Having problems with message search?
I am pleased to announce that the much awaited Special Issue
of the Journal of Virtual Worlds Research (JVWR) on the theme of '3D
Virtual Worlds for Health and Healthcare' is now up and live on the journal’s
site: http://jvwresearch.org/
Though Second Life has existed since 2002 and there are even
other virtual worlds that predate it (see a timeline at http://www.dipity.com/xantherus/Virtual_Worlds/),
most in the health sector are only recently starting to migrate to such
platforms, as the technology is gradually maturating and rapidly becoming more
affordable and popular. This special issue of JVWR on the theme of '3D Virtual
Worlds for Health and Healthcare' provides a good sampler of how healthcare
organizations, groups and individuals are currently using virtual worlds such
as Second Life, OpenSim-based worlds, There and Kanava for a range of clinical
and health-related purposes. Topics covered in this issue include: the use of
virtual worlds in healthcare higher education, including in 'virtual patients'
game-based learning simulations, with examples from both the UK and the US; the
growth and direction of healthcare support groups in virtual worlds; the
development of a virtual worlds' coping skills game to prevent
post-hospitalization smoking relapse in tobacco dependent cancer patients; and
an examination of how the attitude and appearance of an individual's avatar
might result in positive changes in her/his real life in relation to obesity,
which is one of the most serious public health problems of the 21st century.
The development and evaluation of health and wellness exhibits at the Jefferson
Occupational Therapy Education Center in Second Life is also presented, as well
as three 'Think Pieces' reflecting on related methodological and other issues,
including a discussion of some of the pitfalls that should be avoided when
designing and conducting virtual worlds' health project evaluation studies.
Open Scholarship = Free to both authors (to publish in
this journal) and readers (to freely access all published material)
http://jvwresearch.org/
Vol 2, No
2: 3D Virtual Worlds for Health and Healthcare
Susan Toth-Cohen, Guest Editor for Vol. 2, Iss. 2, JVWR
Simon Bignell, Guest Editor for Vol. 2, Iss. 2, JVWR
Maged N. Kamel Boulos, Associate Editor, JVWR, and Guest
Editor for Vol. 2, Iss. 2
Jeremiah Spence, Editor-in-Chief, JVWR
Table of Contents
Editor's Corner
Musings on the State of
'3-D Virtual Worlds for Health and Healthcare' in 2009
Maria Toro-Troconis,
Maged N. Kamel Boulos
Invited Articles
Virtual Worlds in Health
Care Higher Education
Constance M Johnson,
Allison A Vorderstrasse, Ryan Shaw
Peer Reviewed
Research Papers
The Growth and Direction of
Healthcare Support Groups in Virtual Worlds
John Robert Norris
Development of a Virtual
Reality Coping Skills Game to Prevent Post-Hospitalization Smoking Relapse in
Tobacco Dependent Cancer Patients
Paul Krebs, Jack
Burkhalter, Shireen Lewis, Tinesha Hendrickson, Ophelia Chiu, Paul Fearn, Wendy
Perchick, Jamie Ostroff
Does this Avatar Make Me
Look Fat? Obesity and Interviewing in Second Life
Elizabeth Dean, Sarah
Cook, Michael Keating, Joe Murphy
Research Papers
Development and Evaluation
of Health and Wellness Exhibits at the Jefferson Occupational Therapy Education
Center in Second Life
Susan Toth-Cohen, Therese
Gallagher
Research-in-Brief
Papers
Development of Virtual
Patient Simulations for Medical Education
Douglas R Danforth,
Mike Procter, Richard Chen, Mary Johnson, Robert Heller
"Think
Pieces"
Virtual Worlds, Collective
Responses and Responsibilities in Health
Rashid M Kashani, Anne
Roberts, Ray Jones, Maged N. Kamel Boulos
Pitfalls in 3-D Virtual
Worlds Health Project Evaluations: The Trap of Drug-trial-style Media
Comparative Studies
Maged N. Kamel Boulos,
Inocencio Maramba
Towards a virtual
doctor-patient relationship: Understanding virtual patients.
Vanessa Gamboa González
Editor-in-Chief's
Corner
Cultural Identity in
Virtual Reality (VR): A Case Study of a Muslim Woman with hijab in Second
Life(SL)
Methal Mohammed
Shaping the ‘Public
Sphere’ in Second Life: Architectures of the 2008 U.S. Presidential
Election
Annabel Jane Wharton
Offline 
Send Email