You are here: Home / Archives for General Tech / Education

Taking our biases with us into virtual environments.

September 26, 2008 by 1 Comment

Light skin or dark skin - it makes a difference even in virtual environments.

People are using the same cognitive tools in their social interactions within virtual environments as they would in the physical world. A recent study has confirmed this happens even though our avatars do not necessarily represent a clear picture of the people behind those avatars, with regards to gender, race, and all those other things that we have biases against.

The study’s co-investigators are Northwestern University’s Paul W. Eastwick, a doctoral student in psychology, and Wendi L. Gardner, Associate Professor of Psychology and member of Northwestern’s Center for Technology and Social Behavior. Eastwick’s past contributions revolve around romantic relationship development, and the use of speed dating and virtual environments to test psychological hypotheses. Gardner’s interests focus on the social aspects of the self, and the sorts of evaluation that are performed in the human brain that are unconscious.

Eastwick and Gardner performed the study in There.com, which is billed primarily as a fantasy environment – it is social, and the interactions are with real people, but there are no programmatical constraints on how people represent themselves within those interactions. The management at There.com showed significantly more interest in having the study performed in their virtual environment than did other services like Second Life.

Two classic social psychology experiments were performed within the realm of There.com: an avatar controlled by the study group attempted to influence an avatar controlled by a member of the native There.com populace to fulfill a request. The door-in-the-face (DITF) gambit, in which a ridiculously large request is followed by a much more reasonable request, and the foot-in-the-door (FITD) technique, in which a small, reasonable request or statement is made, followed up with a much larger request, were used. Then, observation occurred to see how people reacted to a) the request in general and b) to the appearance of two different avatars in acquiescing to the request.

As in the physical world, the most successful technique was the DITF as performed by a light-skinned individual, with an increase in compliance of 20% over a simple request; compare this to only an 8% increase in compliance for the dark-skinned individual for the same technique. Less successful was FITD, which returned a result of only slight more compliance for either skinned individual.

Research has shown this disparity in the physical world for decades. DITF relies on a person’s perception of the person making the request: is this person worth impressing, and do I feel that I can risk offending them? FITD relies more on self-perception: how do I feel about my own reputation, and do I care how I appear to the person making the request?

Interestingly, many people seem to share the opinion that virtual environments are exempt from social influence. This idea possibly stems from the anonymity of having an avatar with which you do not identify, and which has no connection with your real identity. Or perhaps from the idea that virtual environments are in essence games in which anything goes and no-one can be harmed. Or even from the perspective that virtual environments are easy to leave, and therefore there need be no social ties with them. Nonetheless, it would appear that most people using virtual environments are heavily socially invested in them, to the extent that they apply their everyday social biases to the appearance of the avatars of those they interact with, and that they are just as susceptible to social gambits designed to increase compliance.

Source:  Real-world Behavior And Biases Show Up In Virtual World

Wendi L. Gardner’s professional page.

Paul Eastwick’s entry at the Department of Psychology, Northwestern University.

Social Influence Journal article.

Filed Under: Education, General News, Virtual Worlds Tagged With: ,

A true EDUCAUSE

September 23, 2008 by 2 Comments

The EDUCAUSE Review for September/October 2008 was released recently. For those unfamiliar with the publication, it is an “award-winning magazine for the higher education IT community”. It is published bimonthly in print and online. EDUCAUSE itself is “a nonprofit association whose mission is to advance higher education by promoting the intelligent use of information technology.”

Below are three features from the EDUCAUSE Review, précised:

1. Virtual Worlds? “Outlook Good” AJ Kelton (“AJ Brooks”)

AJ Kelton poses this question: Are Virtual Environments (VEs) viable teaching and learning environments?

Kelton’s perspective is that Second Life is the current reigning champion, having both multitudes of educational folk working within it, and having brought the concept of VEs to the mainstream. He goes on to list many of the other VEs in the educational domain, and points out that there has been interest in the educational value of VEs all across the globe.

Kelton mentions Media Grid and its Immersive Educational Initiative, and their continuing work in forming standards and best practices, and creating interoperability for VEs with an educational bent.

Under the challenges and drawbacks section, Kelton lists:

  • Perceptual: VEs are still treated as ‘games’ by those with no personal experience; ‘fun’ is not expected to be a part of education, so anything that could be construed as being enjoyable is suspect.
  • Technical: Collaborative tools (especially for working with text) and interoperability will be the greatest challenges we will face; other technical considerations will work themselves out over time as broadband services and hardware become cheaper and more accessible.
  • Operational: The learning curve for VEs is steep. There are often technical difficulties with VEs, especially those that are more ‘experimental’. With younger age groups particularly, there are legal restrictions.
  • Pedagogical: Each institution must decide for itself whether the tool is appropriate for them, and whether they can sort out methods of assessment.

In conclusion, Kelton seems to think that VEs have a solid future in education – but that the extent of their involvement is as yet unknown and unforeseeable.

2. Higher Education as Virtual Conversation Sarah Robbins-Bell (SL: Intellagirl Tully)

Sarah Robbins-Bell turns a deft hand to answering the question: how can we increase student involvement? She feels that emergent social media are key in turning “passive, knowledge-receiving students into active, knowledge-making students.” The more conversations we can get going, the more student involvement there will be. As levels of participation increase, students’ knowledge will increase in active ways.

On the topic of why there has been a slow increase in the use of social media in education: “I think the problem is that our pedagogy often isn’t ready for an increase in conversation.”

Robbins-Bell states that the best way to integrate social media into education is to take one form at a time: she begins with ‘Virtual Worlds’. She then lists the characteristics of Virtual Worlds, and why they work for educational purposes.

  • Persistence: A virtual world can be used at any time, whether or not other avatars are there.
  • Multi-user: Communication exists between users synchronously.
  • Avatars: Avatars with a flexible appearance allow play with identity (roleplaying). Cultural literacy can be studied and learned from them.
  • Wide Area Network: Students can reach out and communicate with students and teachers at a wide geographical divide.

She goes on to caution that instructors will need to come to an acceptance of the lessening of control that they have in this environment, but notes that this can produce useful results: more communication and less sterility.

3. Looking to the Future: Higher Education in the Metaverse Chris Collins (SL: Fleep Tuque)

Chris Collins examines the place of higher education within the arena of VEs.

Collins follows the development of VEs with regards to major corporations (IBM is working towards people coming together virtually to save them from having to be geographically congruent), industrial giants (Seimens and the University of Cincinnati are working together to allow models created in 3D software packages to be able to be imported into VEs), and governmental departments (simulations of weather phenomena, natural disasters, and workplace training scenarios carried out in VEs).

Collins’ expectation of higher education is that it will produce people ready to become employees in this virtually aware workplace.

Collins then covers the typical obstacles faced by educational facilities in attempting to provide sufficient learning resources for their students, whether they be learning on campus or by distance education.

She finishes by stating that the optimal goal is for students to have fostered within them an interest in lifelong learning, which can possibly be achieved through the technology of VEs – education through this format create more personal autonomy and a greater sense of personal investment.

The other two features from this edition, also worthy of note:

Educational Frontiers: Learning in a Virtual World Cynthia M. Calongne (SL: Lyr Lobo)

Drawing a Roadmap: Barriers and Challenges to Designing the Ideal Virtual World for Higher Education Chris Johnson (SL: ScubaChris Wollongong)

Sources:

September/October 2008 issue of EDUCAUSE Review

EDUCAUSE Review: Back to (Virtual) School (Chris Collins’ original post).

Filed Under: Education Tagged With:

A match made in Second Life.

September 16, 2008 by 1 Comment

Fighting the forest fire.

Public services.

Education.

What do these two things have in common? Typically, people outside those fields would consider them to be necessary but uninteresting. Many people have experienced the rough ends of these services. You’d think it would be difficult to create a useful and engaging experience in a virtual environment that combined the two fields.

In this case, you’d be surprised to find that those challenges have been faced and overcome.

The Ontario Ministry of Government Services has worked in concert with metaverse developers TheSLAgency to produce that most remarkable of things: a fun and educational experience about careers in the public service. No, seriously.

The Ontario Public Service Careers Island is situated in Second Life. At first blush, the build is pretty, the scenery extensive and attractive, and the main building contains web links for a whole variety of pertinent information regarding career choices with the Ontario Public Service (OPS). Look a little further afield, and you find that outside the main building (that also comprises the landing point), each section of the island has an instructive purpose that is not just interactive but also interesting and fun! For each career path available with the OPS, there is a representative display, with an activity that gives prospective employees some idea of what their job might be like.

Teleportation options board.

I visited the OPS Forest Fire Simulation first. You are given a hose to attach to your avatar to fight the fire, while in Mouselook mode. You also get a list of instructions to assist you in fighting the fire. It includes information about evaporation of water from the hose impeding your ability to put out the fire, the spread of fire, and letting you know where to concentrate your efforts. Our attempts to put out the fire were laughable in their futility. I suspect greater persistence is required in training water on the flaming parts. I spent a great deal of time taking photos during the process, too – photojournalism and firefighting do not mix.

Laboratory entrance

The second stop was the Water Testing Facility. You receive a HUD in the form of a vessel to contain water. You search the island for a body of water, and if you are close enough to the water when you click on the HUD, you will obtain a sample to take back to the laboratory. We found a small puddle of water out behind the airfield, and brought that back to be tested. Here is what the Water Analyzer CK-225 had to say about its quality: ‘This water suffers from heavy lead and hydrocarbons levels, petrol derivates, synthetic oil in quantities that makes its potability virtually impossible. This water is definately dangerous for health, and measures should be taken to clean up the area and limit its accessibility.’ Not a surprising finding, given the test sample’s location.

Traffic Media

The effort put into the project, and subsequent success of it, have not gone unnoticed or unrewarded. The ‘OPS Virtual Career Fair on Second Life’ received a merit award in the innovation category at the 2008 Showcase Ontario awards. TheSLAgency Managing Partner Joe Mastrocovi states, “Our innovative government work in virtual worlds has produced a lot of successes, and we’re honored that the Ontario government feels that our work is award-worthy. We’re proud that beyond awards, this engagement brings our client real results with increased job seekers, applicants, and final hires!”

Overall, it’s a neat idea that has been well executed. Other government and educational services would do well to take a look and incorporate some of these ideas into their own virtual environment projects.

Filed Under: Education, General News, Virtual Worlds Tagged With: , ,

SLEDcc: focusing on fun, fruition, and finances.

September 9, 2008 by Leave a Comment
Image courtesy of Rik Panganiban

Image courtesy of Rik Panganiban

The Second Life Education Community Convention (SLEDcc) ran in Tampa, Florida, over the last weekend. Presented here are wrap-ups of three keynote speeches given over the course of the weekend, each with a different focus on the issues facing education in virtual environments.

Why Second Life Can’t Tip: The Power and Perils of Living La Vida Ludic

Presenter: Barry Joseph (GlobalKids Bixby in Second Life)

Barry Joseph is of the opinion that until society becomes more familiar with integrating play into every day life (the “ludic” life), Second Life will not tip.

The word ludic holds its roots in the Latin ludere, meaning “to play”. It therefore shares a common root with the word ludicrous, meaning “amusing or laughable.” Though ludic started out as a word with meanings relating to aimless play and squandering of time, those meanings have lost their derogatory status, so that in the context of modern education the connotations are far different.

According to Joseph, ludic, in this context, best describes the way in which “game/play dynamics, aesthetics and sensibilities … increasingly define our social interactions.” Thus, the ‘ludic life’ is one in which we bring gaming skills to bear in our everyday lives, rather than one in which we treat life as a game, as in the philosophy of ludism.

Until more people are living the ‘ludic life’, it seems unlikely that Second Life will tip. To date, Second Life has hit a major peak in the rate of people joining up, only to have that rate steeply fall off again; clearly the statistics are showing that Second Life is nowhere near tipping yet. Is this what it will take, for us to nurture our game-playing selves, to create ludic lives for ourselves in the real world, in order to make Second Life more appealing?

Explicit Bargains: Setting Realistic (Yet Powerful) Expectations for Teaching in Virtual Worlds

Presenter: Sarah Robbins (Intellagirl Tully in Second Life).

Sarah Robbins’ keynote speech covered how to increase the effectiveness of in-world education. Borrowing from Clay Shirky’s book, Here Comes Everybody, she presented the following structure:

  • The promise: what are we expecting to get?
  • The tool: how are we going to achieve the promise?
  • The bargain: this is what I am going to do; this is what you are going to do. We achieve the promise by fulfilling the bargain.

In essence, “Innovation fails when the bargain breaks down.” However, each part of the structure must be analyzed to ensure that any given educational project goes off well. If the tool is inadequate, the promise is not sufficiently promising, or if the bargain is being consistently broken by one side or the other simply due to circumstance, any one of these can jeopardize the whole project.

Why Johnny Can’t Rez

Presenter: Beyers Sellers (“Metanomics” presenter).

Beyers Sellers addressed the tricky issue of how to get support (funding, resources and other types of assistance) for educational ventures into virtual environments from faculty and other educational staff.

Essentially you need to demonstrate that you are supporting the goals of the educational facility at which you teach by using virtual environments in your classroom. Without this reassurance, you are unlikely to get the support you require.

Sellers identified these three questions as ones that administrators are likely to want answered:

  1. Which goals, for yourself and for the institution, are being supported, and how will they be supported?
  2. Why should a virtual environment be used to accomplish these goals, as opposed to another solution?
  3. What are the costs and risks of using a virtual environment?

In conclusion

Second Life could be a promising educational platform under the right circumstances. However, not only does Linden Lab need to make preparations at their end to make the magic happen, there are plenty of opportunities available for educators, and the wider public, to do their bit to support and improve education on the Second Life grids.

Filed Under: Education

PacRimX, Skoolaborate and Global Challenge merger: the beginning of an Education Grid?

September 2, 2008 by 2 Comments

Bakamatsu region, Kyoto, on the Second Life Main Grid

PacRimX (Pacific Rim Exchange)

Stan Trevena, director of technology for Modesto City Schools, is the man responsible for the PacRimX project, developed in 2007. The idea was that kids from Modesto and their counterparts from Kyoto Gakuen in Japan would be able to interact with each other in a virtual environment, prior to an international student exchange in which 20 Modesto students traveled to Japan, and vice versa with 50 Japanese students.

Due to time-zone issues, video-conferencing was ruled out as a solution early on. Instead, Trevena bought an private Island on the Teen Second Life Grid. He fitted it with some basics, including a welcome centre, but noted that “a lot of the innovative use of the island will come from the kids.” The number of islands has now expanded to four. Trevena describes the facility as “a place for our students to communicate and collaborate with each other in building a place where they can share their interests, cultures and languages.”

Students from Kyoto arrived in Modesto on June 24, 2008.

Skoolaborate

Westley Field, Director of Online Learning at MLC School Sydney, founded the Skoolaborate Project in 2007. Skoolaborate works with junior high schools around the globe to foster students collaboration, involving the use of digital technologies: wikis, blogs, virtual environments and other online learning tools. The Skoolaborate learning space, also on the Teen Second Life Grid, is a private, secure area with an invitation required to access it. “Skoolaborate now has 14 schools from Australia, New Zealand, Taiwan, Japan, Singapore and the USA.”

Global Challenge

“In the Global Challenge, teams of US high school students collaborate with international counterparts from October to May to address global climate change and compete for prizes and scholarship awards.”

Approximately 2,000 students have already participated in their program.

The merger

Kyoto Gakuen has been working with both Skoolaborate and PacRimX independently since the genesis of each program in 2007. This is how a relationship developed between the directors of the programs, which ultimately led to the merger between the two. The Global Challenge program was brought in separately, to complement the work of the others.

The resulting merged program, featuring input and participation by 17 schools from across the globe, is now the world’s largest virtual environment project, designed for kids of junior high school age.

“Schools collaborate using a variety of online tools and environments to share experiences, thoughts and ideas from around global understanding, social and environmental education.”

Thoughts

Having a private project on the Teen Second Life Grid could have been a great way to ensure that students encountered a slow-moving, sterile environment, with great homogeneity of culture, opinion and thought. However, this partnership should bring together a rich and diverse mix of folks, students and educators, which should create a varied, stimulating environment in which to learn.

Linden Lab is in flux, and the cause is not at all clear: speculation is rife and rumors abound, and the Lab has all but cut off communications with it’s residents. The Millennial Generation does not seem to be the target audience for the Second Life “platform” – this indicates that there is unlikely to be an “Education Grid” any time soon, or perhaps at all. It looks like the program developed by the combined force of PacRimX, Skoolaborate and Global Challenge will be the one of the largest contenders for an alternative.

The question is: will the Teen Second Life Grid remain active for long enough for any of their goals to come to fruition?

Filed Under: Australian News, Education, Virtual Worlds Tagged With: , ,

Students vs Second Life: Round 2

August 26, 2008 by 1 Comment

Thank you ... Captain Obvious

Upon reading the comments and articles generated by “Students vs Second Life“, I had several prominent thoughts:

  1. There’s nothing so rarely discussed as “the obvious”. Often things that are considered to be obvious are then not subjected to further thought or discussion, the problem often being that the thing is rarely obvious to everyone. I’m sure the original article was obvious for some, but not for others. Regardless, solutions need to be found for those using Second Life as an educational tool;
  2. A generation is a statistical grouping: it cannot predict the behavior or capabilities of the individual. A generation can only describe trends amongst people or things; also, it can only be used to describe how something acts as a group. This may mean that all the folks on the Teen grid are not wholly representative of their generation – considering how few of them there are, this does not seem an unreasonable assumption;
  3. Second Life is a fantastic product for an underdeveloped market segment: Generation X. For Second Life (and future products of its ilk) to have the greatest life-span possible, will require acceptance that younger people need to be drawn in. Otherwise, it’s more likely that the Millennials will stay within their comfort zone of other virtual worlds;
  4. Millennials who remain inside Second Life may be the anomalies, when compared to the generational stereotype. They are either unusually self-directed, or have found a way of turning the Second Life tool to their own devices – perhaps as an alternative way to interact with people;
  5. Second Life, as opposed to other virtual worlds, has a greater scope for forms of interaction, because you can create in a more sophisticated way. Second Life is clunky and difficult – but it’s hard to create a sleek, wonderful interface and backbone that still does everything Second Life can do now, given the resources available;
  6. Individuals of the Millennial generation are not the only ones necessarily lacking in the skill of freeform play – other generations contain individuals lacking the skill also. However, it is just that – a skill, which can be learned. So why should we bother to learn it? It broadens our creative horizons, and teaches us to think, particularly about things which seem obvious;
  7. The human race is still essentially tribal, which also means that we are exclusionary. Our differences can exclude us from any given tribe. Fancy being the only person of your age on your street spending time in Second Life rather than Habbo Hotel?

Here is a brief wrap-up of what other folks had to say, having read the article:

Kate Amdahl suggests that we create “learning” areas – areas which have pre-generated content, games and interactive mechanisms, to get folks used to the interface and get them spending time in Second Life. From these places, they can make forays out into the rest of the world, and gradually incorporate the overall idea of Second Life into their play-style.

Sabine Reljic seems to indicate that we would be well rewarded by pushing students into Second Life and out of their comfort zones. I wonder what that would look like. Right now, it would seem that pushing students into Second Life and leaving them to their own devices results in them wandering around lost or standing around chatting. This view is supported by the VirtuEd post. Additionally, pushing teens and young adults tends to result in them pushing back – caution is indicated.

Roland Legrand over at Metanomics has written a great post about what the Millennials know about multi-tasking and collaboration that they can teach the rest of us: “we also have an obligation to help them” learn about freeform play.

Over at New World Notes, this post gathered all sorts of interesting comments, and this second post ponders the question of why Habbo Hotel is so popular amongst young Millennials, as opposed to Second Life or Teen Second Life. Of the comments, the most interesting was one which wonders whether Generation X has more of a need to escape into fantasy than the Millennial generation. Did Gen X’ers grow up in a more hostile environment, from which they looked for relief?

At Massively, Tateru Nino states: “Where it might be that they would find additional traction if they could cluster with their cultural peers — members of their own generation — digital avatars consistently thwart the sorts of flocking behaviors. Millennials can’t identify their peers among the avatars of their parents and grandparents’ generations — and for the peer-oriented Millennials, that’s frequently a deal-breaker.” Also, “The very nature of Second Life turns away Millennials in droves. As entertainment, it is as undirected as a public park.”

A study by the University of Leipzig supports the finding that there are few Millennials in Second Life. They state that this is  because Second Life is too realistic, and that virtual worlds should be centered around escapism.

All in all, there seems to be a fascinating spectrum and crossover of viewpoints on the topic, many supported by direct, accreted experience and statistical data. Are your own experiences with students in line with one of these, or do you have a unique perspective to share?

Filed Under: Education, General News, Virtual Worlds

Students vs Second Life

August 19, 2008 by 14 Comments

Average Gen Xer? Maybe not?

When I started thinking about education in Second Life, and the reactions of students of university/college age to it, I rather naturally turned to think of my own experiences, and of ideas and prejudices I held as a student of approximately the same age. It took me a little time, and the reading of an article by Joe Essid and Lee Carleton, to realize that that particular approach was never going to work. Today’s students are, for the most part, not of my generation (Generation X), which typically includes folks born between 1964 and 1982. Instead, they tend to be those folks born between 1982 and 2002 or thereabouts – the Millennial Generation.

Why make this distinction? Each generation has a tendency to differ greatly from the generation directly preceding it (which is precisely why these otherwise seemingly arbitrary groupings are made). Ideas, political notions, morals and ethics all have a tendency to change, as the younger generation both learns from and rebels against the previous one. As Generation X rebelled against the strictures placed upon the Baby Boomers, so the Millennial Generation rebels in its quiet, refined manner against the excesses of Generation X.

In Second Life, the gap between Generation X and the Millennial Generation comes sharply into focus, in the two ways that I will discuss further:

1. Second Life is primarily filled with Generation X’ers, unintentionally creating a socially unwelcoming environment for Millennials;

2. Generation X’ers know how to play in the freeform manner that Second Life requires, whereas Millennials typically do not display that skill.

First, the social and political atmosphere of Second Life. Statistically, more people from Generation X participate in Second Life than from any other generation. The ramifications of this are two-fold. It’s harder for Millennials to make contact with other Millennials in this scene, since they constitute a minority of the population. Millennials no doubt feel somewhat uncomfortable interacting socially with folk outside their own generation, whether it be because they sense the cultural disconnect between themselves and older folk or for some other reason. Second Life is chock full Generation X’ers, and they have filled it with their own fashion sense, outlooks, learning styles, and politics – what an intimidating world to enter for the Millennials. Generations X’ers are the Millennials’ parents, and also those strangers their parents warned them about. Add to that the fact that the Millennials are much more likely to have many friends with whom they communicate face to face and then organize those friends and their own lives using technological gadgets and the Internet, rather than meeting people over the Internet. Second Life is simply an unfriendly place for you to go, even if you are not a typical, timid Millennial.

Second, Second Life is an environment in which you need to be able to set goals and tasks for yourself in order to get anything out of it – it is a non-directed playground in which to let the imagination run free. The Millennial Generation has not learned to play this way. They are not used to “making their own fun.” Throughout their schooling they have been given regimented tasks, with pre-determined goals; time outside school is often dominated by a flurry of parentally- determined activities. They are more likely to play games that are directed than to come up with their own games – a Millennial is more likely to play Guitar Hero than to spend time noodling about with a guitar.

The Millennial Generation has an overwhelming sense of ‘busyness’ that pervades their lives, so that not only is learning in a directed fashion a habitual thing for them, it’s also a way of doing things more quickly. Targeted exercises speed up the process of transmitting and garnering information. Additionally, students are looking to do close to the minimum of coursework required to pass, in order to spend more time socially with friends, a priority in this generation.

The educator who uses Second Life as a learning tool will be teaching an additional subject – how to play in a freeform way. The concept and practice of freeform or open-ended play was easier for Generation X, in a way – we were rebelling against another world entirely. Difference and imagination was embraced. It was like a little Renaissance. Even though our schooling focused somewhat on directed study, by university age we had hopefully been weaned off it – by the system. The Millennial Generation, however, needs now to be taught to play this way. They need to be drawn out of their risk-averse shells gently – they need to be led, not pushed. They are not bold.

Second Life is a place where the adventurous prosper and creativity is king – and being able to play in an open-ended way is a necessary skill. Educators need to accommodate their students by creating a somewhat directed environment for them to learn in, and then wean them off it and release them into the open.

For further information on this topic, check out “A Playful Pedagogy for Second Life“, Dr Joe Essid and Lee Carleton, 2008, to be published later this year.

Filed Under: Education Tagged With: , ,

Journalism in Second life: research underway

August 17, 2008 by 1 Comment

In the past week i had the pleasure of spending an hour with Annabelle Boyd Jones, an Honours research student from the Department of Media and Communications at the University of Sydney.

Her research is on the role of journalism and governance in Second Life. To my knowledge this is an unexplored research area and should provide for some fascinating results. I’m pleased to have been what will hopefully be one of many research subjects. The Fourth Estate role of journalism in virtual worlds is at an early but influential stage. Research like Annabelle’s will help to encapsulate the progress so far and the challenges to come.

Kudos to the University of Sydney in driving communications research in arenas like virtual worlds.

If you’d like to put your view forward on this topic, head to Annabelle’s blog.

Filed Under: Australian News, Education, Virtual Worlds Tagged With: ,

Call for chapters: book on ethics in virtual worlds

July 22, 2008 by 2 Comments

Got a hankering to write a scholarly article on an ethics and virtual worlds-related issue?

Then check this out. There’s nothing like a book credit on your CV.

Filed Under: Education, General News, Virtual Worlds Tagged With: ,

A typology of virtual worlds

July 15, 2008 by Leave a Comment

As mentioned previously, the Journal of Virtual Worlds Research launched its first issue and there’s some fascinating reading that we’ll continue to refer to in coming weeks and months.

First cab off the rank is A Typology of Virtual Worlds: Historical Overview and Future Directions . Written by three academics from the Universities of Alberta and Toronto, the paper looks at the usefulness of a typology proposed in 2004 for virtual communities. A typology is a descriptive structure, in this case used to explain all the virtual world variants. The one the authors looked at has five aspects:

1. purpose (content of interaction)
2. place (location of interaction)
3. platform (design of interaction)
4. population (participants in the interaction)
5 profit model (return on interaction)

The categories are broad enough that I’m struggling to find anything that wouldn’t fit the typology and the article comes to the conclusion that it’s particularly effective when applied to the history of virtual worlds:

We, thus, see that the five typology elements are useful for interpreting the historical
progression of electronic gaming and online social networking that ultimately led to virtual
worlds.
Indeed, the five elements (purpose, place, platform, population, profit model) focus on
critical questions that journalists, marketers, and service providers are taught to ask: (1) For
what purpose? (2) Where? (3) How? (4) Who? and (5) How much?

The second use for the typology argued by the authors is in examining future uses of virtual worlds and in identifying research areas:

because of the growth of consumer participation in virtual worlds, firms will
need to learn to manage the utilization of these worlds for the following business decisions:
(1) Choosing in which worlds to promote, advertise or engage in other
communications;
(2) Selecting in which worlds to open e-commerce stores, e-government
activities, and virtual service offices;
(3) Choosing in which worlds to offer classes; and
(4) Choosing in which worlds to perform market research, such as focus
groups, surveys, and test markets.

It all may sound a little dry but its research and discussion like this that’s laying the foundation for the evolution of virtual worlds in mainstream society. The full article is well worth reading just for the historical perspective on virtual worlds.

What do you think? Does typology get your motor running or bore your socks off?

Filed Under: Education, General News, Virtual Worlds Tagged With: ,

Previous Posts