12056

12056

General Session - Conference Presentation and Interactive Activity Only (40 minutes, no formal paper)

Anne Hewitt, Seton Hall University, South Orange, New Jersey, USA, Anne.Hewitt@shu.edu Jamesetta Halley-Boyce, Seton Hall University, South, Orange, New Jersey, Jamesetta.Halley-Boyce@shu.edu Mirliss Danielle, Seton Hall University, South Orange, New Jersey, Danielle.Mirliss@shu.edu Riad Twal, Teaching, Learning, and Technology Center Seton Hall University, South Orange, NJ, USA, Riad.Twal@shu.edu
 * Constructing a Virtual Healthcare Environment**

An advantage of utilizing simulations in Virtual Worlds is the ability to work through multiple decision points, with limited consequences for any faulty decisions. A limiting factor in utilizing virtual world simulations is the time and resources required to build an environment that adequately represents the real world for a given scenario.

At Seton Hall University, the corresponding interest between faculty in the Department of Political Science and Public Affairs and the College of Nursing in employing virtual world simulations has led to the opportunity to design, build, and utilize a hospital building within the virtual world environment Second Life™.

This presentation will focus on two elements. First, the presenters will discuss the needs that prompted the construction of a virtual hospital as well the process that took place to build it. The end result will highlight how real world blue prints can be adapted in order to accommodate factors, including avatar movement and having multiple avatars present in one location, that effect the user experience in virtual worlds. Second, the presenters will discuss the development of two interrelated virtual scenarios, how they interact both in terms of process and in Second Life activity. An interactive video tour will illustrate the virtual hospital built in Second Life™.

Strategies for evaluating the effectiveness of utilizing virtual worlds by both faculty members will be also be shared.

//Interactivity// Video tour of a Virtual World healthcare facility, built for multiple simulation scenarios, highlighting and discussing pragmatic changes from a typical blueprint dimensions to dimensions better suited affordances of virtual world boundaries.

Novice, Intermediate, Advanced, All Audiences Virtual Worlds Second Life SL Simulation