Research

My primary research interests include Human-Computer Interaction (HCI), Gender and Representation in Virtual Environments, Augmented Reality, Tangible Audio Interfaces, Digital Culture, and Social Inclusion. I presently have several papers in submission and am awaiting feedback. Please check back for more updates.

Master's Thesis

• McArthur, V., (2010) Professional Second Lives: An Analysis of Virtual World Professionals and Avatar Appearance Codes, York University, August 2010. [PDF]

Publications in Journals

• McArthur, V., Teather, R.J., Stuerzlinger, W. (2010) Comparing 3D Content Creation Interfaces in Two Virtual Worlds: World of Warcraft and Second Life, Journal of Virtual Worlds and Gaming, 2(3), to appear Winter 2010.
• Pace, T., Houssian, A., and McArthur, V., (2009) Are Socially Exclusive Values Embedded in the Avatar Creation Interfaces of MMORPGs? Journal of Information, Communication and Ethics in Society, 7(2/3), 192 - 210. *winner of the outstanding paper award in 2010

Publications in Refereed Conferences

• Bergstrom, K., McArthur, V., Jenson, J., and Peyton, T., All in a Day’s Work: A study of World of Warcraft NPCs comparing gender to professions, to appear in SIGGRAPH 2011.
• McArthur, V., Virtual World Professionals and Avatar Appearance Codes, ACM Futureplay 2010, pp. 231-234, New York: ACM.
• McArthur, V., and Baljko, M., Outsiders, Interlopers, and Employee-Identified Avatars, Presence 2009: The 12th Annual International Workshop on Presence.
• McArthur, V., Communication Technologies and Cultural Identity: A Critical Discussion of ICTs for Development, IEEE Toronto International Conference - Symposium on Social Implications of Technology – TIC STH 2009, pp. 910 – 914, New York: IEEE.
• McArthur, V., Castellucci, S. J., and MacKenzie, I. S., An Empirical Comparison of “Wiimote” Gun Attachments for Pointing Tasks, Proceedings of the ACM Symposium on Engineering Interactive Computing Systems – EICS 2009, pp. 203-208. New York: ACM. [PDF]

Other Refereed Publications (Extended Abstracts, etc.)

• McArthur, V., Pace, T. and Houssian, A., (2008) Construction of Cybertypes in Lineage II: An Analysis of Game Interfaces and Support Documentation, ACM Futureplay 2008, pp. 264-265. [PDF]
• McArthur, V.,(2008) World of Warcraft as a Ludic Cyborg, ACM Futureplay 2008, pp. 266-267. [PDF]
• McArthur, V., (2008) Real Ethics in a Virtual World, Extended Abstracts of the ACM Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems – CHI 2008, pp. 3315-3320. New York: ACM [PDF]

Presentations

• McArthur, V., and Bergstrom, K., (2011) Gaymers LFG? World of Warcraft as heteronormative play, Presentation at Interacting with Immersive Worlds, Brock University, June 2011 (peer-reviewed presentation).
• McArthur, V., (2011) Damsel in this dress: An evaluation of gender and representation in the work of female game design students, Graduate Student Symposium on Qualitative Research, York University, May 2011. (presentation)
• McArthur, V., (2009) Ludic Cyborg: Facilitating Ludus in World of Warcraft, Presentation at Interacting with Immersive Worlds, Brock University, June 2009. (peer-reviewed presentation)
• McArthur, V., (2009) Motivation and Design Considerations for Tangible Audio Compositions, New Stories for New Screens , York University, May 2009. (invited presentation)