The Seven Steps Model

1. Identification of the characteristics of virtual arts.
2. Providing a working definition for the term virtual arts.
3. Identifying the core elements and features of virtual arts in education by introducing the Seven Steps Model.

The scope of the paper is the identification of basic common elements of the virtual arts in education — the skills to create and provide the virtual e-learning service-goods with regard to audio-visual and functional aspects of the "work of art", the virtual e-learning environment.

Service-goods — a hybrid phenomenon

The author has previously challenged classical economic theory and provided a definition of "Service-Goods". The notion aims at overcoming the traditional differentiation in economics between goods and services.

The new technologies and electronic media, particularly the use of the internet in the provision of both goods and services, have created a new hybrid phenomenon — a virtual service provided like a good, standardised and subject to unlimited reproduction at the same service quality. A previously human service (e.g. ordering a product in a shop, or listening to a lecturer in a classroom) is provided by a computer-programme to the customer or student over the internet. The traditional differentiation between goods and services does no longer comply with virtual realities of modern times.