VHRD

Social media skills are used in nearly every organization so students should be prepared in a strategic way to compete in this environment where their careers are enhanced or eliminated by their social media use (Preston, 2012).  One social media platform in the news for preparing students for work is Pinterest (Kimm, 2012; Delello, 2012). Pinterest. McWhorter (2010) described how Virtual HRD has emerged over time beginning with the use of information technology (IT) and progressing to sophisticated technologies that create  spaces for meeting through and within the technology. Such innovation allows for “technology-mediated work, learning and development that are strategic and innovative” (p. 624) necessitating the field of HRD to develop an understanding of how these technologies are expanding the workplace.  McWhorter (2011) defined Virtual HRD as: “the process of utilizing technologically integrative environments for increasing learning capacity and optimizing individual, group, community, work process, and organizational system performance” (p. 3) which is advantageous for considering Pinterest as a facilitator to prepare higher education students for the workplace.

Integrated technologies are changing the workplace in a real way. This session will discuss sophisticated technologies and review Web-based tools conducive for learning and training on the Web. Due to the uncertainty and volatility in the current business environment, scenario planning has seen an increase in utilization. This session highlights two virtual scenario planning projects illustrating technology-enabled planning in a small business and in a non-profit organization context whereby both cases utilized Web 2.0 tools for synchronous strategic learning. This methodology may prove useful for public and private sector organizations when standard face-to-face scenario planning is cost and time prohibitive.

Technology is permeating our personal and professional lives and is having an enormous impact on the field of human resource development (HRD). Given the growing interest
that scholars have had for integrating technology into HRD practice and research, Virtual HRD (VHRD) has emerged as a new area of inquiry in the field of HRD. This article begins by defining and exploring the emergence of the construct of VHRD. It reviews the evolution of technology from the inception of the Academy of Human Resource
Development and integrates selected literature that supports the emergence of VHRD in the field of HRD to include sophisticated, immersive environments appropriate for HRD
practice. This article then introduces the contents of this special issue and articulates the four-part format that will be used to do so. Lastly, a summary is provided that serves as a
call to action for HRD scholars and practitioners to more thoughtfully consider the impact of VHRD on the future of the HRD field, to disseminate the accumulated research
that has been done thus far, as well as to promote awareness of VHRD as a compelling HRD construct before other fields lay claim to this territory and obfuscate the contributions that have already been made toward understanding, defining, and
researching this emergent construct.

Over the past decade, electronic portfolios (ePortfolios) have become commonplace in higher education institutions (Woodley & Sims, 2011). They offer a virtual space for learners to describe accomplishments and to reflect on learning experiences. Recently, these digital collections are being extended to an array of new purposes and environments. Virtual human resource development (VHRD) is an emerging construct (McWhorter, 2010) with the “ability to foster creativity and maximize knowledge flow” (Bennett, 2010, p. 728). The purpose of this paper is to review literature on ePortfolios through the conceptual lens of VHRD

Greening of computing processes is an environmental strategy gaining momentum in the 21st century as evidenced by increased virtual communications. Because of the rising cost of fuel to travel to meetings and conferences, corporations are adopting sophisticated technologies that provide a “personal” experience for geographically disbursed colleagues to interact in realtime. This article highlights several companies and academic professional organizations that utilize video conferencing, virtual classrooms, and virtual worlds to create digital spaces for collaboration. The article compares the impact of face-to-face collaboration that includes business travel expenses to the impact of the same activity in a virtual space. The human side of technology is also examined through virtual human resource development that increases employees’ learning capacity and performance improvement. As advances in technology continue, it is expected that meetings will become more lifelike with the improvement of holographics. Corporations must continue to integrate green strategies to satisfy both environmental concerns and financial viability.

Virtual learning and training are popular topics in organizations (McWhorter, 2010; Short, 2010). Employees in almost every field are expected to possess the virtual skills to attend or lead a virtual professional meeting or training and collaborate with colleagues online. This article explores a virtual learning environment (VLE) for Nanotechnology Safety Training. Patterned after a real laboratory on a college campus, this laboratory may become a space for collaboration and training.

It is crucial that employees and students become astute adult learners. Due to rapidly changing technology in both the workplace and instructional venues, organizations are challenged to find new and useful tools for adapting to these advances in both content and processes of work. Therefore, understanding how virtual worlds function as sites of adult learning (including enablers and barriers to