A collaborative virtual environment for problem solving in civil engineering
by Patricia C. Souza, Marta C. Rosatelli, Raul S. Wazlawick
International Journal of Continuing Engineering Education and Life-Long Learning (IJCEELL), Vol. 12, No. 5/6, 2002

Abstract: This paper presents a collaborative virtual environment for problem solving in civil engineering, which represents a building with problems related to its structural design (e.g. fissures). In this environment, the students play the role of civil engineers. They need to detect the structural problems and evaluate their causes in order to be able to solve them. To accomplish this, the students can act upon the structural elements included in the environment (e.g. pillars) or make use of the working tools that are available (e.g. tape measure). This distributed environment allows for the exploration of the possibility of student collaboration in virtual reality. Furthermore, its design intends to provide a way to implement problem solving in collaborative environments in which genuine interdependence occurs i.e. team members must have different knowledge or abilities in order to create genuine collaboration.

Online publication date: Mon, 21-Jul-2003

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