Summary

This snapshot is the ninth in a series which stretches back to what seems the almost impossibly distant past of 2007. Many previous contributers to snapshots have contributed to this one, though a series of problems has resulted in there being less content than hoped for. Despite that, at north of 26,000 words, there’s still a lot of content to read through.

And it’s interesting noting that the snapshots have been produced for over three years, as it’s a reminder that the use of virtual worlds in education has longevity – more than some technologies. As one respondent comments:

“Second Life is being introduced to undergraduate students for the fourth consecutive year by Michael Callaghan.”

Virtual worlds are not a new technology, but a slowly evolving component of the toolset available to academics. One positive aspect of virtual worlds having been around for a few years in the education sector is that research results are (finally) becoming available in significant amounts, helping people to independently determine how this particular technology is best used in teaching and learning.

Some of the trends of previous snapshots continue. The large majority of reported and identifiable virtual world activity appears to be happening at the university, as opposed to the college, level. Activity involving virtual worlds is a mixture of teaching, learning and research. Though this issue lessens with every snapshot, some academics still have problems with freely using virtual worlds (and especially Second Life) in their institution.

Another continuing trend from previous surveys concerns using virtual worlds (especially Second Life) in universities and colleges. Access issues, such as installation and upgrades of the viewer, tend to be more in the older, than the newer, universities, and in colleges. It is odd that, even after several years of virtual world use across UK academia – enough time to assess their dangers (has there actually been any major security issue with SL in a university?) – some institutions still ban or heavily restrict their use by lecturers and academics.

Attitudes to the new service conditions for Second Life were generally relaxed or non-caring, while attitudes to the new interface for Second Life range from mixed to positive. Media on a prim is welcomed by most as a (possibly overdue) development. Despite this, the drift away from Second Life towards OpenSim, and similar environments, continues. Many of those respondents staying (for now) with Second Life are aware of the dangers of having “all their eggs” in the “basket” of a commercial company. The relative technical demands of OpenSim, and the lack of a national OpenSim grid initiative (though much discussed), probably prevent this drift from accelerating. However, forseen funding constraints may finally be the tipping point for some academic projects and services wishing to use virtual worlds.

And it’s funding that is the key worry, issue, concern, for most respondents. It’s sometimes more interesting what people say, but don’t want made public, when they get in touch with responses. With this particular snapshot, many correspondents expressed private concern over the future funding landscape. Some are worried that the incoming government may reduce funding for research, or be more ‘traditional’ teaching and anti-technology in attitude. Others are less pessimistic but more uncertain, seeing possibilities for virtual worlds to be ‘pushed’ as a cost-effective technology in education. No-one appears to have great certainty for the future, hence the title of “What next?” for this snapshot.

Download the report

This report is available in PDF format.

Hi folks,

Virtual World Watch is now collecting information for snapshot #9 of virtual world use in UK Higher and Further Education.

Do you work in the sector? Use virtual worlds? Have used them? Then it would be appreciated if you’d have a go at answering one or more of the following questions. It’s up to you what you answer, and how formally or informally you answer. Or just ignore the questions if they aren’t helpful and write your own thing. We’re flexible

This is an opportunity to tell the world, and the academic virtual world community, what you are doing, have done, will do, and/or how it went. As happens regularly, people with a similar interest may then discover what you’re doing, so you may pick up a few useful contacts through your contribution.

Some points:

• The answers are stuck into a report which will go live on Monday, July 12th.
• Data collection is for all of June i.e. June 1st to June 30th only.
• Sorry, but no extensions after June 30th as VWW is keen to get the report out much closer to data collection than previously. Contributions that miss the deadline can, if you wish, go up as blog entries on this website instead.
• Unless you request anonymity, your name and job title (please supply preferred) will be included as a reference.
• Submissions can come from academics and students in UK HE or FE, as well as developers who develop directly for UK academia.
• Yes, you can be negative (honesty and frankness much better than spin) – but nothing personal and no swearing.
• Examples are awesome.

Send your submissions to john@virtualworldwatch.net – thanks.

+ + + + + The Questions + + + + +

Please do some or all of these – or ignore the lot and write something relevant instead.

1. What are you doing in virtual worlds? Teaching, learning, research, publicity, and/or anything else?

2. Going well? Not? Want to say why?

3. Money is tight. The ‘golden age’ of education money may be ending. How are you getting funded? How do you think your virtual world activities will be funded in the future?

4. Long distance travel is increasingly precarious. Ash, strikes and airlines going under ground flights. Travel is expensive (even in the UK with extortionate train fares) and takes up a lot of time. Virtual Worlds could, possibly, be used instead of many workshops, conferences, meetings et al. Your thoughts on this? And how do virtual worlds such as Second Life stack up against other event-replacing media such as Elluminate and Skype?

5. Second Life. Using just that, or considering other virtual worlds? If so, why?

6. Problems with universities blocking access to Second Life. Is anyone still having that, or are we over it now?

7. Handling large numbers of students in virtual worlds simultaneously i.e. more than 30. Do you have experience of this? How did it go?

8. What do you think of the new Second Life viewer, both the UI/usability changes and the new functionality it enables (e.g. media on a prim)?

9. Do you have a view on the new Second Life Terms of Service conditions and ownership rights which are creating a bit of a hoo-hah in some quarters? Do you think it will affect you? Does it matter in the grand scheme of things?

Thanks for your input – much appreciated.

Summary

This snapshot report was put together against a backdrop of political and economic uncertainty. It comes, therefore, as a pleasant contrast to notice many cases of continuity, where academics are building on their uses of virtual worlds in previous academic years. It’s also good to welcome details of new sustainable virtual world projects and initiatives from universities such as Middlesex, Bristol and Bath Spa.

Specific subject areas, where several universities are using virtual worlds, continue to come to light. For example, previous snapshots have highlighted contributions from academics involved in midwifery, with at least four UK universities using Second Life to assist in the training of this practical skill. To these and other well-defined subject areas can be added Environmental Health, with universities such as Coventry and Middlesex using virtual worlds to model and explore urban socio-economic decay and decline.

The global access capabilities of virtual worlds become more evident with each snapshot. As universities rely more (especially in these economically uncertain times) on overseas, remote, home-based and part-time students, so technologies that allow learning to take place far away from a physical campus become more useful. For example, Daniel Livingstone writes:

“I am still making good use of Second Life’s ability to bring people together across large distances. I have scheduled virtual guest talks for my own students. Students at the University of the West of Scotland will also be involved in an online virtual cultural exchange with students at San Jose State University in the US.”

…while from the Open University, Shailey Minocha writes:

“A couple of my part-time PhD students don’t live in England, and are able to travel to the university’s campus for a face-to-face meeting only once or twice in a year. We regularly meet in Second Life for supervision meetings.”

Reading this snapshot, several academics, and independent developers, are making virtual world content and artifacts available for other academics and students to use. For example, one developer writes:

“[We are creating] a free set of law (barrister) clothes and accessories.”

…while a JISC-funded virtual world development will be used in several universities:

“As well as being used in the classroom at Bristol, the model will allow Bristol students to collaborate with undergraduates studying a similar module in Liverpool”

In these economically stringent times, and with one of the main hurdles to virtual world use in academia being the time it takes to create content, this makes virtual world a more attractive options to academics. However, there are still issues over how academics (especially those unfamiliar with virtual worlds) can quickly locate and comprehend constructs that have relevance to their teaching or research.

As with all the previous snapshots, Second Life remains the virtual world ‘of choice’ for UK academics who responded to the survey. However, also as with previous snapshots, other virtual worlds are in use, such as OLIVE at Coventry University for emergency planning, and OpenSim at Leeds for handling large numbers of art and design students.

Download the report

This report is available in PDF format.

There’s one main question which can be interpreted as broadly, or as narrowly, as you wish. As per usual, the scope is limited to UK Higher and Further Education.

The question

How are you using virtual worlds in your 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

As per normal there is a backlog of “stuff” to process. *sigh* If you get your submissions in by mid-March, then they’ll make it in. After that, and they *may* make it in.

Thank you for any and all contributions.

Sending information in

Please send your contributions, in whatever format (e.g. email, Word, text) to john (@) virtualworldwatch.net

Please note that these reports are fully public – and available under creative commons – so what you say will be readable by anyone.

This is the last snapshot funded under the Eduserv Foundation/Research regime, before Virtual World Watch moves to the new funding streams. More on that later in the Spring.

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

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.

There is a permanent page on this website with more details about the kind of information we are looking for. So basically if you are in a UK university and you are teaching, developing, researching or doing something else with virtual worlds (note: not just Second Life), then we’d love to hear from you.

In this week’s episode, Virtual World Watch summarises the fifth snapshot survey report, due for release later this week. We hope this gets your week off to a relaxing start.