Abstract
We describe the Meta-Institute for Computational Astrophysics (MICA), the first professional scientific organization based exclusively in virtual worlds (VWs). The goals of MICA are to explore the utility of the emerging VR and VWs technologies for scientific and scholarly work in general, and to facilitate and accelerate their adoption by the scientific research community. MICA itself is an experiment in academic and scientific practices enabled by the immersive VR technologies. We describe the current and planned activities and research directions of MICA, and offer some thoughts as to what the future developments in this arena may be.
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© 2010 ICST Institute for Computer Science, Social Informatics and Telecommunications Engineering
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Djorgovski, S.G. et al. (2010). Exploring the Use of Virtual Worlds as a Scientific Research Platform: The Meta-Institute for Computational Astrophysics (MICA). In: Lehmann-Grube, F., Sablatnig, J. (eds) Facets of Virtual Environments. FaVE 2009. Lecture Notes of the Institute for Computer Sciences, Social Informatics and Telecommunications Engineering, vol 33. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-11743-5_3
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-11743-5_3
Publisher Name: Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg
Print ISBN: 978-3-642-11742-8
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