7 Do you have any future plans for virtual world usage? If yes, could you specify concisely for what kind of project?

______

2.1.8 According to you, what are the most promising applications for virtual worlds?

Social interaction

Entertainment

Distance learning and training

E-commerce

Corporate use (as marketing tool for companies)

E-government and service provision

Games

Other (could you please specify?):

______

5

2.2 Security aspects

2.2.1 What are the breaches of security that you consider as the most dangerous when using a virtual world? You can choose more than one answers or even rank them for importance.

Theft of sensitive data, (for instance personal data, chat messages and communications between avatars)

Avatar identity theft (i.e. theft of account credentials: username and password for damaging someone’s reputation of committing crimes in world)

Theft of financial data (credit card number used fraudulently)

Copyright violations (import copyright and trade mark material in-world without the permission of the copyright owner, for instance movies, music…)

Intellectual property rights violation(copying virtual items products without permission of the owner)

Harassment (for instance verbal harassment), spamming

Exposition of minors to inappropriate content

2.2.2 How do you rate security aspects in virtual worlds?

Extremely relevant 1 2 3 4 5 Not relevant at all

2.2.3 When thinking about measures that a virtual world platform could adopt in order to enhance the overall security level, how would you rate the following solutions? a) Strengthening of the user authentication and authorisation procedures, including the possibility to base the procedure on external certification authorities – CA - (for instance VeriSign )

Extremely relevant 1 2 3 4 5 Not relevant at all b) Introduction of a users’ rating-evaluation system (where users would be evaluated against the feedbacks given by others, similarly to the e-bay rating system)

6

Extremely relevant 1 2 3 4 5 Not relevant at all c) Introduction of a set of legal standards to which the users of the virtual world have to abide, including the possibility for users to enter into contractual agreements.

Extremely relevant 1 2 3 4 5 Not relevant at all d) Introduction of dispute resolution mechanisms in-world (i.e. many virtual world have introduced specific mechanisms for addressing and solving disputes arising among users/players, solutions range from reporting mechanisms that allow the user to report the abuse to a specific entity –usually created by the producer of the world/game, to the intervention of game masters).

Extremely relevant 1 2 3 4 5 Not relevant at all

2.2.4 In a scenario foreseeing the elaboration and implementation of a set of rules and regulations to which the users of a specific virtual world should abide, would you be interested in having the possibility of amending, by expressing your vote, those rules?

Extremely relevant 1 2 3 4 5 Not relevant at all

2.3 Graphical user interface (GUI) and content creation

2.3.1 How would you rank the importance of learnability and user friendliness of the graphical user interface of a virtual platform?

Extremely relevant 1 2 3 4 5 Not relevant at all

Virtual worlds platforms differ from each other for what concerns the level of user generated content – UGC: the appearance of the virtual world (landscape, objects present in the world) can be changed to some extent by its users or could be entirely pre-built without foreseeing any intervention by the user. Depending from the virtual world, the user is offered different possible options, ranging from more technically demanding solutions that require skills in software scripting for the creation and/or modification of items, to medium – low level options where the user can change or modify already existing items helped by simple graphical interfaces and design tools. A number of virtual worlds do not foresee at all the possibility for the user to modify the environment: users “experience” the world only though pre-built scenarios.

2.3.2 Taking the above into consideration, would the possibility offered by a virtual world 7

to its users of creating their own content (creation and or alteration of objects, architectures, scenarios…) be relevant to you?

Extremely relevant 1 2 3 4 5 Not relevant at all

2.3.3 More specifically, given that users can have some degree of control and customisation over the environment of a virtual world (by creating objects, creating and altering scenarios and objects as mentioned above), what would be the overall level of control that you would like to have as a user of a virtual world?

High level of control: I would like to have a high level of control and the possibility to create objects and scenarios

Medium level of control: I would like to have a set of pre-built objects and or scenarios that could be easily customised, if necessary

No control at all: I’m not interested in having a control over the virtual world through the creation-customisation of content, I would use only environments and objects already present in-world

2.3.4 How would you rank the importance of graphical realism (i.e. the realistic “appearance” of objects scenarios) of a virtual world?

Extremely relevant 1 2 3 4 5 Not relevant at all

2.3.5 How would you rank the importance of having credible realistic virtual characters (avatars) in terms of appearance and movements?

Extremely relevant 1 2 3 4 5 Not relevant at all

2.3.6 In terms of performance requirements, how many visitors of a same event (i.e. visitors present in the same virtual world location/zone, for instance for taking part to a seminar, event, lesson, conference…) would you like the system to support at the same time?

From 1 to 20

From 20 to 50 8

From 50 to 100

More than 100

Don’t know

2.4 Other technical aspects

2.4.1 How would you rate the importance for a virtual world platform to be entirely based on open source software? (I.e. without using any proprietary software)

Extremely relevant 1 2 3 4 5 Not relevant at all

2.4.2 How would you rate the possibility of a virtual world capable of supporting different operating systems? (I.e. that could be run on Microsoft Windows as well as on Mac OS, Linux, Solaris…)

Extremely relevant 1 2 3 4 5 Not relevant at all

2.4.3 Which operating system would you prefer to use?

Microsoft Windows

MacOsX

Linux

Solaris

Other (could you please specify?):

______

9

2.5 Do you have additional comments?

______

THANK YOU VERY MUCH FOR COMPLETING

THIS QUESTIONNAIRE!

10 D2.1 End User Definition and Needs 8 Bibliography

1 http://www.metaverseroadmap.org/ - The paper takes into consideration a near term horizon of 10 years and a longer term horizon of 25 years.

2 http://metaverseroadmap.org/inputs2A.html#visionstatements 3 http://metaverseroadmap.org/inputs2B.html#positive 4 http://www.eduserv.org.uk/upload/foundation/sl/impactreport032008/impactreport.p df 5 http://www.eduserv.org.uk/upload/foundation/sl/impactreport032008/impactreport.p df “Measuring the impact” report, p. 5 6 http://www.nmc.org/pdf/2007_Horizon_Report.pdf 7 http://www.nmc.org/pdf/2007_Horizon_Report.pdf , p. 4, 5 8 http://www.nmc.org/pdf/2007_Horizon_Report.pdf , p. 5 9 2007 Horizon Report pp.18-19, “Measuring the impact” report, p.13; Club UK, British Council Magazine, issue 14 2007: “The Virtual Campus” http://www.educationuk.org/pls/hot_bc/page_pls_user_article ? x=919057750612&y=0&a=0&d=1417 10 http://www.virtualworldsnews.com/research/index.html ; http://www.kzero.co.uk/blog/?p=4493 http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/number_of_virtual_world_users_breaks_the_ 1_billion.php 11 A selection of the main brands and business present in SL: Mazda, BMW, Nissan, Pontiac, Toyota, Mercedes, ABN Amro, BNL BNP Paribas, Deutsche Bank, World Stock Exchange, Sony Ericsson, Nokia, Philips, IBM, Vodafone, 3Italia, Telefonica, Telecom Italia, Accenture, Enel Park, Deutsche Post, Credit Agricole Mutuel, Manpower, Europe Assistance, Leo Burnett, Microsoft, Sun Microsystems, Dell, Cisco, Penguin books, Gabetti, Adidas, Reebok, Philips, American apparel. The Second Life Urls of these brand, and of many others which are present in the SL can be found at: http://slbusinesscommunicators.pbwiki.com/Companies+in+Second+Life 12 http://www.virtualworldsnews.com/2008/05/gartner-90-of-c.html#more 13 http://www.virtualworldsmanagement.com/forecast2008/index.html ; http://www.virtualworldsmanagement.com/private/vwm_ind_forecast_2008.pdf 14 http://www.engagedigital.com/2009/05/07/amazing-worlds-ascendas-showcasing- real-properties-in-mirror-world/ 15 http://disneyworld.disney.go.com/wdw/special/flashPages/index? id=GoogleEarthPage&CMP=OTC-3dparksVanity&bhcp=1; 16 http://www.virtualworldsmanagement.com/private/vwm_ind_forecast_2008.pdf ; p. 7, 10, 11 17 http://www.eurofound.europa.eu/docs/ewco/tn0701029s/tn0701029s.pdf The Eurofond (European Foundation for the Improvement of Living and Working Conditions) 2007 report shows that the number of Teleworkers has been increasing at European level since the second half of the ’90s, with a specific rising trend in Northern European countries, in New Member states and in countries like UK, where the number of teleworkers reached in 2005 an 8% of the overall workforce (up from the 4% registered in 1997).

Final Confidential 57 D2.1 End User Definition and Needs 18 http://europa.eu/rapid/pressReleasesAction.do? reference=IP/06/1351&format=HTML&aged=1&language=EN&guiLanguage=en 19 A specific framework agreement on Telework is in force at EU and EEA – European Economic Area - levels since 2002 20 http://www.forbes.com/opinions/2008/04/17/virtual-traffic-patterns-oped- cx_azu_0418virtual.html 21 http://www.forbes.com/opinions/2008/04/17/virtual-traffic-patterns-oped- cx_azu_0418virtual.html 22 http://www.oecd.org/document/19/0,3343,fr_2649_37411_31593747_1_1_1_37411, 00.html 23 The market data are issued by Wainhouse Research and have been published in the Video Conferencing Insight Newsletter,http://www.vcinsight.com/?menuID=100 24 http://www.wwf.org.uk/filelibrary/pdf/travelling_light.pdf “Travelling light” report 25 http://www.wwf.org.uk/filelibrary/pdf/travelling_light.pdf “Travelling light” report, p. 6 26 http://blogs.sun.com/vw/category/Second+Life 27 http://www.thinkbalm.com/2010/01/13/enterprise-immersive-software-trends-for- 2010-2/ 28 http://www-03.ibm.com/press/us/en/pressrelease/27831.wss 29 http://www.emarketer.com/Report.aspx?code=emarketer_2000437 ; http://www.virtualworldsnews.com/2008/04/virtual-world-2.html 30 http://www.virtualworldsmanagement.com/2008/youthworlds.html ; 31 http://www.kzero.co.uk/blog/?p=4297 32 Web 2.0 in Government: Why and How - http://www.jrc.es/publications/pub.cfm? id=1565 Bringing Together and accelerating eGovernment Research in EU, eGovernment evolution towards 2020 - http://ec.europa.eu/information_society/activities/egovernment/studies/trendswatch/ reports/egov_evolution_towards_2020.pdf 33 http://www.cebra.eu/index.php?id=0&sub=1&lang=1 ; http://www.epractice.eu/cases/virtuocity 34 http://secondhealth.wordpress.com/

Final Confidential 58