Theodor G. Wyeld

Database and Narratological Representation of Australian Aboriginal Knowledge as Information Visualisation using a Game Engine.

Current database technologies do not support contextualised representations of multi-dimensional narratives. This paper outlines a new approach to this problem using a multi-dimensional database served in a 3D game environment. Preliminary results indicate it is a particularly efficient method for the types of contextualised narratives used by Australian Aboriginal peoples to tell their stories about their traditional landscapes and knowledge practices. We discuss the development of a tool that complements rather than supplants direct experience of these traditional knowledge practices

Virtually Collaborating Across Cultures: A Case Study of an Online Theatrical Performance in a 3DCVE Spanning Three Continents

Much Information Communication Technology (ICT) design work involves international collaboration. This requires cross-cultural understandings with onex92s co-collaborators. There are few opportunities for this to occur in a pedagogical setting. This paper outlines a pedagogically-oriented case study of the use of a 3D collaborative virtual environment (3D CVE). The 3D co-located laboratory (3DCollab) described in this paper served as a crosscultural exchange platform. It fostered deeper understandings of alternate meanings to everyday social and work practices and design computing assumptions. The project involved students across three cooperating institutions, on three different continents in different time zones. It builds on previous exercises conducted by the authors.

Performing Traditional Knowledge using a Game Engine: Communicating and Sharing Australian Aboriginal Knowledge Practices

This paper challenges current practices in the use of digital media to communicate Australian Aboriginal knowledge practices in a learning context. It proposes that any digital representation of Aboriginal knowledge practices needs to examine the epistemology and ontology of these practices in order to design digital environments that effectively support and enable existing Aboriginal knowledge practices in the real world. Central to this is the essential task of any new digital representation of Aboriginal knowledge to resolve the conflict between database and narrative views of knowledge (L. Manovich, 2001). This is in order to provide a tool that complements rather than supplants direct experience of traditional knowledge practices (V. Hart, 2001). This paper concludes by reporting on the recent development of an advanced learning technology that addresses this

Role play in 3D virtual environments: a pedagogic case study

Researchers are beginning to explore the role of digital design collaboration within multi-user 3D virtual environments. In the latest installment of an ongoing remote digital design collaboration project with the Sydney University Key Centre of Design Computing and Cognition (KCDC), the University of Queensland Information Environments Program (IEP) co-coordinated an online production of T. S. Eliots The Cocktail Party in a 3D virtual world environment. This paper describes the process and pedagogical outcomes of early learners collaborating remotely in digital 3D media.

A Non-Expert Organised Visual Database: a Case Study in Using the Amazon Metric to Search Images

In a previous paper the notion of using the Amazon metric to construct an image database based on what people do, not what they say was introduced (see [1]). In that paper we described a case study setting where 20 participants were asked to arrange a collection of 60 images from most to least similar. We found they organised them in many different ways for many different reasons. Using Wexelblats [2] semantic dimensions as axes for visualisation in conjunction with the Amazon metric we were able to identify common clusters of images according to expert and non-expert orderings. This second study describes the construction of a visual database based on the results of the first case studys non-expert participants organising strategies and rationales. The same participants from the first study were invited to search for remembered images in the visual database. A better understanding was gained of their detailed reasonings behind their choices. This led to the development of a non-expert organised visual database that proved to be useful to the non-expert user. This paper concludes with some recommendations for future research into developing a non-expert, self- organising, visual, image database using multiple thesauri, based on these core studies.

Using the Amazon Metric to Construct an Image Database based on what people do, not what they say.

Current image database metadata schemas require users to adopt a specific text-based vocabulary. Text-based metadata is good for searching but not for browsing. Existing image-based search facilities, on the other hand, are highly specialised and so suffer similar problems. Wexelblats semantic dimensional spatial visualisation schemas go some way towards addressing this problem by making both searching and browsing more accessible to the user in a single interface. But the question of how and what initial metadata to enter a database remains. Different people see different things in an image and will organise a collection in equally diverse ways. However, we can find some similarity across groups of users regardless of their reasoning. For example, a search on Amazon.com returns other products also, based on an averaging of how users navigate the database. In this paper, we report on applying this concept to a set of images for which we have visualised them using traditional methods and the Amazon.com method. We report on the findings of this comparative investigation in a case study setting involving a group of randomly selected participants. We conclude with the recommendation that in combination, the traditional and averaging methods would provide an enhancement to current database visualisation, searching, and browsing facilities

Role play in 3D virtual environments

Researchers are beginning to explore the role of digital design collaboration within multi-user 3D virtual environments. In the latest installment of an ongoing remote digital design collaboration project with the Sydney University Key Centre of Design Computing and Cognition (KCDC), the University of Queensland Information Environments Program (IEP) co-coordinated an online production of T. S. Eliots The Cocktail Party in a 3D virtual world environment. This paper describes the process and pedagogical outcomes of early learners collaborating remotely in digital 3D media.

Battle of Stiklestad: Supporting Virtual Heritage with 3D Collaborative Virtual Environments and Mobile Devices in Educational Settings

3D collaborative virtual environments (CVEs) have been widely used for preservation of cultural heritage, also in an educational context. This paper presents a project where 3D CVE is augmented with mobile devices in order to support a collaborative educational exploration of a famous historical site in Norway, where Battle of Stiklestad took place in 1030. This system can be used by both local and distant learning communities, working together towards a common goal. The paper presents a background for the project and a set of requirements for an augmented system, describes the corresponding design and outlines the technical implementation of a hybrid prototype.

Visualising Collaboration: Qualitative Analysis of an Email Visualisation Case Study

This paper reports on continuing work on visualising email collaboration (O.A. Puade and T.G. Wyeld, 2006). It reports on the re- interviewing of participants of a previous email collaboration visualisation study regarding the identification of key players. Participants were asked to comment on the finding of key player impact on the collaboration as determined by our analysis and methods. We found, while they mostly agreed with our analysis they expressed reservations regarding the methods used. This forms the ground work for yet further work in developing a real-time visualisation tool for email-mediated collaboration. The qualitative analysis case-study method used in this study helped gain a deeper understanding of the nature and characteristic of the collaboration that would otherwise have been hidden in a quantitative analysis.

Doing Cultural Heritage Using the Torque Game Engine: Supporting Indigenous Storytelling in a 3D Virtual Environment

Digital Songlines (DSL) is an Australasian CRC for Interaction Design (ACID) project that is developing protocols, methodologies and toolkits to facilitate the collection, education and sharing of indigenous cultural heritage knowledge. This paper outlines the goals achieved over the last three years in the development of the Digital Songlines game engine (DSE) toolkit that is used for Australian Indigenous storytelling. The project explores the sharing of indigenous Australian Aboriginal storytelling in a sensitive manner using a game engine. The use of the game engine in the field of Cultural Heritage is expanding. They are an important tool for the recording and re-presentation of historically, culturally, and sociologically significant places, infrastructure, and artefacts, as well as the stories that are associated with them. The DSL implementation of a game engine to share storytelling provides an educational interface. Where the DSL implementation of a game engine in a CH application differs from others is in the nature of the game environment itself. It is modelled on the ‘country’ (the ‘place’ of their heritage which is so important to the clients collective identity) and authentic fauna and flora that provides a highly contextualised setting for the stories to be told. This paper provides an overview on the development of the DSL game engine.