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Second Life has provided educators and librarians with a place to experiment with a 3D immersive environment. Avatars represent the user and users can interact real‐time in text chat and/or voice. Users can create environments that persist over time. Second Life has attracted users from around the world, providing wonderful opportunities to collaborate. However, Second Life is not the only virtual world used for educational purposes. The purpose of this paper is to examine some options.

The authors examine other online virtual worlds which educators and librarians can use in addition to Second Life.

It is found that there are many other virtual worlds which educators and librarians can explore.

This paper is useful to anyone looking for alternatives to using the virtual world Second Life.

The concept of the virtual reality library is introduced and defined as a new form of OPAC. Since a desktop virtual reality package is needed to construct a virtual reality library the expected functionality of such software is discussed in general terms. One such desktop virtual reality package, REND386, is then discussed in detail and used to build a working prototype of a virtual reality library.

As digital spaces for team collaboration, virtual worlds bring considerable verisimilitude to technology-mediated social interaction and change the process of traditional team learning. The purpose of this study is to understand how to promote collaborative learning in virtual worlds by leveraging the power of we-intention to participate in virtual worlds. The authors further use the valence–instrumentality–self-efficacy–trust model (VIST) model as a means of understanding the formation of we-intention to participate in virtual worlds, during which behavioral desire serves a bridging role.

The authors tested the research model using the data gathered from 298 users of a prominent form of virtual world, i.e. massively multiplayer online role-playing games. The authors used the structural equation modeling approach and the partial least squares technique for data analysis.

Results show that the four factors of the VIST model (i.e. valence on team goals, instrumentality of contribution, self-efficacy in team tasks and trust in team members) all positively influence we-intention to participate in virtual worlds through behavioral desire for team actions. We-intention to participate in virtual worlds further exerts a stronger positive effect on collaborative learning in virtual worlds, compared with I-intention to participate in virtual worlds.

This work advances the information systems literature by introducing a relevant and important concept, i.e. we-intention, to explain collaborative learning in virtual worlds. This study especially compared the effect of we-intention and I-intention on collaborative learning in virtual worlds. The results of this work also provide practitioners with insights into the role of we-intention in promoting collective actions in virtual worlds.

The purpose of this paper is to present a new framework to examine the adoption of virtual worlds. Virtual worlds, defined as internet‐based simulated environments that emulate the real world and are intended for users to inhabit and interact within them through avatars, are growing fast and are attracting more and more users.

In this paper, a new framework is proposed on the basis of previous literature. An empirical study is performed to test the framework, using survey research. The data are collected through a questionnaire, which is developed on the basis of previous empirical studies.

Based on the data, it is found that perceived usefulness and social factors are two main factors influencing people's adoption of virtual worlds. The technology acceptance model (TAM) is still acceptable, while the diffusion of information (DOI) theory does not fit. Perceived enjoyment does not have a significant impact on the adoption of virtual worlds, but is highly correlated with perceived usefulness. Both factors capture the productivity and entertainment aspects of virtual worlds.

This study is a novel attempt to examine the adoption of virtual worlds. A new research framework is proposed and empirical data are collected to test its validity. The findings have theoretical and practical implications.

The purpose of this paper is to highlight emerging threats in cyberspace, with particular reference to financial crime in the virtual world, which have real life implications, as well as to recommend ways in which the threat may be mitigated.

The methodology adopted consisted of an extensive literature review on topics to include cyber crime, virtual worlds, and financial crime.

Virtual worlds such as Second Life play a key role in supporting real world activities such as education, training and business and as such, should not be dismissed purely as a “gaming” environment. In addition, emerging technologies coupled with the lack of legislation and regulation within virtual worlds has created an environment where a variety of crimes can be committed without fear of detection or prosecution. A further concern is its use by criminals as a vehicle to mask real life crimes such as fraud, identify theft and money laundering. The question is to what extent the blurring of the virtual and real life environments can be clarified in order to minimise the risk of abuse of virtual environments by criminal elements, which have direct consequences in the real world.

This paper serves as a useful guide to alert and educate security professionals, the judiciary, law enforcement and policy makers of the significance and the extent of the use of “virtual” environments in cyberspace for criminal means, such as fraud and money laundering. Findings are supported by a conclusion which includes recommendations for tackling these issues.

The current paper aims to embrace an interdisciplinary approach to illustrate some of the ways in which virtual worlds expanded upon the individual, social and professional options of employees in organizational settings.

Through an extensive literature review, the paper compiles the latest and most fundamental research capturing relevant concepts from the fields of psychology, pedagogy, management and human-computer interaction.

The current conceptual model incorporates individual- and group-level outcomes associated with virtual world participation, along three primary dimensions, namely self-reference, role experimentation and social capital, accounting for potential variation based on the extent of organizational engagement.

The three proposed dimensions elaborated in the current model, including reflexivity/transference, role playing/role identification, and group collaboration/virtual teams, enable organizations to understand the likely outcomes of their virtual presence from the perspective of their structural and social attributes.

The proposed conceptual model offers a theoretical base for academics and practitioners to expand upon and develop concrete practical examples and cases.

It is predicted that virtual business and related research possibilities will expand significantly. In this context, the aim of this paper is to use insights from a virtual research project to present a theoretically‐informed toolbox of practical suggestions to guide the conduct of virtual world business research.

Archival evidence is presented, and data from a study conducted in Second Life^® in 2007 is interpreted through Llewellyn's framework (physical, structural, agential, cultural and mental dimensions).

With the burgeoning of virtual business applications, appropriate systems that encompass the dynamics of both the real and the virtual will need to be developed by and for accountants, auditors and business professionals. Researchers of virtual business activities will need to adapt to the physical, structural, agential, cultural and mental dimensions unique to virtual worlds.

While based on reflections from a single study in Second Life, this paper identifies possibilities for future virtual research on issues of accountability and accounting relating to virtual worlds.

The practical toolbox will assist virtual researchers to deal with the possibilities and practicalities of conducting research in virtual worlds.

Despite the proliferation of virtual worlds, predictions of virtual business applications, and consequent accountability and accounting implications, there is a paucity of academic literature on conducting business research in virtual settings. This prescient paper develops a conceptual framework to guide the conduct of research in virtual worlds, and identifies the unique opportunities and challenges they present.

The purpose of this paper is to analyze an integrated marketing model that includes operations in the real and virtual worlds.

The authors selected a marketing campaign conducted by a real world enterprise (Tourism Dublin) and examined the virtual world business (Virtual Dublin) model through that lens.

At the “slope of enlightenment” stage of the Gartner technology hype cycle, it is found that Second Life offers value for its business clients who understand the use of an immersive virtual experience as part of a strategic marketing program.

The paper shows that strategic use of a simulation that provides an immersive experience, such as the virtual exploration of a tourist destination, as part of an integrated marketing program can deliver tangible results and add value to a marketing campaign.

With a range of products and services that were previously inaccessible before purchase, consumers can “try before they buy” in a virtual environment such as Second Life.

To the authors’ knowledge, this is the first case study to examine the business model of a company operating in Second Life (a virtual world) that sells the value of an immersive customer experience as an important part of an integrated marketing communications program.

The purpose of this paper is to help marketing scholars view virtual worlds as new product–markets and trigger serious investigations on consumer evaluation of brand extensions when a brand is extended from the real world to a virtual world and vice versa.

The paper makes an extensive review of studies on virtual world. Further, it amalgamates understanding from well-established literature on consumer evaluation of brand extensions into the emerging virtual world understanding to conceptualize moderating influence of contexts – the real world context and a virtual world context – on how consumers evaluate brand extensions.

Through logical arguments supported by existing literature, the paper provides 14 well-conceptualized propositions that argue that the real world and virtual world contexts moderate the well-established relationships in brand extension literature. It broadly proposes that the relationships between the consumer evaluations of brand extension and its known determinants are stronger in case of within-the-world extensions and weaker in case of across-the-world extensions.

The paper introduces to the marketing scholars an entirely new area of enquiry as it challenges the known brand extension knowledge when a brand is extended across the worlds.

Marketers considering launching new offerings across the contexts of real or virtual world would have implications on whether to extend the brand or not.

Virtual worlds have largely been construed in marketing literature as fictional worlds. There is not much explored in terms of virtual worlds as new product–markets. The study offers unique value in conceptualizing differences among within-the-world brand extensions and across-the-world brand extensions.

The purpose of this study is to provide a framework to detect and prevent virtual property theft in virtual world environments. The issue of virtual property theft is a serious problem which has ramifications in both the real and virtual world. Virtual world users invest a considerable amount of time, effort and often money to collect virtual property, only to have them stolen by thieves. Many virtual property thefts go undetected and often only discovered after the incident has occurred.

This paper presents the design of an autonomic detection framework to identify virtual property theft at two key stages: account intrusion and virtual property trades. Account intrusion is an unauthorized user attempting to gain access to an account and unauthorized virtual property trades are trading of items between two users which exhibit theft characteristics.

Initial tests of this framework on a synthetic data set show an 80 per cent detection rate. This framework allows virtual world developers to tailor and extend it to suit their specific requirements. It provides an effective way of detecting virtual property theft while being low maintenance, user friendly and cost effective.

To the author’s knowledge, there is no detection framework, system or tool that works on virtual property theft detection in virtual world environments without access to authentic virtual world data or attack data (because of privacy issues and unwillingness of virtual world environments companies to collaborate). The topic of virtual property theft, lack of existing labelled data sets, user anonymity, size of virtual world environments data sets and privacy issues with virtual world companies and a number of other critical factors distinguish this paper from previous studies.