First, Mark Childs provides a jovial update of one of the many strands of virtual world teaching and research currently taking place in Coventry University, for snapshot #8. Mark is on Twitter.

After this is a piece from Dr. Yung-Fang Chen

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Current work at Coventry University includes trialling Second Life with a group of Disaster Management students. This work is being conducted by Drs Yung-Fang Chen and El Parker, with assistance from Mark Childs. The exercise Coventry University Islandia normally runs as a table-top exercise to provide students with an insights to deal with national scale crises and to facilitate them to consider the complex political and social factors involved in the event.

The exercise originally was designed by Dr Andrew Fox. Students take on the role of different agencies coping with a volcanic eruption in a fictional island called Islandia. Students have to go to other organisations to negotiate strategic disaster recovery plans such as financial aid, resettlement of refugees and so on.

The version of the exercise designed for Second Life involved the creation of a series of buildings on Coventry Island, each of which represented one agency. Instructions on the exercise were made available to students through clickable notecards distributed on tables in the buildings. Students’ avatars moved between the different buildings to talk to the different agencies and plan how to respond to the disaster.

The students’ response to the exercise was that, for most, it was a very positive learning experience and plans are for this to be incorporated into the Disaster Management module in future.

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The first pilot virtual world strategic flood emergency management exercise was conducted on the 4th December 2009. The exercise was developed by Dr Yung-Fang Chen and Dr El Parker and Mr James Townsend at the Applied Research Group in Environmental Hazards and Risk, Coventry University and Ambient Performance by using Forterra’s OLIVE platform. The projected has been heavily supported by an extensive advisory panel of emergency management professional who formed the participants of this pilot session.

The simulated flood event, a 1 in a 1000 year event, takes place in Silverdale County and affects the county town of Willsdon and its population of 20,000 extremely severely. Parallels can be drawn with events in Carlisle in 2005, Herefordshire and Worcestershire in 2007 and most recently in Cumbria just before Christmas. Emergency management professionals from the blue light services, local councils, the Environment Agency and the Met Office were involved in decision making and co-ordinating a response to the unfolding events. The scenario included the potential loss of power supply and drinking water to the population and flooding of a vegetable oil processing plant and subsequent pollution of the area, requiring targeted evacuation of vulnerable population, development of a public information strategy and considerations for business continuity. Participants’ response to the exercise was that, the platform has great potential alternative for future large scale multi-agencies exercises.

Summary

From input to this and previous snapshots, plus background research, institutional website searches and anecdotes, it is evident that every UK university except one (the University of the Highlands and Islands) has members of staff who have developed, or are developing, something in a virtual world – though that ‘something’, and the use and educational relevance of it, varies extremely widely.

This snapshot includes input from new respondents. In addition, several academics who are at the early stages of using virtual worlds chose not to report for this snapshot (and will hopefully do so for the next one).

Overall, the picture is one of more virtual world activity in UK academia than in previous years. Several universities, such as Edinburgh and the Open University, are into their third or fourth year of using Second Life and an academic development community continues to grow, though steadily rather than quickly.

As the snapshots reflect only what is reported to us, rather than giving a comprehensive overview, caution has to be taken in comparing activity by subject area. However, some subject domains do appear to be making more use of virtual world technology than others. The biological, health and medical sectors, in particular, make up a large proportion of virtual world activity in UK academia.

Language learning, patient treatment, computer science, health and safety, and art, performance and design stand out as subjects where several institutions are actively using virtual worlds in teaching. Academics in a range of more specific subject areas, such as criminal detection, electrical engineering and midwifery, have used virtual worlds in their teaching.

All 13 of the JISC Regional Support Centres responded to the snapshot survey request for information. The picture they present is of virtual world use being much more isolated and infrequent in further education (FE) than in higher education (HE). Institutional technical barriers and support are still major issues for further education staff. Where institutions have overcome these, substantive virtual world developments have occurred.

The RSCs themselves are providing support in different ways, e.g. events, forming a national coordination grouping, and levering the experience of HE institutions to support FE colleges. Across the 13 regions, staff hold widely differing views on the effectiveness of virtual worlds in education.

As with all previous snapshots, Second Life is the predominant virtual world of choice. Having said that, OpenSim is being mentioned by more respondents than in previous snapshot surveys, though actual implementations in UK academia remain few and far between.

This is the fourth academic year covered by an Eduserv virtual world snapshot, as the first one covered the tail-end of the 2006–07 session. While cases of virtual world use in academia have steadily risen, evaluations and evidence of their effectiveness has been fragmented and low-key. Though the same observation could be leveled at many other technologies – take a bow, Virtual Learning Environments – used in education.

Many academics – possibly a significant majority – are still wary, sceptical or openly hostile to virtual world use in education. More visible proof of where it works may swing the more open-minded of them. With the mass of teaching and research activity currently under way in higher education, it’s only reasonable to hope for more (and better) evaluations, and clarity concerning where virtual worlds can be put to good use and where not. For proof, evidence, data and convincing arguments, 2009 to 2010 feels like the year of virtual world expectation.

This time, there’s just one main question, and a few side points. The main question can be interpreted as broadly, or as narrowly, as you wish. As before, the scope is limited to UK Higher and Further Education.

The question

How are you using virtual worlds (e.g. Second Life, OpenSim, Metaplace, OLIVE, Active Worlds, Playstation Home, Blue Mars, Twinity, Wonderland) in teaching, learning or research?

Things you may want to include:

• Why you are using a virtual world.
• If teaching using a virtual world, how it fits into your curriculum.
• Any evaluation of the experience of using the virtual world.
• Will you do it again next year? Why (or why not)?

A few side points

• Do you know of any other individual, group or project at your institution using virtual worlds for teaching, learning or research? If so, a contact detail would be appreciated.
• Do you have any interesting screenshots of what you’ve been doing in virtual worlds? If so, then please consider submitting them to the Virtual World use in UK Education Flickr group – thanks.

Deadline

Please send your contributions, in whatever format (e.g. email, Word, text) to john (@) virtualworldwatch.net by the end of Friday 20th November. Relevant content submitted by then is guaranteed to go into the report; content received afterwards is unlikely to make it in.

Thank you for your contribution,
Virtual World Watch

Proceedings take place in an asynchronous virtual environment which can be accessed wherever and whenever is convenient to you. The 2009 conference also includes opportunities to participate in real-time sessions in Elluminate® (a tool for interactive online collaboration, provided by Netskills), see presenters on video, meet other delegates in the Virtual Coffee Shop and try your hand at new tools and techniques. There will also be sessions using Second Life, with the support of the Regional Support Centres.

The online conference website contains further details of the event and how to participate.

There are two sessions focusing on virtual worlds. These are in theme 2, which runs for 48 hours from 8.30am on Thursday 26 November 2009:

Exploring the potential of virtual worlds for teaching & learning
Kathryn Trinder (Glasgow Caledonian University). Facilitated by David White.

What is it about 3D Virtual Worlds that have captured our interest so much? The educational community is all a-buzz with these things, possibly more so than any technology we’ve encountered before, even the humble iPod… but perhaps this provides us with a clue?

VWs, such as Second Life, are not just one technology – they are infinite yet initially empty spaces, provided with tool kits that are full of developing & evolving technologies that can make up an entire world, bulging with possibilities as yet unexplored. Or at least they can be if, we are told, we have the imagination.

Over the last couple of years Glasgow Caledonian University has been exploring, developing, and teaching in Second Life. This session will present the background of the work plus demonstrations of some of the projects. With the help of the teachers, and maybe one or two learners (if we can catch them for a moment in their busy lives), we will show a range of subject disciplines and consider some of the findings from these projects.

As you will see GCU has been, like many others in H.E., piloting ideas and building on those, but the rhetoric in our educational communities suggests that we should already have moved on from these early stages of development. But how, and what?

Have we, perhaps, been conned by the speed of ‘change’ on the Internet into rushing to judgment about the role of new platforms? How much do we really understand at this point, and how much more will evolve over the next few years?

Perhaps we should consider how we can avoid repeating what we already do in the physical world, and, instead of building 500 seat virtual lecture theatres, embrace pedagogies beyond our traditional models? Or what about the broader issues around social cultural boundaries and internationalisation? And can we make use of all of this to extend the use of VWs to better support our students who increasingly reside online?

Choosing the best virtual world for your teaching needs
John Kirriemuir (Consultant). Facilitated by David White.

There are many virtual worlds, of which an indeterminate subset have potential use in education. Wikipedia lists [1] 66 pages for “Virtual reality community”, most (but not all) of which are arguably stand-alone virtual worlds. Yesha Sivan [2] quotes “more than 100 other worlds”. And these virtual worlds are being developed, and eliminated, at a rapid rate …

An increasing number of these, such as Second Life, OpenSim and OLIVE, have been used in a wide range of teaching and learning situations, in universities and colleges across several countries. A sample of UK university academics who responded to an October 2009 Virtual World Watch [3] report on choosing virtual worlds had considered, or used, 15 different such environments between them.

Even when an academic has a stable list of virtual world options, the criteria for comparisons is a complex area in itself. Websites are littered with comparative charts of different complexity and criteria. Sarah Robbins, as part of her PhD research, undertook a facet study [4] of around 60 virtual worlds. From this, she has made a useful Google spreadsheet of her data available online. But many teachers and lecturers in academia do not have the time, or knowledge base, to develop and use their own complex framework.

So how did they, or should they, choose which virtual world is the most appropriate for their particular teaching needs? Are their selection criteria driven by pedagogic needs, or by resource, time or political pressures? And when should an academic consider using a virtual world at all?

And what of your experiences with virtual worlds? Having used one in a formal teaching initiative, would you choose a different one if repeating the exercise? What were the most important advantages, or disadvantages, of using the virtual world that you did?

We do not necessarily have the answers either, but we hope that you may…

References

1 Wikipedia index page for Virtual reality communities: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Virtual_reality_communities
2 Sivan, Y. (2009). Overview: State of Virtual Worlds Standards in 2009, 2(3). https://journals.tdl.org/jvwr/article/view/671/539
3 Virtual World Watch: http://www.virtualworldwatch.net
4 Virtual Worlds Facet Study, by Sarah Robbins: http://is.gd/3PtmL

Summary

Virtual World Watch asked previous respondents to snapshot reports – UK university and college academics who develop and use virtual worlds – what worlds they used and why they chose them. Second Life and OpenSim were mentioned or used by most respondents.

Second Life is attractive due to its constant development over six years, there is no need to acquire a server or significant local technical support, the large community of experienced practitioners, and the variety of already-created objects and structures that can be quickly re-used cheaply or for free.

OpenSim is attractive because, compared to Second Life, ‘land’ does not carry the same expense, there are fewer security issues, there is no dependence on a single commercial vendor, and it is easier to configure how private your environment is; content can also be ported from Second Life.

Apart from Second Life and OpenSim, over a dozen other virtual worlds or environments were mentioned; of these Metaplace and Forterra’s OLIVE appeared to pique more interest and use, from an educational perspective, than the others. Some respondents had examined a range of virtual worlds. Sensibly, organisations such as St Andrews University are examining these from the perspective of the educational or project requirements, rather than the attributes of the particular virtual worlds.

Several respondents contributed their criteria lists (given in this report) for evaluating virtual worlds. A few are creating or using more complex frameworks: the Open University, for example, is developing a matrix of virtual world needs containing around 70 weighted criteria.

However, examining just one virtual world from the perspectives of teaching, learning, build, functionality, security, stability and many other criteria of importance to academics is not a trivial operation. Consequently:

1. Some academics, though they would like to examine more virtual worlds, tend to default to examining just one or two options due to a lack of time/resource. Usually, Second Life or OpenSim is one or both of these.
2. Many UK universities are, independently of each other, examining a range of virtual worlds. This time- and resource-consuming operation results in a significant amount of duplicated activity across the sector.

Recommendations

1. It would assist other academics in making a more informed choice, and reduce the significant amount of duplicated activity across UK higher and further education, if institutions would rapidly disseminate their virtual world comparative findings. As virtual worlds are being developed at an extremely fast pace, the traditional academic timeline for dissemination is of no use; a matter of weeks, rather than months or later, and such information becomes outdated.
2. A number of similar responses indicate a common need for an OpenSim – or similar – platform for current and prospective virtual world users and developers in UK higher education who do not have server and technical resources. As well as providing a low-cost environment with relatively high (and configurable) security and privacy, such an option provides a ‘back-up solution’ for previous and ongoing work created in worlds such as Second Life. Whether this could, or should, be provided by an academic institution or consortium, or by a technology services company, is a debatable point; ReactionGrid appears to go someway towards this requirement.