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While several studies in the last decade explore the potential benefits of virtual worlds in education settings, less attention has been given to the research of solutions to help overcome implementation barriers. One of the existing areas of concern is related to the difficulties on the exploitation of data obtained from educational virtual worlds. This paper proposes an OWL-based ontology to address a solution to the problem of inconsistency of databases that record information about student interactions with learning objects within these environments. The steps that have been followed for the development of the ontology are described, guided by Stanford’s 101 model. To discuss the feasibility and exemplify the ontology, an instance of an existing virtual world interaction is presented. The conclusion is that the proposed ontology can be helpful to researchers and development groups as it delivers a reusable model to gather data in a uniform way.

This work presents an application of a method for assessing the operational risks associated to the development of new products, aiming to address the uncertainties of technical and managerial risks. The method has been developed using the Design Research approach, which enabled the development of a set of artifacts linked through six steps, where the main artifact is a Bayesian Network model. The performance evaluation of the application was carried out by a tentative application in a new product being developed at a design center of a global company, where the main focus was to assess the risks associated with reliability failures. This research, besides contributing with a proposal of an application to support the new product risk management, indicates potential enhancements to the decision making process, and to the knowledge management in project environments. Assessment of Operational Risks Associated to New Product Development-An Application using a Bayesian Networks Method.

Virtual Worlds emerge as three-dimensional environments that have the potential to stimulate advances in the educational field by promoting interactivity, freedom and autonomy for students. However, its effective adoption in educational institutions is still considered very limited, and few studies have so far sought to identify more specific causes for such limitation. This research aims to contribute to the theme through a preliminary study about the impact of individual characteristics of learning styles and digital experience on users’ initial perception about 3D Virtual Worlds. An experiment was conducted with a sample consisting of potential influencers in the decision making process for adoption of this type of approach, being composed by professionals from educational area that experimented a 3D virtual laboratory for the first time. As a result, some insights about the mentioned characteristics’ influence on user first impression are identified and some potential adjustments necessary to better fit different profiles are suggested, envisioning to disseminate theuse of Virtual Worlds in Education.