Mixed-reality Adaptive 3D Multi-user Online Communities of

Practice in Academic Education

Tackling Students Motivation and Teachers’ Self-efficacy

Livia Ștefan

Faculty of Automatic Control and Computers, University Politehnica Bucharest,

Splaiul Independentei nr. 313, Bucharest, Romania

1 RESEARCH PROBLEM

1.1 Introduction

Learning in 3D multi-user online virtual

environments (3DMUVEs) is not a new paradigm,

but one that continues to be approached in the

context of new learning paradigms (social learning,

game-based learning, gamification of learning,

flipped classroom), IC&T technologies (mashup of

services, webGL/X3DOM, Restful services, big data

analysis) and devices (mobile devices, VR devices).

Several research works have proved the

efficiency of learning in such environments for

understanding abstract concepts, training for

difficult or dangerous systems, for collaborative

learning and interactive training. Typical

implementations that illustrate MUVEs are based on

the general-purpose platforms such as Second Life

(SL), OpenSimulator (OS) (OpenSimulator, 2015),

free and open-source variant of SL, ActiveWorlds

(AW), OpenWonderland, Cloud Party. SL and OS

use dedicated client viewers (such as Second Life,

Firestorm, Singularity).

An important step forward was the integration of

Second Life with the traditional online Learning

Management Systems (LMS), by means of

proprietary mashup solutions such as SLOODLE

(Simulation Linked Object Oriented Dynamic

Learning Environment) or integration of Unity3D

based applications with SCORM (Shareable Content

Object Reference Model) - compliant LMS by

means of the SCORM API.

Recent research addresses a new generation of

online 3D virtual worlds, i.e. accessed in web

browsers, which are based on Unity3D (Jibe) or

OpenSimulator (realExtend). These environments

are under development and even they are open-

source the implementation of a 3D simulator

requires technical skills and administration fees.

Despite of the existing research work (de Freitas,

2008; Aldrich, 2009; Savin-Baden, 2010) and

commercial implementations (Design Digitally,

2015) on educational MUVEs we argue that these

environments are not fully exploited on a large scale

in educational settings for supporting a full range of

university activities and inter-university

communication.

The usage of 3D virtual worlds as virtual

universities (Moldoveanu et al., 2014) as a form of

distant-learning, rises questions regarding the

educational and learning benefits beyond using a

mix of advanced technologies for providing

previews of the academic environment or video-

conferences facilities. Several problems must be

addressed, e.g. modelling and render of large

buildings, space orientation, provisioning of real-

time information and live course organizations.

The University Politehnica of Bucharest (UPB)

comprises a number of 15 faculties with Bachelor

and Master of Science programms in Engineering

Sciences. UPB also cooperates in Erasmus programs

or with non-EU universities, and develops

international research projects (UPB, 2015).

In 2010 the Department of Computer Graphics

and Virtual Reality from the Faculty of Computers

started a project named “3DUPB” (3DUPB, 2014)

with the objective to implement a virtual clone of the

UPB as a Massive Multiplayers Online (MMO)

space and integrated services, using the OS platform.

Several research work addressed technical

challenges for implementing the platform

(Moldoveanu et al., 2014).

1.2 The Research Problem

In the present research the general purpose 3D

MUVEs are re-discussed in the context of mixing a

virtual online 3D campus with real time activities

within communities of practice and with the

following research questions: a) what kind of

Stefan L..

Mixed-reality Adaptive 3D Multi-user Online Communities of Practice in Academic Education - Tackling Students Motivation and Teachers’ Self-efﬁcacy.

 2015 SCITEPRESS (Science and Technology Publications, Lda.)

instructional design is suitable and how this can be

implemented in a 3D online environment and also

connected with the traditional LMS; b) how students

can be motivated and engaged during learning in a

3D MUVE; c) how teachers can use 3D MUVE for

teaching in a more creative and challenging way,

overcoming the first use reluctance; d) how to

evaluate the learning benefit and the efficacy in a 3D

online campus environment with modern analytical

tools.

Open Simulator platform will be considered due

to its openness and free of charge characteristics.

Apart from making use of game-based learning,

in our research we study and implement

Gamification (Deterding et al., 2011) and Learning

Analytics (Horizon Report, 2014) concepts for

supporting a more creative and adaptive

instructional design, stimulate instrinsic and

extrinsic motivation of both students and teachers,

measure performance and usage indicators.

Elements from the Role Playing Games (RPG) can

also be used to design the usage of the environment.

One research hypothesis is that the gamification

will improve engagement and motivation (intrinsic

and extrinsic) by stimulating course attendance; on-

time accomplishment of assignments and projects;

overall performance of the students, seen also as a

measure of teachers’ self-efficacy.

Another research hypothesis is that the

gamification along with Leaning Analytics

instruments will provide indicators and insights on

students’ learning preferences and outcome, and also

on the usage of the 3D environment.

The “3DUPB” virtual clone of the UPB is being

used as a test bed for conducting experimentations

and case studies.

2 OUTLINE OF OBJECTIVES

Our research is being conducted with the following

guiding objectives:

 to define the research hypothesis;

 to understand expectations and define

requirements of a 3D online learning

environment (LE) for academic education,

designed to support different communities of

practice consisting of collaborative learning

activities (LACT) e.g. courses, laboratories,

showcase and assessment of projects;

 to perform a 3D graphic design and modelling of

several educational spaces and learning objects

(LOBJ), with possible adaptations for rendering

on devices with limited resources (smartphones,

tablet PCs);

 to integrate and experiment different

technologies to develop a mixed-reality

collaborative learning experience;

 to implement the fundamental behaviour of

the LE and LOBJ: space orientation and

navigation, learning activities, content, owner

and rights, events, groups and friends;

 to implement an intelligent behaviour of the LE,

i.e. a gamification of the LACT and LOBJ, with

the objective to stimulate motivation and

enhance in-world engagement, both of students

and teachers;

 to perform abstraction of several functionalities

of the LE, e.g. authentication, management of the

learning content, actvities and events,

customization and extensibility of the

environment (prototyping from a functional point

of view);

 to trace activities, events, and the usage of the

environment with the objective to communicate

with the university’s Moodle LMS and further

implement an adaptive behaviour and deliver of

the educational content (Horizon Report, 2015);

 to define several indicators/metrics (e.g. course

participation rate, average time spend in the LE)

and the corresponding evaluation methods;

 to test the LE in an offline mode (with

synthetically generated users) in at least 2

development stages;

 to experiment and conduct case studies in online

mode (with a group of students and teachers

from the Faculty of Computers and also with

visitors from a faculty with non-technical profile)

in at least 2 development stages;

 to collect data in an external database (possibly

in the cloud), to implement different

visualizations to display the indicators inside the

LE;

 to evaluate learning achievements/outcome by

comparison with average performance of a group

of students before using the LE;

 to interpret and discuss the findings, in

correspondence with the initial research

questions;

 to make a survey-based evaluation of the

engagement experience and usability of the LE

for two categories of users (teachers and

students);

 to define recommendations, methodology or/and

good practices regarding the implementation of

3D online learning environments using mixed-

reality (MR), gamification and adaptive content

Mixed-realityAdaptive3DMulti-userOnlineCommunitiesofPracticeinAcademicEducation-TacklingStudents

MotivationandTeachers'Self-efficacy

and behaviour;

 to summarize the research conclusions (results,

limitations, perspectives).

 to publish partial and final research results.

The main domain of application will be for

computer graphic courses but by means of a

generalization will also support other kinds of

courses.

Other adjacent objectives:

 demonstration of the environment with the help

of a machinima;

 creation of a Google+ blog to collect from

students and teachers suggestions or problems

encountered while experimenting the LE.

3 STATE OF THE ART

3.1 The Background Research

To have a multi-disciplinary approach of the thesis’s

tasks the following research was performed:

 studies regarding modern approaches for

teaching and learning, i.e. experiential,

constructive or blended-learning, flipped-

classroom, mobile-learning; personal learning

environments, game-based-learning;

 studies regarding traditional online learning

environments (LMS/CMS);

 studies regarding the existing 3D MUVEs,

comparisons of Second Life and OpenSimulator

(OS), state-of-the art educational

implementations;

 Mixed Reality (Augmented Virtuality/

Augmented Reality) (Azuma, 2001; Milgram and

Kishino, 1994) technologies in educational

applications;

 experimental developments of mobile AR and

VR simulations in OpenSimulator (Ştefan and

Moldoveanu, 2013; Gheorghiu and Ştefan, 2014;

Ştefan and Gheorghiu, 2014), evaluation of

educational impact of these technologies.

Several advantages but also drawbacks of OS where

identified.

3.2 Mixed-reality and Gamified

Communities of Practice

In order to create communities of practice (Wenger,

1998) in a larger 3D educational environment we

leveraged the extensibility as one of the most

important features of the “3DUPB” virtual campus,

i.e. dynamic integration of other virtual spaces and

new functionalities.

For our research an experimental LE with three

regions with distinct functionalities were designed

for further integration as subspaces in the “3DUPB”

virtual campus: i) a virtual laboratory (VLAB)

which models a Computer Graphics laboratory; ii) a

pure virtual meeting space (MSP) for private

meetings, showcase projects, peer review and

teacher evaluation, a catalog for students’ marks; iii)

a pure virtual space, named “privileged space”

(PRS), for inter-university communication. Also an

open space is designed as a lounge/meeting space

for socialization.

The graphical design also includes spatial

orientation indicators, visual clues for the LOBJs,

HUDs (heads-up displays), a teleport hub. Different

HUDs were designed for specific functionalities, as

scripts can be attached to them: in-world guidance

tool, announcement panels, attendance counter,

leader boards, an analytical dashboard.

The educational content is created and loaded by

the in-world participants using special LOBJs, i.e.

teachers can load Power Points (image by image),

students can load presentations of their course work

and can customize certain objects of the LE.

In order to be monitored, the activities and

events in the LE are defined as functional

components and managed from a specialized

interface.

Peer review and teacher evaluation is a difficult

task to be performed in-world. A solution is

provided to write on a dedicated LOBJ.

3.2.1 Bots and Avatars

Avatars (humanoid agents controlled by users) will

be created for teachers, students, visitors and the

master administrator. Bots (intelligent agents

controlled by the system) for master teacher (the one

conducting the classroom) and a virtual guide will

be used. In OS the bots can have different

utilizations, e.g. group invitations (which is not

possible in SL), non-player character (NPC) in a

role-playing simulation. The NPCs will be scripted

with AI logic to perform specific tasks. An

authentication mechanism will associate also a role

to each user logged in the LE.

All the avatars will be augmented with labels

containing extended identification information. The

appearance of avatar will be customized by each

user with preference regarding the hair, clothes a.o.

The most skilful students can add different

attachments or make use of the AO (animation

CSEDU2015-DoctoralConsortium

override) HUD of the client viewer, to change their

poses and better express their in-world personality.

3.2.2 The Mixed-reality

The VLAB, MSP and PRS will contain LOBJ that

manage media information. The in-world video

streaming and communication tools (e.g. voice calls)

will provide a mixed-reality (MR) experience and

video-conference facility. The MR paradigm applied

in-world supports delivering of collaborative real-

time (synchronized) courses but also on demand

recorded lessons.

VLAB and MSP will contain gamification

components for teachers and students, while PRS is

accessed only by students with recognised

participation and learning effort.

Real-time video streaming was experimented

with free solutions, such as VLC (VideoLan media

player) or Google Hangouts, to broadcast the video

signal to a group of clients connected

simultaneously. The VLC streaming server and

player was preferred against others (manycam,

ustream, Justin.tv) because the solution can be

generalized for mobile devices. Students are

encouraged to participate according with the Bring

Your Own Device (BYOD) concept.

For an enterprise-wide solution (several

universities campus with hundreds of participants)

the Microsoft Lync server and client (Lync, 2015)

was studied and proposed.

The MR is also ensured by connecting the

educational simulator with the faculty LMS.

3.2.3 The Learning Gamification Rules

The gamification will be associated to learning

activities (e.g. course attendance), learning objects

(e.g. a video library) and to a more complex process

or behaviour (teleport to a privileged region) and

will target both intrinsic and extrinsic motivation.

The gamification objects are publicly visible by

all in-world attendants.

The rewards are offered in reward points, prizes

and exposure on a leader board. For special cases

can be offered virtual money for acquiring in-world

books or other educational materials. The reward

points are given proportionally as follows: course

attendance – 4 points; correct answers to the quizzes

– 2 points; partial assignments and projects – 4

points.

The scores are calculated by a gamification

engine (GE) and will be stored in an external

database along with the user’s identification number

and further employed to establish and display the

achievements. The gamification engine will make

use of OS region modules by means of which the

simulator’s functionality can be extended.

Certain parameters of the GE can be further

modified.

Students with certain performance levels can

demand recorded lessons or other benefits (learning

materials, participation in workshops). These are

intended to stimulate the extrinsic motivation.

The most performant students will be rewarded

with the possibility to be teleported into the PRS,

and meet instructors/teachers and students from

other universities, thus stimulating the intrinsic

motivation. The design of the PRS may include a

graphical environment enriched with some particle

effects several TV sets for communication with the

outside world (i.e. other educational grids).

We also found useful to create a motivational

system for teachers to help them overcome the initial

reluctance in managing learning in a 3D virtual

environment and also to provide them with useful

information regarding students’ activities and

participation (see paragraph 3.2.4). The most

performant students’ name will be displayed along

with teacher’s name.

The gamification components must be carefully

designed to be motivating and engaging but not too

distracting.

3.2.4 Learning Analytics

Besides the quantitative analysis provided by the in-

world gamification, Learning Analytics (LA)

instruments will be implemented for qualitative

insights and significant facts regarding several

aspects of the LE and students’ performance, such

as: a) course attendance; b) average time spent

within the LE; c) knowledge transfer. Different 2D

and 3D (immersive) visual representations will be

experimented.

Table 1: Gamification versus Learning Analytics.

Gamification Learning Analytics

Qualitative

measurement

performance

and

participation

effort

Scores Users’ trace

Levels Qualitative Insights

Achievements

Decision make

dashboards

Adaptive LE behaviour (e.g.

teleport permissions)

Adaptive content

recommandations or

adaptive gamification

(Monterrat et al., 2014)

Mixed-realityAdaptive3DMulti-userOnlineCommunitiesofPracticeinAcademicEducation-TacklingStudents

MotivationandTeachers'Self-efficacy

Inside the MSP teachers can also access a private

display with detailed information regarding a

student’s academic status. The master teacher can

access a dashboard with course attendance statistics.

An in-world heat map visualization can be

created to highlight the usage of different regions of

the LE, visible by researchers and the LE

administrator.

Machine learning algorithms will be employed to

implement the adaptive content recommendations

functionality.

4 METHODOLOGY

The adopted methodology will be the traditional

research methodology of generating a working

hypothesis and evaluate it after development and

experimentation, but customized for the specific e-

learning domain (Holotescu and Knight, 2002). The

Design Based Research (DBR) methodology is

mentioned in several papers (Barab and Squire,

2004; Joseph, 2004) as adequate for implementing

design-based e-learning systems.

DBR, as conceived by Ann Brown (1992), was

introduced with the expectation that researchers

would systemically adjust various aspects of the

designed context so that each adjustment served as a

type of experimentation that allowed the researchers

to test and generate theory in naturalistic contexts”

(Barab and Squire, 2004). In practice, DBR borrows

principles from Agile/SCRUM project management

methodology consisting in incremental cycles of

development and user validation. In our case the

validation made by teachers and users is of crucial

importance in order to avoid the rejection or

abandon of the system.

In our research we will design, implement, and

adjust functionalities in iterations comprising offline

testing and real life case studies which will take into

consideration undergraduate students from two

universities and different academic years.

4.1 Research Surveys

During the research period several surveys will be

conducted with the following objectives:

 Pre-experiment evaluation of students’ and

teachers’ expectations for a designed 3D online

LE;

 Post-experiment evaluations of the 3D online

LE;

 Post-experiment evaluation of the engagement

experience and usability of the 3D online LE.

Students and teachers will be informed of the

research objectives and stage by means of surveys

and the G+ blog. It is expected that they will became

more interested to use the LE if will be informed

that some of the data collected in-world about their

activity will be directly connected to their academic

status.

4.2 Bloom’s Cognitive Taxonomy

The instructional design of the LACT and LOBJ will

leverage the original Benjamin Bloom’s cognitive

taxonomy (Bloom, 1956) as these are more general

that those updated later by different researchers. The

correspondence with the instructional design based

on learning affordances specific to a 3D LE is

illustrated in Table 1.

Table 2: Bloom’s taxonomy in the 3D LE.

Bloom’s cognitive levels

Correspondence with the

instructional design in a 3D

Knowledge

Courses and educational

materials

Comprehension Discussions, short quizzes

Application Course work

Analysis Design-based Projects

Synthesis Implementation Projects

Evaluation Final projects

An important cognitive dimension will be

provided by the 3D LE under the form of “tacit

knowledge” (Polanyi, 1958) by means of

experiential, collaborative and social learning. This

kind of knowledge will be evaluated with LA

instruments.

4.3 Design and Implementation

Methodology

The 3D design is being done with objects prototyped

in UML (Figure 1) and Google SketchUp and

modelled using specialized DCC programs

(Autodesk 3dsMax or Blender); terrain terraforming

and heightmaps; objects imported from repositories

under Creative Common Licence (Google 3D

warehouse, Opensim Kitely market); content created

with in-world building tools; user-created content

(students and teachers).

CSEDU2015-DoctoralConsortium

Figure 1: The experimental gamified infrastructure and the

legend of the colours: with gray, elements of the real

classroom; with pink, pure virtual representations; with

orange, the gamified areas.

COLLADA DAE format is used for the imported

3D objects (Figure 2).

Figure 2: The virtual laboratory simulator.

The entire LE or selected objects can be exported

as archives for backup and re-use.

4.4 Technologies

The following technologies are being used to create

functionalities inside the OS simulated LE: scripting

language for SL and OS (LSL, OSSL) for server and

client, modern software architectures and paradigms

(RESTful services, NoSQL programming),

statistical algorithms, Machine Learning.

The service-based approach is being used to

bridge the simulator with other systems and services,

in a bidirectional way.

5 EXPECTED OUTCOME

The expected research outcome is summarized in

Table 3:

Table 3: The expected research outcome.

Results

Original design and implementation of an experimental

3D online learning environment comprising

Mixed-Reality and Adaptive Communities of Practice

based on the OpenSimulator platform

Original gamification engine and 3D components for a

3D online LE, for quantitative students’ and teachers

performance, and adaptive behaviour of the LE.

Relevant data from experiments and case studies

Visual Learning Analytics instruments to highlight

qualitative indicators regarding environment’s usage

preferences and predictive functionalities

Relevant research surveys

Findings regarding the engagement and motivation in

relation with the gamified LE

Findings regarding the learning outcome in relation

with the usage of the LE

Findings regarding the usability and acceptance of the

LE by teachers and students

Recommendations, methodology or/and good practices

regarding 3D online adaptive LE

Publications in peer-reviewed conferences and journals

The PhD. Thesis and Final Defence

6 STAGE OF THE RESEARCH

At the time of the present Doctoral Consortium

paper submittance the LA instruments are to be

implemented and the case studies with students and

teachers to be defined and conducted. The Final

Defence is scheduled for September 2015.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

This work was supported by the strategic grants in

The Main Domain of Intervention 1.5 "Doctoral and

postdoctoral programs", co-financed by European

Social Fund through The Sectorial Operational

Program for Human Resources Development,

coordinated by University POLITEHNICA of

Bucharest.

The author thank MA student Marius Hodea for

its help in 3D modelling of the buildings.

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