**1. Introduction**

94 Virtual Reality and Environments

Youngblut, C. (1998). *Educational uses of virtual reality technology* No. Technical Report No.

The impacts of virtual world technologies are beginning to resonate on a global scale. The recent developments and use of virtual world technologies in the form of virtual workspaces has demonstrated distinct characteristics and outcomes that can be used to plan and gauge levels of development and incorporation within a given business process framework. In supporting business processes, virtual workspaces can provide collaborative and immersive environments to better enable core business processes over a specified period of time. Virtual workspaces are particularly valuable today because they can provide workers with an online collaboration suite with varying levels of functionality that allow groups of workers to communicate in a highly interactive, self-contained collaborative workspace.

Recent uses of virtual workspaces have begun to identify some distinct characteristics and outcomes related to their integration in live working environments. Collectively, these characteristics and outcomes can be articulated through the identification of various functional stages that businesses realize to establish and maintain a distinct level of virtual world collaborative capability. However, to date there is no effective strategic model for evaluating and planning implementation of virtual workspaces in a business setting. To frame a discussion on implementation and planning processes for virtual workspaces the authors are proposing a new systematic model in this paper. This proposed model provides a staged breakdown outlining the characteristics and functionalities businesses can currently expect to encounter when implementing virtual workspaces. This proposed model is referred to herein as the ROTATOR Model.

In a broad sense, the concept of rotation involves having a clear central point that stays fixed, in this case that fixed point is the process of virtual workplace collaborations and like any palindrome it can be viewed from either end having movement from real to virtual with varying degrees of reality and virtualization processes and capabilities enmeshed in between.

This chapter presents the ROTATOR Model as a proposed framework for managing the development and implementation of virtual workspaces. The purpose of the ROTATOR model is to: (1) provide a pragmatic approach for describing various levels of virtual world application used for implementing virtual workspaces; (2) assist in identifying what level of

ROTATOR Model:

A Framework for Building Collaborative Virtual Workspaces 97

business setting. Often people mix up virtual reality and augmented reality so let's begin first with clear definitions of those concepts as used in this chapter and for purposes the

One expert defines virtual reality as a "three-dimensional, computer generated simulation in which one can navigate around, interact with and be immersed in another environment" (Briggs, 1996). While this definition has been expanded over time to include spaces that are less real in terms of mimicking the real world for business purposes, these business spaces almost always mirror closely in some way a real world setting. Virtual reality, (Milgram & Kishino, 1994) takes a computer-generated world and begins to immerse the user through varying levels of "real" content (Hampshire, Seichter, Grasset, & Billinghurst, 2006) (Haller,

As for augmented reality, various technologies have and continue to be developed that seek to enhance a user's current perception of real world reality in varying degrees. Where virtual reality attempts to replace the entire real world perception with a simulated one the concept of augmented reality takes the user's unmodified or actual reality and begins to infuse computer-generated elements into that real world reality (Alem & Huang, 2011). The computer-generated elements in this environment then in effect 'augment' what the user senses in their real world environment (Kroeker, 2010). So, for example someone working in a design environment and as a support the person might see computer-generated materials that are overlaid by computer projection into the client's landscape environment so the client can see what it would look like if there were palm trees in the west corner of the garden. The most common example of simple augmentation in fact is in TV sports casting where the viewer of an American football game might see lines and graphics depicting the

As computer graphics and generations become more sophisticated these augmentations are becoming more and more sophisticated as well and are drifting closer to merging with the virtual reality environment in a natural way. For example, as applications become mobile there are new and more challenging options for the use of augmented reality. Some recent examples of mobile applications that augment one's reality include Layar, a 'reality browser' that retrieves point-of-interest data on the basis of GPS, compass, and camera view (Alem & Huang, 2011). GraffittiGeo is another augmented reality application that lets users read and write virtual Twitter-style comments on the walls of restaurants, movies and cafes (Kroeker, 2010). There are additional advanced uses of augmented reality being employed in design and urban renewal work as well; allowing designers to literally sit together at a table and manipulate and overlay computer generated materials and design drawings on say a real

Additionally, the concepts of augmentation coincide with real-time presentation that is in semantic context with the real world. So if we had a sliding scale viewpoint of these concepts, we would see the real world reality on one end of the continuum—say to the left with full immersive virtual reality worlds (we have not yet reached the capability to use practically fully immersive virtual reality technologies) on the far other end of the scale say to the far right. Augmented reality would of course fall on that scale somewhere in between but close to real world reality and relatively far away from the virtual reality side of the scale at the other end. However, as augmentation develops it trends closer and closer to the VR side of the equation. One challenge for planning implementation of VR worlds

ROTATOR model of virtual reality and augmented reality implementation.

Billinghurst, & Thomas, 2007) (Ritsos, Ritsos, & Gougoulis, 2011).

ball placement or movement overlaid on the live TV feed from the game.

world table in front of them using programs like ARUDesigner (Wang, 2009).

virtual world implementation is needed to achieve desired business outcomes; and (3) create a practical framework that represents the varying levels of both functionality and capability for establishing and maintaining virtual workspaces. In this chapter the authors propose the ROTATOR model to establish a series of incremental stages that form the foundation for a virtual workspace framework.

As a foundation for this analysis, the concepts, history and use of the terms virtual collaboration and virtual workspaces are also discussed in this article to clarify their import and use in industry. These discussions include a description of the recent evolution of virtual collaborative environments with a focus on the most important online global workforce drivers. The impact of other key technologies with respect to the ROTATOR Model within the virtual workspace arena including cloud computing, semantic web, and web 3-D are also discussed.
