Remote conferencing for collaboration is a fast-growing field. Virtual Reality applications are experiencing a surge in popularity as they afford a feeling of co-presence and ‘togetherness’ that video-conferencing cannot. But VR environments for conferencing are not fully mature yet in terms of space, and even less so in terms of the human activities they are supposed to facilitate. Moreover, for researchers, designers and practitioners from various backgrounds working on and in these spaces, a rigorous, shared language for conferencing activities in virtual environments to facilitate the exchange between different stakeholders does not exist as yet. In this paper, we therefore propose a simple, clear method for the development of a human-centered ontology for VR-conferencing, combining existing methodological protocols with Activity Theory and Installation Theory. We then present the first iteration of the ontology focusing specifically on human activity which we developed based on a recent 5-week conference with experts from academia and industry that took place in a 3D VR-environment.
Memo
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An ontology creates a formal descriptive framework by establishing the classes, relationships and constraints that act on concepts and entities within a given system (Gruber, 1993; Musen, 1992) 온톨로지는 주어진 시스템 내에서 개념과 실체에 작용하는 클래스, 관계 및 제약 조건을 설정함으로써 공식적인 서술적 프레임워크를 생성한다.
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Ontology는 과학에서 Idel-type(이념형)이라고도 불리지만, more formalized manner usable for design를 일컬음.
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Four Trends: (Technology-driven)
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workforce shifts accompanying the transition to a knowledge economy
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requiring collaboration of team members who are not co-located
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the integration of multiple computing desktops
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the interoperability of mobile and immersive media (VR, AR, XR)
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the near-term explosive growth of machine learning and big data applications for understanding the world
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activity-based ontology
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Installations for Virtual Conferencing; IVC
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Activity theory (Nosulenko et al., 2005)
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Activity theory considers activity as an oriented trajectory from a given state to a consciously represented expected final state (‘goal’), driven by an urge (‘motive’) to reach an internal state of satisfaction (Leontiev, 1978; Mironenko, 2013; Nosulenko & Samoylenko, 2009).
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To brake the trajectory of activity
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Installation theory (Lahlou, 2017)
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We use Installation theory to understand which other components are involved in each specific action.
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Installation theory states that at a given point of activity (e.g., attending a lecture) participant behavior is channeled by three layers of components: local affordances in the environment (e.g., seats, displays), embodied competences in the subjects (previous knowledge or skills for interpreting the situation), and social regulation (institutions and local rules).
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Action & Transaction
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Four highest-order classes (nodes) build the spine of our ontology: 1) actors, in the form of roles and statuses; 2) activity steps, which are behaviors per se (e.g., raising hand, speaking); 3) the three installation components - layers of the IVC; 4) values (see Fig.2)
