[ecrea] CFP - Validating cyber-interventions

Call for Papers for a Theme Issue of Virtual Reality
Validating cyber-interventions

Guest Editors
Anna Spagnolli, University of Padova, Italy
Cheryl Campanella Bracken, Cleveland State University, USA

We define cyberinterventions as the attempt at modifying people’s 
actions, meanings and habits with a protocol that is primarily supported 
by a digital environment, with the final goal of increasing wellness of 
a consentient user and to serve values shared by the society at 
large. Typical domains of ‘cyber-interventions’ are, for instance, 
applications designed to increase consumers’ awareness of the 
environmental consequences of each single consumption 
act; cognitive-behavioral therapeutic interventions carried out with 
virtual environments; virtual simulations aimed at training users in the 
proper reaction to emergency situations; serious games showing the 
long-term effect of risky behaviors for educational purposes. The 
environments used for all these interventions range from immersive 
virtual worlds, to complex driving simulators, to mobile applications.

As is the case with any intervention tool and protocol, the mediated 
environment for
cyberintervention must be validated to prove that it is able to generate 
the proper user experience instrumental to the goal of the intervention 
and that the protocol is effective.


We invite scholars to contribute to a theme issue on validation in 
cyberinterventions of any kind and in any domain. Examples of topics for 
submissions to this theme issue are:

? Specific methods and techniques to validate cyberintervention and/or 
cyberintervention
    environments
? Issues raised while validating cyberintervention and related solutions
? Differences and similarities between cyberinterventions and regular, 
face to face
    interventions in terms of validation
? Review/studies on relevant user experience dimensions for specific 
application fields
? Quality standards, requirements and guidelines to frame cyberintervention
? Relation between user experience validation and cyberintervention 
effectiveness
? Ethical validation of cyberinterventions

The theme issue will appear in the Springer journal Virtual Reality
(www.springeronline.com/journal/10055 
<http://www.springeronline.com/journal/10055>). Submissions will be peer 
reviewed in accordance with the journal’s normal process. Submission of 
a manuscript implies: that the work described has not been published 
before; that it is not under consideration for publication anywhere 
else; that its publication has been approved by all co-authors, if any, 
as well as by the responsible authorities – tacitly or explicitly – at 
the institute where the work has been carried out. The publisher will 
not be held legally responsible should there be any claims for 
compensation.

Papers should be submitted at: http://www.editorialmanager.com/vire/ 
under the category of
Cyberinterventions.

To discuss a possible contribution, please contact the theme issue 
editors at
(anna.spagnolli /at/ unipd.it) <mailto:(anna.spagnolli /at/ unipd.it)> and 
(c.bracken /at/ csuohio.edu) <mailto:(c.bracken /at/ csuohio.edu)>.

Important Dates:
Submission of paper: 22nd of March 2013
Notification of acceptance to authors: 14th of June 2013
Revised papers: 27th of September 2013




--
Cheryl Campanella Bracken
Associate Professor
Director of the Journalism & Promotional Communication major
School of Communication
Cleveland State University