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Digital Games in
European Libraries
Surveying Virtual World use in UK Higher and Further Education
Saturday, 13 September 2014

Personal position
• Three things getting better; the perfect storm:
– PC and Mac technology is getting better e.g.
processor power, graphics.
– Broadband nearly ubiquitous.
– Virtual worlds are constantly improving.
• Lifelong learning: fit learning around your life.
• Distance learning: more choice of courses.
• Always-on learning: whenever you want.

Unofficial aims (mine) of Virtual World Watch
* To provide “ammunition” for academics to use to
make their case inside their institution.
* To try and bring together like-minded academic
practitioners.
* To see where this goes.
* To - professionally - challenge the (closed
minded) sceptics.

Where VWW is at (Mid March 2009)
• Now on snapshot survey number 6 - release date of mid
to late April 2009.
• Also to be released then is first report looking at
alternative virtual world uses in academia.
• Weekly podcasts with academic developers proving
unexpected success. Want to be interviewed? Get in
touch…
• Building up the resource directory to provide some
evidence and useful “stuff”.

Typical respondent to a snapshot survey
• Isn’t afraid to give
an opinion
• Usually either
concise or
extremely verbose
• Open minded
• Practises what
they preach re:
virtual worlds
• Can go nose to
nose with sceptics
• Core of contacts in
~30 universities
who respond to
most surveys
Just “does it”

Activity in UK universities (generally HE)

Activity in UK colleges (generally FE)

Much activity outside responses
“Staffordshire University is carrying out a project to see how
useful a virtual world like Second Life might be when it
comes to undergraduate teaching.”
“We are active but not yet public.” - many responses.
“A one year JISC funded research project at the University of
Bristol.
We are creating a collection of paintings that will be
displayed within a virtual Pompeiian house in a similar
way to the actual Sydenham Crystal Palace that was build
in London in 1854.”

Data extraction from January survey responses

Summary of Snapshot 5+
• All bar one UK university has some evidence of Second
Life “activity” i.e. research, design, study, teaching or
learning.
• Building a replica of your campus in SL just for the sake
of it is rare now (hurrah!).
• Activities diverse, but newer universities tend to be more
into it than older ones.
• Huge amount of duplicated work going on across
universities in investigating use of Second Life in
teaching and learning 

Student
Developments …

Virtual worlds as simulations of dangerous environments

More safety …
“The witnesses go
down to the simulation
set and the
investigators stay at
the gathering point.
The tutor runs the
simulation through –
in this case a fork lift
truck accident in a
small warehouse
which the witness
students can view
through their avatars.”

Learning about
research …

Touring developments …

Machinima
“A section of the island is designated for film making
(machinima), with an adaptable diorama and
terraformable landscape for creating sets.” - JISC
RSC (Northern)
“A group of media students are undertaking a
project on creating machinima and guidance on
the use of the event simulator described above as
part of their interactive media course.” - West of
England

Learning about quantitative research …

Additional angle to conference …

Student information (Student health)

Studying SL as a learning environment
“A pilot study looking at Interprofessional education in Second
Life.” - Coventry
“Determining whether SL is a suitable environment within
which to develop students' business enterprise skills.” -
Leeds
“Through the Open Habitat project, we are piloting various
approaches to teaching and learning in Second Life and
OpenSim.” - Leeds Metropolitan
“This project investigated pedagogical issues related to
teaching within 3D virtual worlds using Second Life as the
delivery platform.” - Ulster

Medical equipment created by Glasgow Caledonian
“A simulation of a full
working model of an
X-ray machine.
This allows for safe
practice; is flexible
either to be used in a
class or for self study.
It is scaleable - only
one exists on campus
but we can copy the
simulation as many
times as we wish.”

INCORE project
(Norther Island conflict)

Just to complicate things: Other worlds …
Playstation Home

Metaplace
University of
the West of
Scotland
- Web-based
- Flash
- extensible
- avatars
- scripting
Isometric view
Easy to work in
(Sims meets
Second Life?)

OpenSim
“We expect to see more interest in OpenSim, and
possibly Wonderland - emphasising the need to
keep the ‘intelligence’ of any solution out of any
one particular virtual world. We also still see no
‘Second Life killer’ out there.” - Daden Limited
“The latest OpenSim server builds offer outstanding
performance, and are rapidly maturing and
becoming reliable for everyday use. Porting
objects and scripts (but not all of them) from
Second Life to OpenSim is now possible.” -
Plymouth

OpenSim (more)
“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.” - Leeds
Metropolitan
“We have an OpenSim grid running with a few
regions set up. We are applying for funding to
support an OpenSim grid for the UK academic
community.” – St. Andrews

Educators in World of Warcraft …

Dealing with sceptics
“Academics? Getting funding to play silly games
like Second Life and World of Warcraft and
pretend it is learning?
Disgusting.
In my day we didn’t have email, made do with
slate and chalk and it did us no harm … yadda
yadda yadda …”

See no innovation …

Made in 9 months from 1 egg and 1 sperm…

… so why does a bunch
of words take so much
longer to get published?

Better … JIME Open peer review process

Adventures of Yoshikawa

Funding

Virtual World Watch: future
CDC (Continuous Data Collection) starts this week.
Future reports:
• Quarterly (3) throughout 2009.
• SL and alternative virtual worlds (2).
• Ongoing virtual world research (1).
Other interests:
• Search in virtual worlds.
• Funding for virtual world development in UK HE/FE.

Okay, that’s all
Virtual World Watch is funded by Eduserv.
Web: www.virtualworldwatch.net
Email: john@virtualworldwatch.net
Twitter: @V_World_Watch
I’m here for the rest of the day…

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Surveying Virtual World use in UK Higher and Further Education

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