Table of Contents

• 2.1 Collaboration/CSCW etc:
• 2.2 Intelligent Agents on the Net
• 2.3 Interface and other Agents
• 2.4 Virtual Environments
• 2.5 Virtual Reality
• 2.6 Hypertext, Visualization of Information Space, Living books etc.
• 2.7 Content and document management and retrieval
• 2.8 Interactive Web pages
• 2.9 Evaluation/Analysis Methods/Tools
• 2.10 CyberSpace Sociology

• 4.1 Zines
• 4.2 Bibliographies on-line
• 4.3 Overview Texts/Glossaries on-line
• 4.4 Journals and News Letters
• 4.5 Books

• 6.1 Indexes
• 6.2 NON-VRML non-proprietry Virtual Worlds Formats/Systems
• 6.3 Proprietry Virtual Worlds Formats/Systems
• 6.4 Virtual Worlds built with commercial servers
• 6.5 VRML enhanced MOOs
• 6.6 Java/MUD based
• 6.7 Virtual Campus (groupware oriented)
• 6.8 Other stuff:

• 7.1 Vendors with several products
• 7.2 VR
• 7.3 Free Groupware Systems
• 7.4 Chats
• 7.5 Peer 2 Peer
• 7.6 Commercial Groupware Systems
• 7.7 Calendars
• 7.8 Forums

1 About & Disclaimer

Keywords: Virtual Environments, VR, VE, MUVE, education, learning, collaboration, CSCW, CSCL, Virtual Worlds, Moving Worlds, Java, VRML.

This is just a rather disorganized page started in 1996 and very unfrequently updated (I don't have the time to clean out bad links either ) !! Sometimes in 2002 I decided to stop making updates (didn't do much in the last 2 years). But I keep this page alive, since it got some pointers to really cool stuff and I certainly will update it some day (probably in winter 2005).

2 Topics

2.1 Collaboration/CSCW etc:

• WWW Collaboration Projects Daniel LaLiberte's Hypernews-based Index.
• Collaboration, Knowledge Representation and Automatability Index at W3C (last update in 96 ?).
• CMC Studies Center. The Web's oldest CMC index by CMC pioneer John December, top quality and regularly updated.
• Gesellschaftliche Aspekte computervermittelter Kommunikation Last update in 1995, but has many pointers to CMC Research.
• The The CSCW Page including the no longer upated The unOfficial Yellow Pages of CSCW. Best index for computer supported collaborative Work.
• Human-Computer Interaction (HCI) Virtual Library Very good Meta Index.
• HCI Index by Hans de Graaff. Top quality and regularly updated.
• Human-Computer Interaction Resources on the Net by Mikael Ericsson.
• AI in Design Webliography (also good pointers do "just" design)
• Knowledge-Based Collaboration Webs, a recent MIT AI Lab project
• WebBoard O'Reilly's Webconference Software
• TeamWave Workplace Unix/PC/Mac groupware featuring whiteboards, chat, video conferencing, application sharing.
• Allaire Forum Cold Fusion-based application.
• VLSCs, Warren Sack's work on Very Large-scale conversations
• collaborate.com Service company, with a resource page (links, reading list, taxonomy)
• Conferencing Software for the Web Very Good Index by David R. Wolley
• Groupware page at usabilityfirst.com
• Avogato is also a research testbed for work on group trust metrics

2.2 Intelligent Agents on the Net

• The Loebner Prize--"The First Turing Test" organizes yearly contests for Chat Bots (on/off the Net. Last year (1998) it went to Robitron.
• Julia's Home Page Julia is a chatter robot that connects to MUDs (DEAD link ..).
• some good work is starting within VRML multi-user worlds [TODO]
• Animated Interface Agents: Making Them Intelligent IJCAI 97 Workshop (several nice papers, good variety of work too)
• IBM's Intelligent Agents products and projects (INDEX), see e.g. Aglets (Mobile Java Agents/IBM Japan)
• Intelligent Software Agents (Good UMBC Index), including a page on the ARPA Knowledge Sharing Effort (KQML, KIF).
• JESS, the Java Expert System Shell. (for building smart applets)
• LikeMindes is a company that builds software that will track down your habits (1-to-1 marketing).
• BotSpot (Index and more for bots on the net, including a search)
• HiveGPLed MIT Media Lab Sofware
• SHOE SHOE is a small extension to HTML which allows web page authors to annotate their web documents with machine-readable knowledge
• The Robot Wisdom Page, quite a mix :)

2.3 Interface and other Agents

• Virtual Human Web Pointers by Norm Badler (also good VE index)
• the @gency Serge Stinckwich's Index on Agents. Serge knows the field and who is doing what.
• Some stuff on MIT's Autonomous Agents Group including Letizia a paper on an Agent That Assists Web Browsing.

2.4 Virtual Environments

• TerraNova. Good blog. It is about an emerging social phenomenon called "virtual worlds" -- computer-generated, persistent, immersive, and representational social platforms. Currently, the most popular virtual worlds are massively multiplayer online roleplaying games (MMORPGs), such as Everquest and Star Wars Galaxies. However, there are many other old and new varieties of virtual worlds. (9/2004)
• Groupware : Virtual Communities Gvery good centre for advanced learning technologies list
• Campus Life Comes to Second Lif by Daniel Terdiman, Wired (about teaching within Second Life, i.e. what people did with muds 15 years ago). (9/2004)
• Distributed Virtual Environment Links (at Open Community/Mitsubishi), points to most major 3D/VR sites in the area.
• Collaborative Virtual Environments Dave Snowdon's Index (related to the CVE mailing list)
• DML Cybrary: Virtual Environments and Virtual Communities. Nice general VE index.
• Educational VR (MUD) page
• The Contact consortium Contact, Culture and Community in digital space. (has hotlinks to most major virtual worlds and other pointers and several mailing lists).
• VLearn 3D Institutions around the world are collaborating in 3D educational environments .....
• A report from the VC97 conference, a text with some nice ideas.
• UCLA's Center for the Study of Online Community
• Virtual Education Web Links
• Virtual Reality and Education Good pointers to articles.
• Les environnements virtuels collaboratifs en réseau qui utilisent le langage VRML (Virtual Reality Modeling Language) Revue de qq environnements par Nathalie Pilard.
• Vircom. A Swedish Project (including a good index page).
• Kulwinder's research on usability in VEs
• GEL Open source toolkit and open standard for multi-user three-dimensional worlds (release planned for 8/99, looks promising)
• Artificial Culture and Computational Anthropology (good home page of a PhD student)
• CypherPunks Mailing List * CypherPunk Mailing List (cypherpunks@toad.com)
• Graphic Adventure Languages ... single user VEs ;)
• IETF has a good issue on educational on-line collaborative environments.
• invisible Crowds in Cyberspace: Measuring and Mapping the Social Structure of USENET?, a study by Marc Smith. Netscan software available (not tested).
• Fuchsia Shock has good Cyberpunk etext, ebooks, essays, Gibson
• on-line books in sci-fi ... rather illegal I suppose
• Voidspace An other trendy cyberspace portal
• The Psychology of Cyberspace by John Suler, includes many articles, e.g. Life at the Palace A Cyberpsychology Case Study (includes also pointers to other articles)
• Augmented Reality Hompage. This page provides a "portal" to the world wide web of "Augmented Reality" (AR). This portal has links to technology, research groups, projects, products, and resources for more information, related to AR. 10/2004

2.5 Virtual Reality

• See Virtual Reality and Education: Information Sources BEST bibliographiy in this area !
• Interaction Techniques for Common Tasks in Immersive Virtual Environments: Design, Evaluation, and Application Doctoral Dissertation of Doug A. Bowman 7/99
• What is Virtual Reality A Taxonomy of Virtual Reality by Jerry Isdale.
• Hot Virtual Reality Sites by the Viualization & VR Group at NIST.
• The Virtual Reality Society home page (UK).
• WWW Virtual Library: on Virtual Reality Index
• VRresources (Mega Virtual Reality Guide) by C Durham and M. Bernatchez
• Chris's VR Stuff VR Index, well worth browsing !
• Virtual Reality and 3D Graphics by Kevin Schmidt.
• HITLab Reviews
• Methodology of Immersive 3D Usability Studies
  "These pages will address the methods used to do usability studies for the development of Collaborative Virtual Environments, and for performance measurements of human behavior in Collaborative Virtual Environments."
• Sci.virtual-worlds home page: Sci.virtual-worlds is a USENET newsgroup, dedicated to the discussion of virtual interface technology (includes FAQs and articles).
• Subject Specific Resource List in Psychology (use FIND in your browser and search virtual)
• VR and Simulation Research Overview at VRIS Lab/ Sandia.
• Immersive Systems (VR company, produces Meme, an alternative to VRML-based multi-user VR systems ?).
• Mellot's Garage VR Page
Virtual Navigation in Immersive Virtual Environments, Ruth Conroy's PhD Thesis.

2.6 Hypertext, Visualization of Information Space, Living books etc.

• InfoViz pointers by DAO at Tecfa also
• Adaptive Hypertext & Hypermedia Index page (Paul de Bra, Eindhoven University of Technology). Includes projects, publications etc.
• Visualization for Access to Complex Documents, a NIST project.
• Selected Hypertext Resources on the Web (@ Eastgate)
• Idea Management and Global Ideas Bank
• See some of CASA's research projects for geography, modelling, etc. of Cyberspace. Some cool research !
• http://cn.net.au/ may help you to find something on the Web [put this elsewhere]
• XML Linking Language. XLink uses XML syntax to create structures that can describe the simple unidirectional hyperlinks of today's HTML as well as more sophisticated multi-ended and typed links.
• Index: VRNews Information Visualization Links. Good
• Index: Information Visualization by Martin Graham
• Index: The Tlon Mailing List has several good pointers on knowledge representation, visualization, etc.
• WordNet is is an on-line lexical reference system whose design is inspired by current psycholinguistic theories of human lexical memory (cool system).
• Topic Maps: Topic Maps (commercial site) are an ISO Standard ISO/IEC 13250 defining a model and architecture for the semantic structuring of link networks. SGML and XML notations are available.
• KDnuggets Good Index on Data Mining, Web Mining, Knowledge Discovery and more. E.g. see Software for Visualization
• On-line Library of Information Visualization Environments
• Mindmanager a commercial MindMap tool
• Map.netTim Bray's execllent new Antarctica Site based on DMOZ
• Interactive Fiction (Interactive Fiction is a story-telling medium in which the player is actively responsible for driving the plot) - Good site
• Interactive Fiction at about.com (good, includes lists of software, articles, FAQs)
• The OZ project s developing technology and art to help artists create high quality interactive drama (still alive project ?)
• KMetaSite Knowledge Management Portal (includes articles, who is who and other sites)
• Entovation Internationl LTd
• IHM Concept Map Software See for instance the Public CMaps
• R. Horn's work on Visual Languages, e.g. the argumentation mapping project, free cliparts page, ...

2.7 Content and document management and retrieval

• See mostlyResource Description Framework Pointers
• Reference Linking with DOIS (article in D-Lib Magazine. DOIs the Association of American Publishers' (AAP)Digital Object Identifiers

Other Pointers

• Conceptual Knowledge Markup Language and Ontology Markup Language DTD (parts of the WAVE Project). This shows some rather hot potential of XML for "portable" AIish stuff.

2.8 Interactive Web pages

2.9 Evaluation/Analysis Methods/Tools

• Thomas Green's "Cognitive Dimensions of notations and devices" "lightweight" framework allows to evaluate information artifacts and to make design decision.

2.10 CyberSpace Sociology

• Cyberspace and Web Sociology
• CCMS Inforbase (communication, cultural & media studies). Good knowledge Web !
• Index: Media and communication studies site (good, but features quite useless javascript tricks)
• The social Life of Information, good J.S Brown and P.Duguid article

3 Events (including past ones)

• ISWC - International Symposium on Wearable Computers Atlanta, oc 16-17 2000
• 6th Eurographics Workshop on Virtual Environments (page has short abstracts)
• Hypertextes et Hypermédias Paris 23-24 sept 99 (some original talks)
• DCNet '99 DCNet99 is an online conference that focuses on the future of design computing. 30 no - 3 dec 1999, Sidney
• CHI 2000 Human Factors in Computing Systems (The Hague, April 1-6 2000)
• Second Workshop on Intelligent Virtual Agents (VA99) University of Salford UK, 13th -15th September 1999
• AAAI 2000 Spring Symposium Series "Smart Graphics" March 20th-22nd 2000, Stanford, CA, USA
• The 6th European Conference on Computer Supported Cooperative Work, Copenhagen, 12-16 sept 99. See also Evolving use of groupware
• Symposium on Virtual Reality Software and Technology 1999, 20-22 dec 1999, London
• Second International Workshop on Augmented Reality (IWAR) '99 Call for Papers, oct 20-21, San Francisco
• Intelligent Virtual Agents (Virtual Agents 99) The Centre for Virtual Environments, University of Salford, Salford, United Kingdom, 13th September 1999 part of THE SIXTH UK VR-SIG CONFERENCE
• THIRD INTERNATIONAL COGNITIVE TECHNOLOGY CONFERENCE, CT99, San Francisco/Silicon Valley, USA, Aug. 11-14, 1999
• VRML99 the Fourth International Conference on the Virtual Reality Modeling Language and Web 3D Technologies, Paderborn, Germany, 23-26 Feb 1999. See in particular: Workshop on Educational Applications of VRML
• Avatars 98
• FwSymposiumWorld Symposium on Network Media. Paris 1-5 March 1999
• First International Workshop on Usability Evaluation For Virtual Environments: Methods, Results And Future Directions, 17 December 1998, De Montfort University, Leicester, UK
• VWsim'99, San Francisco, 17-20 January 1999.
• Virtual Humans, June 16-17 98, Los Angeles.
• VRST (Virtual Reality Software and Technology) (ACM's annual Virtual Reality confernce) Tawan '98
• Human Computer Interaction '98, Sheffield, UK
• Ninth European Conference on Cognitive Ergonomics
• Virtual Worlds 98 (Paris, July 1-3 1998)
• Collaborative Virtual Environments '98, Manchester, 17-19 June 1998.
• WET ICE'97 Workshop on Distributed System Aspects of Sharing a Virtual Reality 18-20th June, 1997, MIT, Cambridge, Massachussetts, USA
• Creative Collaboration in Virtual Communities '97. Building scenarios for Computer Mediated Collaboration, Sydney, 14-15 Feb 97
• Earth to Avatars! (E2A) (San Francisco, oct 26-27. 1996). See also the full list of the "Contact Consortium" events.
• CHI 96 (Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems)
• Use and design of MUDs for serious purposesA one-day workshop at CSCW96 - November 16th, Boston, Ma
• Call for papers for a publication based on the theme of the Composition in Cyberspace Conference
• Collaborative Virtual Environments 1996 (CVE'96) (Nottingham, Sept 19-20 96)
• Proceedings of The Eighth ACM Conference on Hypertext (Hypertext '97, Southhampton, UK). Real papers on-line!
• HypertextNow (the 8th hypertext conference, Southampton April 6-11)
• WWW Workshop: Virtual Environments and the WWW. Papers are are available in raw form and within a WOO documentation system.
• Fifth International Conference on Cyberspace (Madrid, June 6-9 96)
• Collaboration in Virtual Environments - Methods and Experiences (Workshop at the The Fourth European Conference on Computer Supported Cooperative Work
• the doors of perception 3 conference (VR oriented)
• The International Workshop on CSCW and the Web
• European Workshop on Interactive Distributed Multimedia Systems and Services (mostly technical issues)
• Cyberstar'95 (A competition on interactive concepts)
• Workshop on Simulation and Interaction in Virtual Environments
• VResources Monthly VR LIVE Conferences

4 Texts

4.1 Zines

• VReMag Includes a definition of VR.
• CGSD has a monthly newsletter
• Virtual Medical Worlds (monthlyon for Telemedicine and High Performance Computing and Networking for readers interested in computer applications in medical environments)
• see also: my VRML Pointers

4.2 Bibliographies on-line

• The HITL Knowledge Base Project, see e.g. Virtual Reality in Training and Education: Resource Guide to Citations and Online Information
• Hypermedia & Virtual Reality Reading List by Chris Hand
• My on-line bibliography (randomly selected contents in Educational Technology)
• Knowledge Manager Newsletter

4.3 Overview Texts/Glossaries on-line

• Kevin Hughes' ``From Webspace to Cyberspace'' Written some time ago, but still worthwhile !
• The Encyclopedia of Virtual Environments produced for Ben Shneiderman's CMSC 828S Virtual Reality and Telepresence Course, Fall 1993
• Glossary Of Virtual Reality Terminology (hard VR oriented): Quote: "The authors place the terms and definitions contained in this article into the public domain in order to elicit comments and discussion from readers. After much discussion and many modifications on the part of the Working Group on the VR Glossary, the revised glossary will be submitted as a IEEE draft standard....."

4.4 Journals and News Letters

• Presence: Teleoperators and Virtual Environments, MIT Press
• The International Journal Of Virtual Reality Journal Home page.
• Virtual Reality: Research, Development and Application, in particular: special issue on Collaborative Virtual Environments, 1997.
• Virtual Reality Update (VRU) at HITL.
• The VRS Journal
• VR in the Schools: a quarterly refereed publication of the Virtual Reality and Education Laboratory, is distributed in both print and electronic versions. Co-Editors: Dr. Lawrence Auld and Dr. Veronica Pantelidis -- What happended in 1997 ??
• International Journal of Design Computing

4.5 Books

• Networked Virtual Environments - Design and Implementation Looks good

5 Courses (Syllabi, etc.)

• New Media in Criminology
• Mastère en réalité virtuelle distribuée ENIB/Brest
• The Virtual Society (MIT Media Lab MAS 965 course)
• Digital Communities: Urban Planning and Design in Cyberspace, MIT, 4.207/11.955, a graduate seminar being offered by the Department of Urban Studies and Planning and the Department of Architecture. Voir aussi: The Reading List. (dead link)
• Hypermedia & Virtual Reality, a Chris Hand class at DMU, UK.
• CS6364 Hypermedia -- Spring 1996 a James D.Foley and Andreas Dieberger class at Georgia Tech. See in particular the reading materials.
• Identity and the Internet (STS 065,Spring 1995) by Prof Sherry Turkle, Program in Science, Technology and Society, MIT.
• The "Fall Collaboration Project" An initiative by Prof. Ken Schweller (Buena Vista University) See in particular: "Suggested Readings"
• Digital Communities: Urban Planning and Design in Cyberspace. This is the home page for 4.207/11.955, a graduate seminar being offered by the Department of Urban Studies and Planning and the Department of Architecture in the School of Architecture and Planning at MIT. The class will be offered during the fall semester of 1994. See also: The Reading List.
• CMC Course Web Page Example of a 1994 course on Computer-Mediated Communication given at the Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute.
• 6.805/STS085: Ethics and Law on the Electronic Frontier An other MIT course 97/98
• Sociology 285k/197h The Sociology Of Cyberspace Spring 1993 (broken link!) by Peter Kollock & Marc Smith, The Center for the Study of Online Community, UCLA.
• The Sociology of Cyberspace by L. Salamini and Jim Brazell, Department of Sociology, Bradley University.
• MIT 21W785 Communicating in Cyberspace

6 Virtual Worlds and Integrated WWW servers

Alternatively there are also several "virtual campus" software that are rather groupware oriented.

This section is not very complete. It's a real pain updating commercial links every few month.

IMPORTANT:

• Please have a look at my VRML pointers page for VRML-based Worlds
• Check out my Educational VR (MUD) page for MUD-based stuff

6.1 Indexes

• Virtual Worlds Review. Good index. Last update consulted: 2004
• Habitats (in french, good index but not updated anymore)
• Habitats by Douglas Crockford. A good list.

6.2 NON-VRML non-proprietry Virtual Worlds Formats/Systems

• Meme is an open and non-proprietary standard for VR on the net. Meme is now available for free, with all source code. Meme comes with Metatopia, a multi-user virtual universe. It can be downloaded from http://metatopia.sourceforge.net/ (windows only?)
• There are others ... I know

6.3 Proprietry Virtual Worlds Formats/Systems

• Virtual Worlds group Organization and software sponsored by Microsoft Reasearch (good, but Win 98+, NT+ only)
• World's Chat One of the leaders of commercial 3D Worlds. Smooth graphics and good messaging features. Worth a visit. No trial client or server available. (Maybe no server at all).
• Active Worlds. Same kind as above.
  But 30-day DEMO/trial / 8 users version available (Solaris / Win95/NT).
• DonnyWorld Quote: " Dynamic action content solution for Internet Service Providers!
  Way cooler than conventional chat systems!
  User-controlled characters interact with world objects in real time!
  Automatically synchronized, distributed world databases.
  Blazingly fast animation even over 14400 bps dial-up links!
  Easily add objects, world spaces...applications limited only by your imagination! Flexible, scalable client-server architecture."
  DEMO version available (Win95/NT)..
• Wyndhaven/Intermoo Quote: " InterMOOTM technology makes Wyndhaven and its associated courseware entirely user-extensible. It supports constructionist pedagogy and empowers educators to develop their own lessons on the computer."
• Ichat Quote: "chat (pronounced I - chat) was founded to expand the functionality and uses of real-time chat systems on the Internet. First, through the ichat client which makes access to existing Internet chat systems easy by providing an integrated access tool with an easy to use graphical user interface. And through the ichat server, which makes it possible to run a real-time chat server and to integrate it with a World Wide Web site."
  Free clients, no trial server ??
• Intel had something that now seems to be dead, here is a quote: "Moondo is a Windows* application that lets you visit 3D multi-user virtual worlds and create your own virtual worlds for others to visit. Moondo features VRML rooms and avatars, audio chat, personally-created avatars, multiple views of the virtual world, and URL-based browsing of distributed Moondo servers world-wide".
• The Palace - Used to be biggest 2D server vendor (standard clients are free). It's well working technology. I don't know if server software is free now. This company is dead since 1999 (I think), but there is still a community: practise
• WellEngaged A chat/conferencing system provider (server, client (?), hosting) Seems to have sold the system to some important corporations.
• eShare. A other major player in the conferencing/chat buisness. Trial versions available (Solairs / Win95/NT)
• Worlds Away Quotes: "Combining the social dimension of chat services with the graphic dimension of multiplayer games, WorldsAway allows thousands of CompuServe members in the U.S., Europe, Japan and 150 countries worldwide, to meet, interact and join together in building a virtual community. [...] WorldsAway users can create and control their own on-line animated identities -- called avatars -- and take part in a variety of in-world events and activities. [...] WorldsAway is built on a distributed object-oriented technology which allows for a limitless addition of both users and WorldsAway regions. " - Access to a worlds away world cost money.
• Virtual Places Quotes: " Virtual Places is an architecture for a world-wide cyberspace. This cyberspace consists of shared spaces distributed over the Internet. In these shared spaces, information and people come together" ... The Virtual Places family of products transforms any Internet data server, such as the World Wide Web (WWW), from a static repository of information to a network of shared interactive spaces. This means that Web pages, and other Universal Resource Locators (URLs), become addressable, persistent, and inhabitable locations where people can meet, share content, and communicate in real time via voice or text." Now bought by Lotus Notes... will become "Sametime".
• Superscape's Hounted House. Quote " Superscape VR plc and Black Sun Interactive are proud to present the Haunted House, an exciting new multi-user 3D world integrating Superscape's Viscape and Black Sun's Internet community functionality."
• Onlive's showcase 3D world: Utopia. (used to have a proprietry format, but is moving towards full VRML 97 ?)
• CVW . CVW is a collaboration software environment that provides a "virtual building" where teams can communicate, collaborate, and share information, regardless of their geographic location. CVW takes virtual meetings one step further and enables virtual co-location through persistent virtual rooms, each incorporating people, information, and tools appropriate to a task, operation, or service. MOO- based, still alive in 2001 at CVW.sourceforge
• OZ Quote: "OZ develops Internet software and applications that enable real-time collaborative communications in shared spaces on the Internet. Leveraging our leading-edge technology with a strong focus on creative content production, we offer advanced solutions for the Business Communications, Entertainment and Education markets". A company that has an almost VRML-like solution. High quality 3D and streaming it seems. Free client , don't know about trial servers.

6.4 Virtual Worlds built with commercial servers

• CyberTown (VRML format, with a Blaxxun server. Blaxxun has operates others worlds too)
• The Palace communities (lots)

6.5 VRML enhanced MOOs

• BioMOO's "add-on": Quote from Erice Mercer: "If you have a reasonably sophisticated browser (like Netscape with the WebFX plug-in) you can quickly switch between VRML and web views of a room. All VRML scenes are generated on the fly, reflecting real conditions in the MOO. Objects can be given VRML shapes by users, else they appear as simple geometric shapes.
  This VRML system was built by me on top of the BioWeb system for MOOs that Gustavo Glusman, Jaime Prilusky, Paul Hansen and I wrote. We're modifying it now to incorporate the wonderful enhancements of 1.8.0 but it should be available soon. Don't bother writing because we'll announce it here [in the MOO Cows list] first. At that time you can figure out how it works for yourself by getting the package. It's designed to be easily installed in any preexisting MOO."
• At some point MOOndo (see above) was supposed to that, but then it did not.
• WAX Web. Edited Quote from Tom Meyer: I've been running a MOO [..] outputing VRML for about a year now (Waxweb, first web server of any kind to be serving up VRML), [...] but have not been that pleased by how suitable MOO is for VRML. I now generate VRML files on the fly from an http-speaking MOO server. Before I added in VRML support, the server worked quite well. Since the VRML files are roughly ten times larger than the HTML files that describe the room, that caused enormous slow-downs in the MOO. [..] I'm very interested in combining the ideas in MOOs and VRML, but feel that generating VRML on the fly in an interpreted language doesn't scale very well, especially when the OODB that's generating it was designed for small, rapid (interactive) updates." See his home page for more details.

6.6 Java/MUD based

• (Electric Communities) The folks who programmed Lucas Habitat and Worlds Away. - See the E Extensions to Java. Quote: "E is an extension to Java that adds message-based optimistic computation and capability-based security features. [....] E defines a new family of objects, called E-objects, in contrast to ordinary Java objects. In addition to obeying all the rules of regular Java objects (which they ultimately are), E-objects can communicate by message passing. References to E-objects can be passed across the network."

6.7 Virtual Campus (groupware oriented)

6.7.1 Standards

• IEEE has a Learning Technology Standards Committee (P1484) with a lot of working groups. Most of their output are Word Documents (!) defing datatypes. Some is very complex stuff. Also available: PPT slides and minutes, no XML but there ought to be :). Note that there is also an ISO group (what do they do ??).
• LTSA Home Page the IEEE P1484.1 Architecture and Reference Model Working Group. Interesting LTSA Draft spec (1999)

6.7.2 Indexes, Evaluation, etc.

• Online educational devlivery applications: a web tool for comparative analyses. Best pointer for starters
• Survey of Course and Test Delivery / Management Systems for Distance Learning by Thelma Looms
• Integrated Learning Packages Comparative analyses and critical reviews of various integrated learning packages. Points to other sites (good)
• Tools for Developing Interactive Academic Web Courses
• Building a Web-based Education System
• Choosing a Virtual Communal Space for Your Course
• Information and Communication Technology For Methods of Teaching and Learning in Higher Education (good index by Brenda Stewart/ University of Minnesota)
• A Committee on Conferencing (Univ. of Pittsburg) has written a report
• PC Week Labs evaluates Internet-based training systems
• Conferencing on the World Wide Web (Big Index, not education oriented)
• The Campus Computing Project
• (Learning) Objects of Desire: Promise and Practicality By Lori Mortimer (2002 article)

6.7.3 Commercial Systems

• TopClass (used to be WEST). PC/Mac/Solaris. A lite version demo (up to 4 people/120 days) is free.
• FirstClass and First Class collaborative classroom PC/Mac (A 60 days evaluation package is available)
• Hyperwave Elearning Suite free for academics (who offer free courses)
• WebCT. Runs on most platforms. Free evaluation copies (course creation only)
• Campus Pipeline Inc.'s " Web platform links existing campus systems to new tools and Web applications allowing schools to leverage current investments in technology and bring all current and future Web applications together in one place" (not tested)
• LearningSpace A Lotus product
• COSE "Creation of Study Environments"
• Virtual-U Virtual-U is an online software system which allows universities and organiaztions to offer their courses online. Developed at Simon Fraser University. Solaris. Free 5-month trial.
• NetCoach Common Lisp Hypermedia Server based based on ELM-ART and and related projects. A similar system is Interbook.
• CourseInfojoined blackboard (below)
• Blackboard Software products for hosting "virtual" campuses, university intranets and on-line corporate training environments.
• Web Course in A Box PC/Mac. Free for educational use.
• XLX Developper tools has more of these.

6.7.4 Non-commercial systems

• not many, see our PORTALS page

6.7.5 Computer mangaged instruction systems

• Docent
• Manager's Edge

6.7.6 Components (not just educational)

• NiceNet's Internet Classroom Assistant
• EOE A global community for web-based learning tools in Java.

6.8 Other stuff:

• The Pueblo MUD Client - Quote: "The Pueblo internet client is a multimedia game system which works with existing MUDs and media formats. We are distributing the beta version free. Pueblo can display 2D (GIF, JPEG, BMP) and 3D graphics (VRML), music (MIDI), audio (WAV), hypertext (HTML), and plain text.

7 Various Software

7.1 Vendors with several products

• Fujitsu TeamWare (Pl@za,

7.2 VR

• Maverik a free software system supporting VR applications (most platforms + OpenGL)
• VR Juggler object-oriented framework for the development of virtual reality applications.

7.3 Free Groupware Systems

• BSCW (Basic Support for Cooperative Work) enables collaboration over the Web. BSCW is a 'shared workspace' system which supports document upload, event notification, group management and much more.
• http://www.slashcode.com/to build your own Slashdot-like site :)
• Eridu Opensource Web-Based Groupware. Outlook like they claim
• PHProjekt PHProjekt is a modular application for the coordination of group activities and to share informations and document via intranet and internet. Needs php4 and MySQL
• CVS can be used to build content management systems
• Zope
• phpGroupware.org Promising project, beta status (3/2001)
• Mozilla is a platform with groupware potential. Check modzdev once in a while

7.4 Chats

• phpOpenChat Simple Web Chat.

7.5 Peer 2 Peer

• O'Reilly's P2P Portal
• Groove Currently (1/2001) probably the most hip/popular P2P application. Free preview editions. See also the Groove Networks and How Ray Ozzie Got His Groove Back
• Clay Shirky has a series of good articles on peer to peer.

7.6 Commercial Groupware Systems

• Internet Office A Commercial groupware suite (33 features)
• QuickTeam an other groupeware suite
• CollabNet provides several solutions for the collaborative software economiy
• ... many others :)

7.7 Calendars

• IETF Calendar Index Site
• phpMyCalendar (developement halted in 2001 ?)
• WebEvent commercial, but quite popular

7.8 Forums

• MtNews. Forum system with some information portal features
• Discus A popular free discussion (news) system
• At Tecfa we use either NNTP, HyperNews, and a PHP/MySQL Forum called Phorum
• WWW Threads ($100 education use, $200 commercial), free version with less features available
• LoudMouth Discussion Forum