Dr. Byron C Havard

Wearable learning environments include a variety of body-borne sensory, communication, and computational components that may be worn under, over, or within clothing. Steve Mann refers to these environments as smart clothing. Wearable learning environments have the potential to change the dynamics of how individuals acquire, store, and retrieve information. This rapidly evolving technology offers new frontiers for both researchers and users.

This entry begins with an overview of the evolution of wearable learning environments. Next, the use of wearable learning environments for performance support in the workplace and for cognitive and psychomotor learning in education is discussed. Finally, a brief glimpse into the future implications of these learning environments is presented.

Introduction: As the world becomes increasingly focused on virtual communications and as global researchers increase their use of virtual environments for conducting research, collecting data, analyzing data, and disseminating, publishing research findings, the need for acute attention to the integrity of their research efforts and the protection of human subjects is imminent. This article focuses on the issue of integrity and ethics associated with the use of virtual environments in conducting social science research, that is, research involving human subjects. The United States Office of Research Integrity (ORI) has clearly delineated Responsible Conduct of Research (RCR) principles for researchers (Steneck, 2007). Likewise, countries around the world have adopted clearly defined responsible research practices and identified international research integrity principles (NSF, 2012) and scholarly integrity concerns such as plagiarism, data fabrication, and falsification of records (Office of Science and Technology Policy, 2005). The increasing use of the Internet and virtual environments within international research partnership projects and the increasing globalization of science and social science research efforts have prompted the need for examining issues, risks, and challenges associated with Virtual Research Integrity (VRI) within a global context. The focus of this article includes three objectives relative to the topic of Virtual Research Integrity: (1) Define and examine the concept of virtual research integrity relative to U. S. and global considerations of research principles within responsible conduct, research misconduct and ethics issues, data integrity issues, literature reviews, and dissemination and publication of research findings; (2) Describe the implications of virtual research integrity for researchers, including appropriate behaviors, actions, and considerations for conducting virtual research projects; and (3) Provide insight into future perspectives for future virtual researchers regarding the development and integration of future technologies, future research topics and practices, future global research efforts, and future researchers within a virtual world.