Special Issue of Virtual Reality / Virtual Reality in the e-Society / Call for submissions

Special Issue of Virtual Reality / Virtual Reality in the e-Society / Call for submissions

Special Issue of Virtual Reality

“Virtual Reality in the e-Society”

New technologies such as the Internet and mobile communications are
transforming our culture into an e-Society. This term covers a wide
range of applications from e-government, e-democracy, and e-business,
to e-learning and e-health.
Although user interfaces for these systems usually fall into the typical
windowing, 2D paradigm, the potential for using Virtual Reality-VR
technologies in an emerging e-Society is enormous. VR technologies
for visualising remotely health data, creating online communities,
developing online stores or educating groups of people can contribute
to the growth of the e-Society by making it more tangible and real
for the users. How far are we from creating a virtual society
where users will be able to perform everyday activities in a Virtual
World? Can virtual technologies provide the means for creating a
tangible Virtual Community? Which are the most prominent areas?

The aim of this special issue is to address questions like the above and
present a range of innovative papers on the use of VR in the e-Society
of the future.

Topics of interest include (but are not limited to) the following areas:

* Applications of VR technologies in the e-Society, including VR in
e-health,
e-science, e-learning, simulation, collaborative work, entertainment,
infotainment, e-business, e-government;
* Usability evaluation and empirical studies of e-Society applications;
* Mobile and virtual media for e-Society applications
* Intelligent technologies for virtual spaces in the e-Society
* Critical reviews of current trends in VR for the e-Society and directions
for future research;
* Personalised virtual worlds;
* Open issues in the context of VR in the e-Society and recommendations for
improvements;
* Supporting technologies for VR in the e-Society with clear link to
related applications

The special issue will appear in the Springer journal Virtual Reality
(http://link.springer.de/link/service/journals/10055/index.htm). Papers
should typically be less than 8,000 words and of standard journal content:
reports of original research, review papers, essays and discussions.
Papers will be peer reviewed in accordance with the journal’s normal process.
Prospective authors should indicate their intention to submit by
October 24, 2005, including a planned title for the submission, an
abstract of 200-400 words, and names of authors.

Papers should be submitted in Microsoft Word or PDF formats by
January 18, 2006.

Please direct all submissions and correspondence to
g.magoulas@dcs.bbk.ac.uk;
G.Lepouras@uop.gr and C.Vassilakis@di.uoa.gr

Important Dates:

Deadline for expression of interest: October 24, 2005.
Deadline for submission of full papers: January 18, 2006.
Notification of review results: May 4, 2006.
Deadline for final version of papers: July 23, 2006.
Possible publication: end 2006.

Guest Editors:

Dr G. D. Magoulas
School of Computer Science and Information Systems
Birkbeck College, University of London, Malet Street, London WC1E 7HX, UK

Dr G. Lepouras
Department of Computer Science and Technology
University of Peloponnese, 21100, Tripolis, Greece

Dr C. Vassilakis
Department of Informatics and Telecommunications
University of Athens, 15784, Ilissia, Greece