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>>VIPRG2007 CALL FOR PAPERS

1st annual Virtual Instructor Pilot Research Group (VIPRG) Workshop, May 21 and 22, 2007

Virtual Instructor Pilot Research Group (VIPRG) 2007 is the 1st International Workshop on Virtual Instructors that provides a forum for researchers to share their latest research on virtual instructors towards the development and improvement of an International virtual instructor architecture standard. VIPRG 2007 will be held May 21st and May 22nd on the campuses of Georgetown University, USA and include plenary invited talks, workshops, tutorials, paper presentation tracks and panel discussions.

High quality papers accepted to the workshop will be published in a special issue of The International Journal for Virtual Reality (IJVR) and authors will have a chance to present at the VIPRG2007 conference. All the submitted papers should be written in English, and will be reviewed by international reviewers.

Overview
By 2010, it has been predicted that virtual humans will pass the Turing Test. In these predictions, people will not mistake virtual humans for real ones, but will interact naturally with them as information assistants, virtual coaches, virtual sales clerks, virtual teachers, entertainers, and virtual instructors. Perhaps, one of the most important applications of virtual human technology will be in the teaching domain. Before this vision can be realized, it will be important for the leading researchers in advanced learning technologies to understand the challenges involved with creating virtual instructors. These challenges intersect the areas of cognitive human behavior, learning technology, information technology, and software engineering. Ultimately, a universal architecture that extends the current state-of-the-art in learning technology must be created to facilitate the design, development, and deployment of virtual instructors across various domains. As a result, the Virtual Instructors Pilot Research Group (VIPRG), an organization underlying the IEEE Technical Committee on Learning Technology, was formed to continually investigate the science, technology and engineering requirements for developing pedagogically effective virtual instructors.

Purpose
The purpose of VIPRG2007 is to evaluate computer system/software architectures, designs, implementations, and existing standards used to develop embodied virtual instructor systems that lead to the feasibility of defining an international standard on building pedagogically effective virtual instructors. Specifically, the workshop will culminate research conducted by VIPRG committee members and encourage multidisciplinary contribution from an international community to answer research questions such as how multi-cultural instruction, multi-lingual dialogue systems, computational pedagogy, artificial intelligence, and distributed training standards (e.g., IEEE 1484.12 Learning Object Metadata, SCORM, SCORM extensions such as Sharable State Persistence, and related IMS standards) may be integrated for creating virtual instructor systems ranging from 3D computer graphic instructors in mixed reality environments to anthropomorphic personal robotic instructors.

Distinguished Guest Speaker
Dr. Ralph Ernest Chatham
Program Manager, Training Superiority
Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA)

Topics of Interest Ethnographic and case studies of virtual instructors

• Mixed Reality (e.g., Augmented Reality/Virtual Reality) architectures
• Multimodal (Verbal and non-verbal) conversational interfaces
• Realistic anthropomorphic 3D character or robotic instructors
• Software/system architectures for developing virtual instructor components
• Intelligent agents facilitating autonomous training
• Innovative applications of virtual instructors
• Computational knowledge representation and reasoning
• Intelligent sensor devices (MEMS, Nanotechnology, etc.) to provide synthetic auditory, olfactory, tactile, and visual capabilities
• Multicultural human behavior representation and protocols
• Personalized instruction algorithms
• Applications of distributed learning standards (e.g., IEEE 1484.12 Learning Object Metadata, SCORM 2004)
• Virtual agents as information assistants, coaches, sales clerks, teachers, entertainers, etc.

Travel Awards
VIPRG2007 is sponsored by the National Science Foundation. Several travel fellowships are available to VIPRG members and external researchers planning to participate in at the workshop. Fellowships will cover airline, hotel, and transportation-related expenses. For prospective participants interested in being considered for travel awards please provide the following information in a separate document. 

1. Contact Information. This should include the applicant's full name, organization name and address, home and email addresses, and phone number(s) where the applicant can be reached during Spring 2007.
2. Commitment. Applicants should affirm their obligation to attend the workshop in the event that an award is granted.
3. Relevancy. Statement of Current Research Progress/Related Projects and Future Research Plans as related to VIPRG.
4. Budget. Provide an estimated cost for air travel and other transportation-related expenses. Hotel accommodations in Washington, DC have been reserved by Georgetown University.

Submission Details
Extended abstracts should be submitted in PDF format. Extended abstracts should be no more 2 pages in 2-column IEEE format (http://www.sheridanprinting.com/ieee/IEEE-example.doc). Abstracts are due on February 23rd for participants interested in travel support and March 30th for other participants. Final workshop submissions will be limited to 8 pages. All workshop submissions will be considered for later journal publications. Best workshop papers will be invited to be considered in a special issue of the The International Journal for Virtual Reality (IJVR).

Workshop Committee
M. Brian Blake, Georgetown University
Jayfus Doswell, The Juxtopia Group
Juan Gilbert, Auburn University

Sponsors