Executive summary

Second Life (SL) was launched on June 23rd, 2003, making it nearly six years old. Virtual worlds such as SL are therefore not ‘new’. This is apparent when noticing the growing number of UK universities who are into their second or third year of teaching and learning using this technology.

Second Life remains, by far, the ‘virtual world of choice’ for academics in UK universities and colleges. Though OpenSim is mentioned by a minority of vocal academics, the number of non-SL uses and investigations across UK academia is still a small fraction of the SL uses. This does not mean, of course, that Linden Labs should remain confident, or that academics should focus solely/blindly on Second Life. Though well developed (and well used) in academia over the past half-decade, SL still throws up a number of technical, administrative and logistical hurdles for academic practitioners and their institutions.

Second Life in particular is being used in a very wide range of teaching and learning activities. The number of students who take part in these activities varies wildly from just a few to over a hundred in several cases.

A core of universities, most significantly the Open University, Edinburgh and Coventry, have many groups, courses and departments using virtual worlds as a central technology for teaching and learning activities, e.g.

“Virtual worlds have become a core technology for our teaching, learning, research and collaboration.” – Fiona Littleton, Virtual Worlds Development Adviser, University of Edinburgh.

Other universities, such as Lancaster, Teesside, Southampton Solent, Glasgow Caledonian and Strathclyde, are also developing a significant virtual world presence, e.g.

“Lancaster University’s long term plans are grand. We are laying the ground work for more courses to be taught, more students to have access and more research to be conducted.” – Michele Ryan, Department of Management Learning & Leadership, Lancaster University.

Some universities, such as Glasgow, Oxford and Cambridge, report little or no virtual world development, though investigation often shows more activity than is being stated in some of these institutions. Activity in further education remains difficult to quantify, locate or obtain clear information on (this is becoming a long-term problem with the snapshot series).

Trends, especially subject areas of use, are becoming clearer. The academic health and medical science sector in particular has a disproportionate number of virtual world activities. This could be because the subject matter lends itself more easily to such development, and also due to the (relative) ease of funding for such applications. For example, hands-on maternity and birthing simulations have been developed in several UK universities (Coventry, Nottingham, Teesside and Worcester). The full experience is especially difficult to convey in mere textual words, and the author of this report recommends trying one out as a good introduction to the experience of learning in virtual worlds.

Other emerging subject areas where there are several instances of virtual world use include health and safety, art and design, and computer science. However, none of these exhibit anything near the activity of the health and medical sector in its use of Second Life. Fewer academics are complaining about technical issues, such as equipment and Second Life viewer update access in universities. This reduction is most likely due to a combination of some academics giving up in ‘unfertile’ institutions, whilst other institutions are now more supportive of virtual world activities.

Several responses to the questionnaire call for this snapshot came from the University of Southampton. They have some interesting developments in their university (especially in the Chemistry department). Most of the responses came through Fiona Grindley, who describes herself as the:

Education Developer Adviser within the Learning and Teaching Enhancement Unit, and coordinator for Educational Activity in Second Life at the University of Southampton. I link people together. Since the CETIS/Eduserv workshop in mid January, I have been asked to be a guest lecture at Schools that I didn’t even know were doing anything in SL. Last year I organised a Second Life seminar for anyone doing an activity within the University – this was very useful. There will be another one in September this year.

This particular role/job title is interesting; VWW will return to this issue in a later blog posting.

The main University of Southampton island is open for visits in Second Life; it formally opens on Monday. I’ve just visited and spoken to Ian Pahute from Daden, who are developing the island. He chatted:

We have designed the island to promote activity. And there is lots here to support that – subtle stuff! Oh – huge feature – you can feed the ducks! The ducks are a real RL focus on the main campus.

Fiona outlined some more activities at Southampton:

Students on the MSc Teaching and Learning Innovation have now got a Second Life module included. Many more schools and professional services should be active in-world as we are in the process of allocating funds to mini-projects through internal funding.

Steve Wilson in the School of Chemistry introduced a few of their activities:

Still in early stages of development but we are working on a molecule render and a poster presentation.

Through Fiona, Dr. Simon Coles added some more flesh to this:

We are just embarking on the Virtual Chemistry Experience (ViCE) project which is using SL as medium for public engagement and enhancing teaching/learning in the domain of Chemistry. This work will range from galleries of ‘common molecules’, through observation of real laboratory practice to visualisation and interaction with molecules. The University of Southampton island will host this material when developed. As a research project we are also developing aspects of remote laboratory monitoring and large/multi-dimensional dataset visualisation.

Part of the ViCE project is concerned with ‘virtual poster sessions’, which 1st year UG and MChem students will partake in as part of their course. This is intended to add to their training in communication & presentation skills. We are also developing the ‘window on a lab’ concept where activity in a teaching / research lab can be streamed into SL – this will allow school children and undergraduates alike to get a feel for what happens in these environments.

We will be taking part in National Science and Engineering Week (7th March) with an exhibit which allows the ‘peptide fruit machine’ to randomly construct a tri-peptide, which is then submitted to a drug docking process, a result returned and the docked molecule rendered in front of the avatar. The docked molecule will get an ‘energy score’ which will enable a league table to be constructed during the event.

Again through Fiona, Julie Watson, Senior Teaching Fellow in eLearning in Modern Languages and School of Humanities introduced the JISC-funded M3 project:

The M3 (MUVE, Moodle and Microblogging-Twitter) project was used in teaching and learning. We have now transferred M3 project outputs (interactive learning resources for international students) to the University of Southampton Second Life island.

The project is an interesting one for how it integrated Twitter into the virtual environment; as the project description says:

A key aim was to investigate effective ways of embedding synchronous online tools, which are already establishing themselves as effective for social networking, and exploring the use of others that offer a 3-dimensional opportunity for learning. A Twitter plug-in for Moodle was to be one key deliverable of the project.

Julie finished with some past and future activities:

We also ran another project in Second Life called Cardenio. The final report is available online.

In the next academic year we will develop a language café in Second Life for the Modern Languages of the University island. We will adapt more language learning resources (‘learning objects’ and vidcasts) for use in Second Life, and will carry out further exploration of its potential for language learning.

http://slurl.com/secondlife/HeriotWatt%20University/94/139/28/

What are you doing in virtual worlds?

Judy: We are teaching first and second year computer science and information systems students on a 12 week module called Interactive Systems (total 138 students). The students learn how to program in Linden Script, and some simple 3D modelling. The module is 100% course work and their assignment this semester was to create an interactive virtual pet. We are collecting data on this project and will publish it in due course.

The reason we have chosen to use it as a teaching platform for introductory programming is because the students can see an immediate result in the virtual world from the scripts they write. It is easy for them to see the results of their program running in-world. They can also see what their peers are working on, which has a motivational effect. Technically speaking, it is quite an interesting language, so they learn useful programming concepts.

Do you think you’ll do more virtual world “stuff” in your institution in the next academic year? What will this be?

Judy: Yes, we will teach the same module next academic year.

Nicole: There have been discussions with lecturers in other disciplines, such as the Built Environment, who are interested in finding ways to use SL with their distance learners. There is a possibility of looking into cross-subject SL work, i.e. Computer Science students might build 3D objects (such as buildings with specific requirements) for Built Environment students to fault find, survey, etc. This is a tentative thought, but one that might be worth pursuing, if funding can be secured.

Tell me interesting “stuff” – anything you think is relevant.

Judy: We have questionnaire data which indicates that our students don’t like SL very much. It has had negative publicity recently which makes some of them think it is “sad”. However, the students do on the whole like our module. They seemed to enjoy making their pets and are proud of them. There is not a straightforward motivational effect for SL itself, and it would be a mistake to use it on the assumption that the students will like it because it is fashionable.

For blog entries about our SL work, see judyrobertson.typepad.com/ and flexiblelearning.wordpress.com/

Nicole: I gave a presentation at the RSC Virtual Worlds conference at Stirling University in November 08, where I talked about the findings of the 07-08 project in the light of group work and motivation. I also wrote a BJET colloquium article on the 07-08 module, which will appear in the next issue. Furthermore, I am about to give a presentation at the Durham university Bb conference about aspects of learner motivation in virtual worlds, in the light of reflective learning logs.

This summary is to show that the data that both the 07-08 and 08-09 modules yielded is extremely rich and can be analysed in the light of a diverse range of learner centred topics, such as group work, motivation, individual learning, identity and peer learning, etc. The use of SL in these particular Computer Science modules was motivational because of its direct visual abilities (students see peer work, they learn from others, help others, set their own goals and standard through motivation by others) but, as Judy said, not because of the medium/tool of SL itself. To us, SL was the most suitable tool currently available, no more, no less.

What are you doing in virtual worlds?

Over the next 6 months we hope to have a number of small projects starting. These will be mainly in the form of replicas of small real physical environments including such things as hazard identification but also some aspects of social environments, such as virtual theatres where students can look at aspects of organising and staging performances.

Our island is at http://slurl.com/secondlife/Derby%20University

Are you doing any teaching or learning in virtual worlds such as Second Life?

In this year, generally we are using Second Life to introduce students to the environment and scope the difficulties, both those that are technical and those related to usability. I believe Simon Bignell is currently using the environment for teaching.

Do you think you’ll do more virtual world “stuff” in your institution in the next academic year?

That seems pretty definite.

Tell me interesting “stuff” – anything you think is relevant.

We have developed a virtual quarry taking up an entire ‘island’ for quarrying students in conjunction with the Institute of Quarrying. This work is still in progress and is intended to replicate real quarrying situations (some of which are hazardous): dangerous overhangs; explosions; hazardous working vehicles and to have students moving around the quarry identifying those hazards. The island has limited access but access can be arranged on request.

The university island can be found here:

http://slurl.com/secondlife/University%20of%20Nottingham/98/43/25

What are you doing in virtual worlds?

We are exploring using SL to provide a web based campus to support teaching and research. This is a fairly new initiative for the University (since Sept 08), but even in this relatively short timeframe the island has already been used to support teaching and research activities.

Are you doing any teaching or learning in virtual worlds such as Second Life?

Yes. For both staff and students. SL has been used to support teaching of undergraduates, as well as sessions aimed at staff who teach. We have also developed a sand box with freebies and tutorials to further develop SL skills, plus additional online support via our e-learning support website. We plan to use a combination of online support and taught sessions (in SL and RL) to widen exposure to the potential of MUVEs for teaching and learning.

Do you think you’ll do more virtual world “stuff” in your institution in the next academic year? What will this be?

Yes. A recent internal call for e-learning projects has resulted in a number of SL based bids. This is encouraging in terms of interest and active use to support teaching and research. These projects will be explored and developed further over the coming months.

The School of Geography at Nottingham is also part of the DELVE project (JISC funded) and they are exploring using virtual worlds.

Tell me interesting “stuff” – anything you think is relevant.

At an upcoming Nottingham e-learning seminar (January 09), I have invited a colleague – who recently used our island to support his teaching – to present to the audience via SL. He is now in Lebanon and I will meet him in SL, he will then use the voice facility in SL and discuss his experiences to an audience in RL. I will relay questions to him from the audience.

Why are you?

My name’s Andrew Marunchak, I work in real-time 3D and am the chief developer of the University of Hertfordshire’s Second Life presence.

What are you doing in virtual worlds?

I started work on the SL UH presence, in a part-time capacity, over a year ago. Since then, interest has grown and two new members have been added to the team. Originally, the goal of the project was to gain exposure in a popular 3D social network but it has since been altered to include research into how such environments are able to facilitate communication and learning. I now work full-time as part of a team dedicated to creating real-time 3D simulations and architectural visualisation inside SL as well as various other 3D engines at the UH.

David Lee, the Virtual Campus Manager, also contributed a reply to this question: Researching and teaching in SL. Currently we have finished building our island and are actively using it to teach Law, Radiography, 3D interactive media, Real time media streaming, 3D animation, creative writing, Computer Science and much more. We have started researching Unity for simulations, Visualisations and to build a private MUVE that is webpage accessible.

Are you doing any teaching or learning in virtual worlds such as Second Life?

I’m currently assisting a module called “3D Interactive Media”. It is the first we have run inside a networked virtual environment and is designed as a means of introducing students to the concepts of networked 3D worlds and cyberculture in general.

The presence is freely available for all staff to use and we encourage them to leave us feedback. We have streamed live events such as our Science and Technology Research Showcase and Digital Animation exposé into SL.

Do you think you’ll do more virtual world “stuff” in your institution in the next academic year? What will this be?

Most of the activities currently taking place are research oriented. There is growing interest in this field and as a growth industry there is plenty of data to collect. We need to establish best practices for teaching and learning so as to bring some order to how we engage with this new medium.

Tell me interesting “stuff” – anything you think is relevant.

The key to making a virtual world usable for an educational establishment is accessibility. In the case of Second Life, people have to download the client and register an account, which has proven to be a confusing process for (some) staff and students alike. We have gone to great lengths to streamline this process to the point of installing the SL client in our Learning Resource Centre and using the ‘Reg API’ (registration assisted programming interface) provided by Linden Lab to allow students to create accounts from inside the university network.

We are also working on a way to fix a few issues we’re having with voice chat (we have a separate network for staff and students, freeing up ports is proving to be problematic).

What are you doing in virtual worlds?

We’re building a Buddhist monastery as part of a 2nd year course on the anthropology of Buddhism. It’s not designed to be ‘authentic’ – rather, we’re focussing on the student experience. A subset of the class will create avatars, learn to socialize in Second Life in all its indulgent glory, and then surrender all fashion, wealth and gender to become temporary monks/nuns. After engaging with other inhabitants as mendicant renunciants for a few weeks, they will go back to their ordinary life.

Do you think you’ll do more virtual world “stuff” in your institution in the next academic year?

Yes. We’re planning to integrate with Sloodle and I’m looking to collaborate with creative colleagues on building ‘living manuscripts’ and the like.

Ian is an experienced developer in Second Life, and has contributed to previous snapshot surveys. Part of his issue with Second Life concerns the ongoing saga of payments for the islands that he, and the faculty, use for teaching and learning.

Ian researches on the JISC funded Open Habitat project; he blogs about his virtual world activities, and you can also find him on Twitter. You can visit LeedsMet island at:

http://slurl.com/secondlife/LeedsMet/128/128/128/

Are you doing any teaching or learning in virtual worlds such as Second Life?

Through the Open Habitat project, we are piloting various approaches to teaching and learning in Second Life and OpenSim with Art & Design students based at Leeds Met. We’ve been mostly using OpenSim standalone to provide large numbers of students with a quick, sign-up free virtual world hit, following this up with a more intense Second Life project with a smaller group of volunteers.

Do you think you’ll do more virtual world “stuff” in your institution in the next academic year? What will this be?

As the ongoing saga between our finance department and Linden Lab continues (I just got an email to say that one of our islands was about to get sunk due to confusion around payment), and as a result of our findings from the Open Habitat project, I am determined to make 2009 the year of OpenSim.

We plan to set up our own OpenSim server for our 600 art & design students to enjoy, free from some of the obstacles that we have encountered whilst trying to use Second Life.

Tell me interesting “stuff” – anything you think is relevant.

The Open Habitat project has highlighted many issues regarding the use of virtual worlds in formal education. Whilst I value the power of role play and the endless sources of learning in a truly massive online world like Second Life, I also need a more controlled environment that all of my students can easily access. I am nervous about requiring students to sign up to a commercial service, and I can envisage a situation in the future where we provide a closed virtual environment to support our enrolled learning community, with an option to enter an open grid, either via the OpenSim hypergrid or Second Life (or both).

I am excited about the potential for welding together bespoke web-based tools with OpenSim to provide students with a virtual studio environment to support the studio-based learning approach that has proved so successful in art & design education. We are currently testing out our own eportfolio-like tool in the School of Contemporary Art & Graphic Design at Leeds Met, combining the best ideas from Web 2.0 to provide a tool that serves the needs of our students. The addition to this tool of a virtual world that uses the same user authentication, and accesses a central database of student generated content, is an attractive prospect. I think that OpenSim currently looks like the best candidate for this job.

Kriss will be at the CETIS/Eduserv workshop on virtual worlds in Glasgow on January 16th, if you want to chat to him.

What are you doing?

We have an island and are currently considering the best way of using the space to evaluate SL for teaching and learning purposes. Our island is at: http://slurl.com/secondlife/University%20of%20York/128/128/27

Are you doing any teaching or learning in virtual worlds?

Not yet, even though this was the purpose of buying space on there. It’s proved very difficult to get teaching staff engaged in the project, which is informal and voluntary and dependent on finding someone who’s interested and committed to think of good projects to do. We’re also coming up against technical challenges in delivering the SL viewer to students in our supported computer classrooms so we can get enough student access to do a viable study of how well it could work as a teaching/learning tool.

Do you think you’ll do more virtual world “stuff” in your institution in the next academic year? What will this be?

There are projects in the pipeline and I hope they come to fruition. We have another year or so of space on SL so there’s time to give it a decent try.

Tell me interesting “stuff” – anything you think is relevant.

Things I think might make the project work more effectively:

• A knowledgeable senior member of staff as a figurehead.
• Formal commitment to the project from the VLE team.
• Organised buy-out of staff time so there’s an opportunity to follow up on some of the really good ideas that have been suggested within a reasonable timescale.

We will learn some useful lessons from doing this, but as an institution may not be ready to make use of virtual worlds as a teaching tool – there isn’t the critical mass of interest here yet.

He’s doing work with OpenSim:

We installed OpenSim on our university network two weeks ago and are looking at its potential to stage an internally funded project to embed our Blackboard VLE in a student produced Virtual World. It’s very, very early days, but the project will be led by staff in the animation department and offer students who are studying animation, the opportunity of creating their avatars, designing and building in a 3D environment and developing a personalised portal to learning resources on Blackboard.

We feel that these students in particular, would engage with the VLE more if embedded in an environment which they enjoy and have helped create.

The University of Lincoln appears to have a pleasingly positive attitude to experimenting with new software. Joss continues:

The Centre for Educational Research and Development maintain their own Linux server at the university and use this to experiment with and host a variety of open source software. It is because of this that we were able to quickly install and set up OpenSim without any consultation or involvement by or ITC department (who are supportive of this approach).

There is already a significant Second Life community in UK academia; it will be interesting to see if an OpenSim development community also forms in the same sector.