UC Home      Visit UC      UC Directories      RSS Feed
UC Office of Information TechnologiesHomeUC Main Website

Conducting Research in Virtual Worlds

Virtual worlds are valuable research environments precisely because the relationships and responses of users are measurably real.   – Joshua Fairfield, “Avatar Experimentation: Human Subjects Research in Virtual Worlds.“ Terra Nova. 02 Dec. 2010.


Dr. Fred Beyette, Director of the Point-of-Care Center for Emerging Neurotechnologies (POC-CENT) in
Second Life, a collaboration between the University of Cincinnati and the Department of Health & Human
Services, the National Institutes of Health (NIH), and the National Institute of Biomedical Imaging & Bioengineering (NIBIB).

Benefits of Using Virtual Worlds for Research

Virtual worlds provide valuable new research tools to study human behavior, and the endless plasticity of the environments allow researchers to inexpensively prototype models in a uniquely collaborative environment, or explore data visualization in new and exciting ways.

  • Virtual worlds can provide detailed and precise data collection in ways not possible in the real world through the use of automatic data-collection tools.
  • Behavioral researchers can take advantage of the plasticity of environments and avatars (self-representations) to explore themes that might be difficult to replicate in real world environments.
  • Online communities often have economies, political systems, and cultural norms that provide endless laboratories for experiments and studies.
  • Unlike traditional lab settings, virtual worlds offer increased control over environmental variables.
  • Virtual worlds offer new ways to display, interact with, and view data visualizations and models.

At the University of Cincinnati, the UCSIM team can help you explore the possibilities including planning and designing your study, seeking funding, and preparing your IRB protocol for using virtual worlds as part of your research project.

Recommended Reading for Conducting Research in Virtual Worlds

We recommend reading the following articles/journals to help you prepare to conduct research in virtual environments:

Journal of Virtual Worlds Research Volume 3, Issue 1:  The Researcher’s Toolbox

Journal of Virtual Worlds Research Volume 3, Issue 3:  The Researcher’s Toolbox, Part II

Fairfield, Joshua, Avatar Experimentation: Human Subjects Research in Virtual Worlds (November 29, 2010). U.C. Irvine Law Review, Symposium Issue, 2011; Washington & Lee Legal Studies Paper No. 2010-14. Available at SSRN: http://ssrn.com/abstract=1717057

Shailey Minocha, Minh Tran and Ahmad John Reeves (2010). Conducting Empirical Research in Virtual Worlds: Experiences from two projects in Second Life. Journal of Virtual Worlds Research, vol. 3, no. 1. Available at: https://journals.tdl.org/jvwr/article/view/811/882

Other Requirements

All applicable policies related to conducting human research also apply in virtual worlds, including receiving IRB approval. See the UC Research page for resources related to research at the University of Cincinnati.

Researchers must also receive approval from the Center for Simulations & Virtual Environments Research (UCSIM) to conduct research projects using UC’s virtual campuses in Second Life, Opensim, or Unity3D, and both UCSIM and the UC Office of Information Technology must be credited/acknowledged as a contributor to any research and/or resulting publications undertaken on or using UCSIM resources.

Ready to speak with one of our staff?  Contact us today to get started on your research project!

 

 

Comments are closed.