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Status Quo (not Rockin’ all over the world – or are we?)


So far we have maintained the position we were in back in 08/09 – we have five projects running in Second Life on our University Island. The island has a low profile, which serves two purposes. The island is split into an area for ‘University’ brand type activity (ie recruitment) and the second level which is for academic projects. The whole island is managed and owned by Communications and the projects are run by Fiona Grindey (Education Development Adviser with the Learning and Teaching Enhancement Unit) – I work with the professional services and the faculties across the University to make sure that they all keep going.

So we have not expanded, we are waiting for the projects to complete so that there is feedback to guide us on the future uses of Second Life. So far, it does seem that there is reluctance to take anything forward as there seems to be such a learning curve to get into the software in the first place. Also, the technology does form such a barrier on a massive network such as the one we operate. So for example, just this week, I tried to test a machine to do a little bit of training and the machine said that an update was required and that I was unable to do it as I did not have admin rights for that machine. That type of thing becomes a huge problem when all the University desktop machines (in all common learning spaces) have Second Life installed on them. Each time a user logs in, the installation begins, and this means that they would all be calling our IT people at the same time. The issue of the update isn’t insurmountable, but its another barrier for educators to have to get over.

OpenSim seems like something that we will have to consider when we don’t have the funding to support Second life. I hope that this is something that many of us will try, as I can see the benefit of using VW’s for education and research and doing it via open source seems a better way forward. I have heard a few horror stories about ReactionGrid and OpenSim but I heard them about Second Life and just see it as part of the learning curve!

One new development, our local JISC RSC (South-East) has offered us space on their Community Island, and so we are going to take them up on that. We can transfer some of the objects that we haven’t been able to use onto the island so that the projects can complete – this gives us time so we can make any transition to other VW’s easier. One thing I am hoping for is that we can use a Second Life type virtual world within a browser – no fussing around with updates etc. Then the easier it is to use, the less hassle and we all win.

Some other presentations from Virtual World Watch are also on Slideshare.

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.