GRAND researchers Drs. Eleni Stroulia (University of Alberta), Roy Eagleson (University of Western Ontario) and Bill Kapralos (University of Ontario Institute of Technology) participated in this year's CASCON conference, held November 1-4 in Markham, Ontario.
Dr. Stroulia co-organized a workshop entitled “Virtual Worlds for Modeling Complex Processes Between People and Systems”. A virtual world (VW) represents a space where thousands of people can interact simultaneously within the same simulated 3D space. From enhancing the videoconference experience, to improving educational simulations, to creating a platform where people come together collaboratively or socially, the limitless potential and use of virtual worlds was explored in this session.
Attended by Dr. Eagleson and Dr. Kapralos, the workshop, relevant to the HLTHSIM (Virtual Reality Simulation and Collaborative Games for Healthcare Training) project on which the GRAND researchers are currently working, provided an excellent opportunity to share research and explore additional collaborative opportunities with each other as well as the other delegates. Read Dr. Stroulia's blog.
Dr. Eagleson, a researcher on NGAIA (Next Generation Information Appliances), also a GRAND project, gave a talk on “New Methods for Clinical Decision Support in Hospitals". Facilitated by Mark Chignell, the session explored the use of mobile devices and in-hospital communication systems to get the right information to the right people at the right time.
HLTHSIM and NGAIA are two of 32 collaborative research projects within the GRAND research network. HLTHSIM is looking at how virtual world scenarios can train health professionals, who work remotely, to collaborate more effectively on teams. It will also study how simulations can enhance surgical and clinical skills and training. NGAIA examines the advantages of a task-based rather than document-based approach to the retrieval of information for workplace decision-making.
A complete list of all 32 GRAND projects are listed here.
In it's 20th year, CASCON is an annual conference drawing more than 1,200 researchers and practitioners from academia, industry and government. This "Meeing of the Minds" provides an exciting forum for exchanging ideas and experiences in the ever-expanding and critical fields of software engineering and computing. CASCON is sponsored by the Centre for Advanced Studies (CAS) Research, IBM Canada Software Laboratory in partnership with National Research Council Canada.