ABSTRACT
With the COVID-19 pandemic, people's real-life interactions diminished, and the game-based metaverse platforms such as Minecraft and Roblox are on the rise. The main users of these platforms are teenagers, they generate content in a virtual environment, which can significantly increase the activity of the platform. However, the experience of User-Generated Content in the metaverse is not very good. So what kind of support do users need to improve the efficiency of generating content in the metaverse? To investigate teenage users' preferences and expectations of it, this paper interviewed 72 teenagers aged 12-22 who are familiar with the metaverse game, and distilled 4 suggestions that can help promote metaverse users to generate content. © 2023 IEEE.
ABSTRACT
The word Metaverse has influenced many sectors such as healthcare, education, retail and manufacturing and few more industries are there which will be impacted by 2026 as per the research conducted by Gartner. The word 'Metaverse' especially in education sector came into existence after the COVID-19 epidemic when the humanity were forced to think about the new methodology of educating and teaching. This ecosphere is the combination of technologies which enables multimodal interactions with artificial environment, electronic library and people such as Virtual Reality (VR) and Augmented Reality (AR). It is believed that metaverse will improve collaboration, training process will be enhanced and most importantly it will create a happier workplace. This is only the reason that many corporate giants like Nvidia, facebook, apple, epic Games and companies has shifted towards this pedagogical ecosystem. This technology has the potential which enables absolute incorporating user conversation in actual-time and compelling interactivity with digital artifact. In this paper, we are addressing metaverse in education along with a detailed framework of metaverse in education. It includes a comparative study of conventional education, online education and metaverse education based on parameters like place of learning, resources used, teaching methodology, learning experience, learning target and learning assessment. Competency based education, energize student and positive attitude towards learning. The various challenges of the metaverse in educational sector are also debated. This paper will help the researcher's fraternity to get a deeper insight along with a clear perception of this ecosystem in education. © 2023 IEEE.
ABSTRACT
Both enterprises and their employees have globally experienced remote work at an unprecedented scale since the outbreak of COVID-19. As the pandemic becomes less of a threat, some companies have called their employees back to a physical office, citing issues related to working remotely, but many employees have refused to return. Thus, working in the metaverse has gained much attention as an alternative that could complement the weaknesses of completely remote work or even offline work. However, we do not know yet what benefits and drawbacks the metaverse has as a legitimate workspace, because there are few real cases of 1) working in the metaverse and 2) working remotely at such an unprecedented scale. Thus, this paper aims to identify real challenges and opportunities the metaverse workspace presents when compared to remote work by conducting semi-structured interviews and participatory workshops with various employees and company stakeholders (e.g., HR managers and CEOs) who have experienced at least two of three work types: working in a physical office, remotely, or in the metaverse. Consequently, we identified 1) advantages and disadvantages of remote work and 2) opportunities and challenges of the metaverse. We further discuss design implications that may overcome the identified challenges of working in the metaverse. © 2023 Owner/Author.
ABSTRACT
There is an increasing interest for people to meet and interact in virtual online environments, including Gather.Town, especially during the COVID-19 pandemic and in the post-pandemic world. We present a scoping review of 11 empirical studies in Gather.town - a 2D Metaverse using a game-like interface with video-chat in which people can create their own virtual spaces and act as avatars to interact with each other for various purposes. To identify knowledge gaps, we summarized the included articles in terms of their application contexts, research issues, research methods, and key findings. We found that most of them were conducted in educational settings with a focus on students' learning experiences and perceptions. The findings of the reviewed studies generally suggested that the use of Gather.town benefited users' engagement. However, the available evidence was mostly based on short interventions (e.g., one session) and self-reported measures (e.g., surveys and interviews). This review concluded by presenting several research gaps for future research (e.g., studies with a longer duration and using more objective measurements of learning achievement and work results). © 2023 IEEE.
ABSTRACT
Maritime education and training (MET) for seafarers who operate ships has struggled to flexibly adapt to technological and environmental changes. In particular, as social demand for online MET arose due to COVID-19, the need for sustainable MET beyond traditional teaching methods grew exponentially. In order to identify the most optimal MET methods among face-to-face and online methods, this study reviewed the concepts and applications of existing MET methods, grouped them using a fuzzy analytic hierarchy process, and supplemented this structure through a designed survey. The results showed that the online methods had the greatest weight, and the "XR (extended reality) within the metaverse" teaching method had the highest priority. This study identified which MET methods should be prepared for the post-COVID era through quantitative analysis. We confirmed the need for attention to XR within the metaverse as a field of online methods in the future. Furthermore, our findings reveal that online education platforms via metaverse-based "expansion" and "connection" are needed, and pave the way for future research to expand empirical studies on MET satisfaction regarding existing International Maritime Organization model courses.
ABSTRACT
The COVID-19 pandemic has accelerated the shift from traditional office setups to remote working, driven by information and communication technology advancements. As a result, the metaverse concept is gaining popularity in modern organizations, allowing users to create avatars for virtual work, socializing, and other activities. While its corporate adoption is rising, managers must acquire the necessary skills to integrate and utilize the technology successfully. However, technological progress can be disruptive, making it essential to weigh the benefits and drawbacks.Methodology: This proposal aims to investigate metaverse skills that managers require for remote working using virtual realities, assessing the positive and negative risks for employees and management within business organizations. Using secondary data from reliable online databases, a qualitative research approach was used to understand the pros and cons of the metaverse and remote work.Purpose: The study examines the essential skills managers need to adopt metaverse virtual realities for remote working and how employees and organizations can implement it while maintaining a positive work environment. Keywords such as metaverse, remote working, virtual reality, and information and communication technology are critical. As technology evolves, managers and organizations must consider the metaverse's inherent advantages and disadvantages to ensure a successful transition to remote.Research Questions: What are the necessary skills needed by managers towards the adoption of metaverse virtual realities for remote working? How can employees and organizations adapt to implementing metaverse for remote work and sustain a positive work environment? © 2023 IEEE.
ABSTRACT
Online social spaces provide much needed connection and belonging - particularly in a context of continued lack of global mobility due to the ongoing Covid-19 pandemic and climate crisis. However, the norms of online social spaces can create environments in which toxic behaviour is normalized, tolerated or even celebrated. This can occur without consequence, leaving its members vulnerable to hate, harassment, and abuse. A vast majority of adults have experienced toxicity online and the harm is even more prevalent for members of marginalized and minoritized groups, who are more often the targets of online abuse. Although there is significant work on toxicity in the SIGCHI community, approaches and knowledge have typically been siloed by the domain of investigation (e.g., social media, multiplayer games, social VR). We argue that cross-disciplinary efforts will benefit not only the various communities and situations in which abuse occurs, but that bringing together researchers from different backgrounds and specialties will provide a robust and rich understanding of how to tackle online toxicity at scale. © 2023 Owner/Author.
ABSTRACT
The COVID-19 pandemic caused a tectonic shift in the way that institutions, ranging from k-12 to higher education, approach their teaching and learning strategies. It is an understatement to say that teaching effective and gamified Cybersecurity courses amidst the COVID19 pandemic placed an extreme pressure on faculty. While Zoom, WebEx, and Google Classroom virtual meeting were sufficient for some, others were in pursuit of platforms which could address the hands-on interaction component that happens in a class setting while isolating and/or removing some of the distractive and engagement-adverse ingredients that occur in traditional remote meeting platforms. To this end we present some challenges and opportunities which exist in the intersection of Cybersecurity learning and teaching through the Metaverse. As an extension we plan to measure the effectiveness of Metaverse towards Cybersecurity gamified remote learning by providing future research directions towards the ultimate goal of metamorphosing traditional Cybersecurity classrooms. © 2023 IEEE.
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The ‘contactless' culture established after COVID-19 and the development of metaverse technologies, such as virtual reality, augmented reality, blockchain and artificial intelligence, serve as vectors of change in museum tourism. Contactless behaviours have forced European museums to reconfigure and strengthen their digital communication and marketing strategies, mainly through social media and audiovisual content, to connect with their audience by virtual means only. This experience has laid the foundations for hybrid communication (physical and virtual) by museums and acted as a pilot experience for their activities in the metaverse of the future. The aim of this research is to analyse the online tourism communication strategies implemented by 20 European museums through Facebook (Meta) in times of COVID-19. The results show the effect of lockdown on patterns of consumption and interaction, and the impact of message content and format on user engagement and participation. © 2023 Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group.
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Present situation after the Coronavirus has made every one of us understand the deficiencies and the impediments of India's medical services area. There was an intense shortage of clinical staff, beds, and other such essential things, which made us believe this is the future to be lived with, and provided that this is true, then, at that point, it is a significant eye-opener for specialists, designers, government and each capable individual to think of an answer for this. This occasion touched off the inclination for the tracking down the arrangement or possibly a stage towards settling or, in any event, restricting this destruction. Metaverse, and its ground-breaking capacities are the same old thing to the world. It's been anticipated that it will revolutionize gaming, association with companions, shopping, and whatnot. But this paper is kept to spotlight the most deserving space, the healthcare sector. Metaverse can change the fortunes of the medical care area. This paper will examine all the potential ways this innovation can be valuable. It can work on obsolete facilities for treatment and educational purposes, and numerous such up-sides have been highlighted beneath. © 2023 IEEE.
ABSTRACT
Since the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, remote conferencing and school-teaching have become important tools. The previous applications aim to save the commuting cost with real-time interactions. However, our application is going to lower the production and reproduction costs when preparing the communication materials. This paper proposes a system called Pre-Avatar, generating a presentation video with a talking face of a target speaker with 1 front-face photo and a 3-minute voice recording. Technically, the system consists of three main modules, user experience interface (UEI), talking face module and few-shot text-to-speech (TTS) module. The system firstly clones the target speaker's voice, and then generates the speech, and finally generate an avatar with appropriate lip and head movements. Under any scenario, users only need to replace slides with different notes to generate another new video. The demo has been released here11https://pre-avatar.github.io/ and will be published as free software for use. © 2022 IEEE.
ABSTRACT
Transportation and transferring data and information around the globe have remarkably developed and revolutionized! It is possible to transfer data and information in a small part of a second (milliseconds) or in a real time. This technology is not only written texts but expanded to include visual material, virtual reality, visual and sound interactions. Such a great development definitely has and will continue to have an impact on shaping the methods of distance learning. Distance learning is no longer luxury, it becomes the heart of the education process and career development. There are several needs and objectives for distance learning to flourish the distance learning, education, and training in the near future. The COVID-19 pandemic demonstrated the need to develop professional, efficient safe, secure, and reliable methods of distance education, learning, and telemedicine. These emerged technologies of communication and transferring information provoked several serious ethical considerations The developing and advancing distance learning and on job training and professional assessment should be based on ethics and values (Values-Based Medical Education). Telemedicine and telesurgery which have great advantages and benefits are facing serious ethical and practical challenges too, which is going to be discussed in this chapter. The great future challenges are not the materials to be transferred but the methods of transferring these materials. The ways of transferring information are greatly varied from internet, computer-based programs, mobile application, and possibly by stimulating certain neural cells through implanted microchips. The emerging metaverse as a virtual augmented reality which is going to create unlimited applications may advance the distance education and on job training beyond any imagination. © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2022. All rights reserved.
ABSTRACT
Most nations have used online meeting software platforms for distant education in some capaci ty during the COVID-19 epidemic. These software applications do, however, have substantial drawbacks that hinder engagement and fall short of simulating the classroom environment. Many of these restrictions are resolved by the newly forming Metaverse. In education in Metaverse, learners have the opportunity to engage with digital content and each other in a more interactive and immersive way. For example, learners can participate in virtual simulations, role -playing activities, and collaborative projects with other learners from around the world. They can also access a wide range of digital resources, such as virtual textbooks, lectures, and assessments, all within the same platform. This paper reviews different Metaverse models, frameworks for applying Metaverse in the field of education. © 2023 IEEE.
ABSTRACT
In 2020, a new coronavirus swept the world, and the advent of this disease has a huge impact on our social and economic development. Due to the limited medical resources and regional differences, this model of virtual medicine becomes more valuable. In this paper, we create a virtual medical space based on a metaverse in order to investigate whether the medical model can be freely transformed between virtual and reality. In this process, I first describe different scenarios of virtual medical care in mixed reality, and then we use one of them as an example to develop a medical device. Then we designed the software and hardware of the product and performed the user experience, it includes the interaction and usage scenarios that affect the user. Finally, this medical device will be demonstrated by user experience and feedback. © 2023 The authors and IOS Press.
ABSTRACT
The concept of a metaverse, a virtual world that offers immersive experiences, has gained widespread interest in recent years. Despite the hype, there is still a gap in its practical application, especially in the realm of education. This study presents the design and implementation of a metaverse tailored to the needs of education. The goal of this paper is to demonstrate the feasibility of such a system and evaluate its effectiveness. It is crucial to understand the architecture and implementation of a metaverse to effectively customise it for educational purposes. To assess user experience, a field study was conducted, collecting data through questionnaires and qualitative feedback. The results show that users were pleased with the features, player experience, and ease of use.
ABSTRACT
Online learning environments have been widely adopted, particularly during the COVID-19 pandemic. Today, their usage is envisioned for multiple teaching scenarios, including international courses involving students from different locations. However, as e-learning frameworks lack many advantages of physical interaction, diverse technologies to enhance the learning experience in this regard, including the use of metaverses, are currently in demand. In this study, we implemented an educational metaverse platform for engineering courses at four different European Universities from Poland, Portugal, Germany, and Spain, then had it quantitatively evaluated by students from these higher education institutions. The obtained results illustrate positive student perceptions of its ease of use, satisfaction and fun, and immersion, although their opinions with respect to learning experience and usefulness are less clear. The students seem to agree that interactivity remains insufficient in comparison with face-to-face teaching. For this reason, we provide an examination other related works and finalize this article by suggesting future research directions in the field.
ABSTRACT
The Addressing the new educational needs and requirements still remains a challenge. Moreover, due to the COVID-19 pandemic and the technological advancements, learning environments are being transformed. Metaverse is a computer-generated lifelike 3D virtual extension of the physical world as it immerses users, allows them to interact with others and with digital objects, and eliminates the constraints of distance and time differences. It is characterized by persistence, interactivity, and embodiment. The use of the metaverse in educational and training processes to create new learning environments that allow learners to function in a parallel, safe and personalized reality is gaining ground. The aim of this study is to analyze the existing research into the metaverse in the educational field. Hence, a systematic literature review has been carried out using the Web of Science (WoS) and Scopus databases. To provide more complete and constructive results, no year, educational level, or subject restrictions were set. As metaverse is a new topic and taking the inclusion and exclusion criteria into account, a total of 17 articles has been analyzed. Based on the findings, metaverse has the potential to enrich and transform education and lead to increased learning outcomes and enhanced students' engagement and motivation. Despite this fact, the use of metaverse in education is in its infancy, thus, more research and experiments should be carried out in all educational levels and populations to assess its impact and improve its effectiveness. Finally, the need for designing valid instruments to evaluate the educational experiences generated within the metaverse was evident. © 2023 Universidad de Murcia. All rights reserved.
ABSTRACT
Metaverse is defined as a collection of technology gadgets and metaverse connected to IoT, Blockchain, Artificial Intelligence, and all the other tech industries including educational. In particular, the big success of the metaverse in the recent era is in the educational sector, metaverse resolved many difficulties in the education domain. Especially, in the situation of covid 19 people continued there all the educational things virtually using metaverse technologies. At this moment it was only a sector that was not hampered by the reason of covid 19, everyone did their educational work online instead of offline. Metaverse uses artificial intelligence and IoT technology to build a digital virtual world where you can safely and freely engage in social and educational activities that transcend the limits of the real world, and the application of these latest technologies will be expedited. In this paper, we are going to introduce the future of the metaverse, including its history, explanation, and shared features. Then, we will describe what technologies the metaverse is using and metaverse potentiality in education, the metaverse in education is clearly defined, and a detailed framework of the metaverse in education is proposed, along with in-depth discussions of its features. © 2023 Global IT Research Institute (GiRI).
ABSTRACT
The rapid development of artificial intelligence, blockchain, and networks, and the sudden appearance of the metaverse, triggered by COVID-19, are both expected and concerned. Along with criticism that it is somewhat exaggerated, it is receiving a lot of attention in that it can provide a foundation for social and economic activities in the virtual world. In this paper, we present the new driving force that re-emerged the metaverse, and analysis on the related standardization status. By the analysis on that, we propose the interface and interworking model required to make the metaverse interoperable with each other. © 2023 Global IT Research Institute (GiRI).
ABSTRACT
Advanced mathematical and deep learning (DL) algorithms have recently played a crucial role in diagnosing medical parameters and diseases. One of these areas that need to be more focused on is dentistry. This is why creating digital twins of dental issues in the metaverse is a practical and effective technique to benefit from the immersive characteristics of this technology and adapt the real world of dentistry to the virtual world. These technologies can create virtual facilities and environments for patients, physicians, and researchers to access a variety of medical services. Experiencing an immersive interaction between doctors and patients can be another considerable advantage of these technologies, which can dramatically improve the efficiency of the healthcare system. In addition, offering these amenities through a blockchain system enhances reliability, safety, openness, and the ability to trace data exchange. It also brings about cost savings through improved efficiencies. In this paper, a digital twin of cervical vertebral maturation (CVM), which is a critical factor in a wide range of dental surgery, within a blockchain-based metaverse platform is designed and implemented. A DL method has been used to create an automated diagnosis process for the upcoming CVM images in the proposed platform. This method includes MobileNetV2, a mobile architecture that improves the performance of mobile models in multiple tasks and benchmarks. The proposed technique of digital twinning is simple, fast, and suitable for physicians and medical specialists, as well as for adapting to the Internet of Medical Things (IoMT) due to its low latency and computing costs. One of the important contributions of the current study is to use of DL-based computer vision as a real-time measurement method so that the proposed digital twin does not require additional sensors. Furthermore, a comprehensive conceptual framework for creating digital twins of CVM based on MobileNetV2 within a blockchain ecosystem has been designed and implemented, showing the applicability and suitability of the introduced approach. The high performance of the proposed model on a collected small dataset demonstrates that low-cost deep learning can be used for diagnosis, anomaly detection, better design, and many more applications of the upcoming digital representations. In addition, this study shows how digital twins can be performed and developed for dental issues with the lowest hardware infrastructures, reducing the costs of diagnosis and treatment for patients.