Coordinator:
Martin O'CONNOR

VIVIANE in the web: http://viviane.c3ed.uvsq.fr/

VIVIANE can be accessed freely on the internet, or installed from a CD-rom.  It can be used freely by groups and individuals, or as a teaching resource within university programmes

The user enters a virtual world, a farming district centred on the village KerVIVIANE, which offers an initiation to the challenges of ‘sustainable development’ in agriculture.  Through visual cues such as buildings, graphs, maps and landscapes (in 2D and 3D, at multiple scales) VIVIANE proposes the progressive discovery of the problems of chemical pollution of water and soil associated with intensive agriculture production.  The landscapes and buildings set the scene for presentations of key stakeholders and of “what if scenarios” at the levels of individual and collective action for farmers, for land use policy, for investment in town water supply and quality assurance.

There are several ways of “getting around” in the VIVIANE virtual world.  These include:

1.  “Wheel Chair Initiation” with a video on automatic pilot;
2. “Guided Visit” with a pre-determined itinerary activated step-by-step by the visitor;
3. “Free Visit” allowing exploration at will, without, however, modifying the world;
4. “Participating Visit” during which contributions can be made to information sets and to dialogues with others.

A variety of ‘Virtual Library’ components present comprehensive documentation of the virtual and real worlds.  This includes (1) comprehensive documentation of the VIRTUALIS project itself, (2) a variety of data, scientific documents and information sources on the real-world case study that is the background to the VIVIANE virtual world, and (3) pedagogic resources in relevant domains.