Academic Track Guidelines

Academic tracks include research and best practices application within educational settings that use virtual worlds, both traditional and corporate, who wish to share findings and implications for innovative practice. These tracks are peer reviewed and require a developed short paper for publication.

The following is a general organization and format requirements for submissions in academic tracks, which are now required to submit a paper for review.

Paper Sections

Papers submitted for the academic tracks may be research or best practices. Therefore, the recommended organization below allows for the flexibility to submit either. Here are the sections required:

  1. Title and Abstract (due to blind review, no author identifiers on papers–identify authors only in presenter fields on the submission form)
  2. Introduction
  3. Background, Theory, or Literature Review
  4. Description of Project or Research Study
  5. Lessons Learned or Study Results
  6. Conclusions and/or Implications
  7. References or Bibliography

Paper Format

Submitted papers should meet the following formatting requirements:

  1. Length: 5-10 pages, single spaced
  2. Margins: 1 inch all around
  3. Font size: 10
  4. Paragraphing: one single space line between paragraphs, no indentations
  5. Style: any (APA, Chicago, etc.) as long as it is consistently applied

Reviewer Considerations

Each submitted paper will go through a blind review process with three reviewers assigned to each paper. The reviewers will be using the following criteria to determine acceptance into the conference:

  1. The purpose of the paper is consistently supported throughout all sections.
  2. The paper’s topic is clearly connected to one of the conference tracks.
  3. The paper describes a project or research completed or conducted in a virtual environment or a three dimensional gaming platform.
  4. The paper presents logical and clearly defined lessons learned or study results.
  5. The paper’s conclusions or implications follow the lessons learned or study results to their logical and summative end.
  6. The paper is consistently formatted as per guidelines provided, and adheres to correct grammatical conventions and usage.

SUBMIT AN ACADEMIC TRACK PROPOSAL