Sunday, April 19, 2009

 

Final Project Specifications v1.0

Download the .pdf at this link: http://online.sfsu.edu/~jkv4edu/VWS/627/FINAL_PROJECT_SPEK_v1.pdf

Please comment on this blog entry. What's not clear? If you think you need to customize your documents to fit your concept, can you see how to do that reasonably?

Thanks, Jane

Tuesday, April 14, 2009

 

SCHEDULE - Experiments (ALL IN-CLASS) + Final Presentations

Note: Experiment titles link to blogs with experiment PLANS
STUDY EACH EXPERIMENT PLAN IN ADVANCE AND MAKE SURE YOU ARE PREPARED!!!

Week 11
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Th 4.16
9:10 Music World - Ed
Public Collage Event - Colleen Straw

Week 12
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Tu 4.21
9:10 Dystopia - Stephen
Obamaverse - Danny

Th 4.23
9:10 Alternate Reality Game - James + Kimberly + Zachary
10:30 Meteor Slams Dorms - Beth, Josh

Week 13
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Tu 4.28
9:10 Chips - Grant
Flying Event - Zachary

Th 4.30
9:10 Virtual World Racing - Karen
Machinima Studio - Xiaomin

Week 14
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Tu 5.5
9:10 Battle of the Appliances - Jose + Tara
Virtual Tourism: Not Your Mother's Tour Group - Alisa, Micah, Zhen, Iwuen, Jade

Th 5.7
9:10 PingWu's Crazy Marshal Arts Experiment - DeLonzo
The Trading Game - Chris, Steve, Laura, Brandon

Week 15 ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Tu 5.12 9:10 Lab Day - Consultations As Necessary

Th 5.14 9:10 Project Synopsis posted on The Tech VIRTUAL

Week 16 (finals week)
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Tu 5.19 9:10 CONCEPT DESIGN PRESENTATION (attendance is REQUIRED)
Th 5.21 5pm Turn in Work - CDROM deliver to FA121

Friday, April 3, 2009

 

EXPERIMENT GUIDELINES + PLAN ASSIGNMENT

Comment on this post if you have a suggestion for something to be added or amended, so I and others can respond. This may need at least one update.

A. GENERAL EXPERIMENT GUIDELINES
1. Approximately one (1) hour in duration
2. Designed to involve the whole class, playing specific roles
3. May optionally involve SL members (individually invited or open via posting on the SL Schedule of Events
4. Participatory, with a variety of roles
5. Graduate students must incorporate a link(s) to SurveyMonkey.com in the event (Jade Liang's blog will have how-to information on this - Thanks, Jade)
6. DOCUMENTATION IS KEY - assign enough people to roles for documenting the experiment event (snapshots, video, written) to give yourself a lot of good evidence for your research.

B. EXPERIMENT PLAN ASSIGMENT - DRAFT DUE TUESDAY 4/7 FOR CONSULTATION WITH JANE

EXPERIMENT PLAN
(What is this? This document will be provided to experiment participants prior to the scheduled start time and should minimally include the following information. Your experiment may need additional speks.)

What is included? (see detailed notes, below, on each of these items)
  1. Experiment Title
  2. Scenario
  3. Mechanics
  4. SL Location
  5. Roles
  6. Role Assignments
  7. Assets Provided
  8. Participant Preparation
  9. Production Plan

EXPERIMENT PLAN NOTES

1. EXPERIMENT TITLE - CONCISE
This can use the same title as your design concept or derive more specifically from what activities or scenario the experiment involves.

2. EXPERIMENT SCENARIO - STATE THIS IN ONE SENTENCE
Description of the basic focus of the experiment. You will design, organize, and conduct an experiment aimed to inform you about some essential or basic dimension of your concept design for a virtual world or virtual world application. The experiment SCENARIO should focus the participants' experience on that essential or basic dimension of your virtual world concept that you want to be informed about, the "what if?" at the heart of it. This may be the participants' perceptual experience of the immediate environment or the participants' experience of their transactions with objects and/or other participants.

3. The EXPERIMENT MECHANICS - STATE THIS IN 3-6 SENTENCES
Describe the basic activities/interactions by which the participants will engage the focus, i.e. what the participants do. These actions/interactions should be as simple and straightforward as possible. Don't be too subtle - make the goals, problems, and activities CLEAR and DIRECT. Don't make your participants' actions involve too many sequential steps before they get feedback or accomplish something - it will be too easy for them to go wrong or lose patience.

4. SL LOCATION
Name of the location AND the exact SLURL where participants should meet. If there any landmarks we need to know about, identify those. If there is a certain time-of-day we should set our client software to, tell us that.

5. ROLES - ONE SENTENCE EACH
Describe each roles that participants are to play. This experiment will be an event designed to involve the whole class. Designing key roles for participants forms the basic structural foundation for their experience.

Make the roles specific and focused. Participants will automatically expand and customize them as they improvise in the real time event; don't try to plan or control everything. That would be boring. Some examples: member, player, reporter, documenter (snapshots or video), hero, villain, fall-guy, zen monk, driver, tester, griefer, godzilla, tourist, etc.)

6. ROLE ASSIGNMENTS - LIST OF NAMES AND ROLES
YOU decide who is going to do what using the list of student/avatar names, below. It's simpler if you just assign us to roles. Don't agonize too much over who gets what role. Make sure you have enough people doing DOCUMENTATION, e.g. snapshots and/or video.

7. ASSETS PROVIDED - CONCISE LIST
List what assets will be involved and how we get them. Which ones do you provide/how and when do we get them.

8. PARTICIPANT PREPARATION - CONCISE LIST
Any preparation the participants need to make for your experiment, e.g. avatar appearance, clothes color, hat to wear, skills to acquire (provide how-to info or link to it). Keep these simple.

9. PRODUCTION PLAN - DESCRIBE IN A SHORT PARAGRAPH
We want to get as much experiential information as possible while expending the least amount of effort in production. Research SL locations and assets to see if there are already existing resources you can use. Streamline the design of everything you create, delete unnecessary and potentially distracting details. This is not a game graphics or programming course - just designing and coordinating the activities well will take effort.

endit:

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