Architectures and protocols for educational virtual environments

Shared or networked virtual environments are one of the most promising uses of the virtual reality technology. While a lot of research has been done in the area of multi-user virtual environments corresponding to the sharing of events very few research has been done on specific services and functionality. However both the requirements and the kind of the offered services affect significantly the design of a system. In this paper we present the main issues in the design of a platform to support the distant education process using networked virtual environments. We also introduce the term Educational Virtual Environments and their basic requirements. According to these requirements of the educational virtual environments we propose both a suitable architecture and a protocol for the interaction between the components of this architecture.