<s5>Æliens</s5> -- slide(s)

VU @ Second Life -- creating a community of learners

A. Eliëns, F. Feldberg, E. Konijn, E. Compter

Vrije Universiteit, Amsterdam

Online virtual worlds have been present for more than 10 years, AlphaWorld, for example, was introduced in 1995. However, the recent substantial media attentention for Second Life can be considered as an indication that virtual worlds are no longer the domain of a selective group of fanatic online gamers. For example, the number of registered residents in Second Life increased from 1,8 million at the beginning of December 2006 to over 4 million within a period of less than 3 months. Big companies like Reebok, IBM, Philips, and ABN AMRO organize press meetings to announce their presence in virtual worlds. Even governments, municipalities, and NGO�s enter Second Life with an eagerness that is comparable to the don't miss the boat feeling recognized at the early days of the internet. Second Life has even been presented as hype. On February 28th 2007, the Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam (in English, our official name is VU University Amsterdam) announced its presence in Second Life as the first Dutch university. National and international companies are eager to have their regional headquarters in Amsterdam.

Why does a respectable university, like ours, want to be present in Second Life? And what are the prospects or benefits for an educational institute with a strong research reputation to be present in Second Life? Is it publicity we are after, the momentary attention of the press, taking profit of the (current) hype around Second Life, or are there more sustainable reasons that make such presence worthwhile, from both educational and research perspectives. In the following, we will address these questions, and give an account of the process that led to our presence in Second Life.

The history of Second Life is extensively descibed in the official Second Life guide, [SecondLife]. Beginning 2004, almost out of the blue, Second Life appeared with a high adoption and low churn rate, now counting, March 2007, over 4 million inhabitants. Considering the cost of ownership of land, which easily amounts to 200 euro per month rent after an initial investment of 1500 euro for a single piece of land measuring 65,536 square meters, the adoption of Second Life by individuals as well as companies such as ABN-AMRO, Philips and institutions such as Harvard is surprising.

What is the secret of the success of Second Life? We don't know! But in comparison to other platforms for immersive worlds, including MMORPGs such as World of Warcraft and Everquest, Second Life seems to offer an optimal combination of avatar modification options, gesture animations, in-game construction tools, and facilities for communication and social networking, such as chatting and instant messaging. Cf. [Utz]. Incorporating elements of community formation, commonly denoted as Web 2.0, and exemplified in MySpace, YouTube and Flickr, the immersive appearance, perhaps also the built-in physics and the inclusion of elementary economic principles, seem to be the prime distinguishing factors responsible for the success of Second Life. In addition, the possibility of recording collaborative enacted stories, [Stories], using built-in machinima certainly also contributes to its appeal.

What has been characterized as a shift of culture, from a media consumer culture to a participatory culture, [Participatory], where users also actively contribute content, is for our institution one of the decisive reasons to create a presence in Second Life, to build a virtual platform that may embody our so-called community of learners, where both staff and students cooperate in contributing content, content related to our sciences, that is.

initial target(s)

build initial (throwaway) prototype
explore content creation technology
create tutorial(s) for content contribution
analyse technological requirements

...

Fig 1. VU Campus -- outside view

...

Fig 2. VU Campus -- inside view

The first idea that comes to mind, naturally, is to use Second Life to offer courses online. But, although we do have plans to give lectures (college) on law, probably including the enactment of a particular case, we do consider this approach as rather naive, and frankly we see no reason to include what may be considered an outdated paradigm of learning in our virtual campus, where there might be more appealing alternatives. Similarly, using the virtual laboratory for experiments might not be the best way to offer courses, although, again, we do intend to provide a model of a living cell, allowing students to study the structure, functionality and behavior of organic cells in virtual space.

active learning

experiencing the world in new ways
forming new affiliations
preparation for future learning

critical learning

think about the domain at a meta-level as a complex system of inter-related parts

situated cognition in semiotic domains

Is decision-making in a virtual environment the same as or similar to decision-making in the real world? And what about investments, and starting a new company? The Second Life economy, powered by Linden dollars and governed by the Lindex-exchange, provides an interesting platform to study decision-making behaviors, for example with a group of students in a course about decision-support systems.

Taking, however, a more critical look at Second Life as a platform for serious games, it might appear to be lacking in a number of respects, including (not the least important) security, programmability and robustness. As the failure of many of the early CSCW (Computer Supported Cooperative Work) applications indicates, cf. [CSCW], to provide adequate support for collaboration is not easy, since a manifold of issues have to be resolved, such as turn-taking, gaze detection, etcetera. And in addition, for tasks that require strict timing, such as musical improvisation, [Jamming], synchronization and time-lag have to be taken into account.

At this stage, though, it might well be the level of adoption that is decisive in the choice of Second Life as a platform for serious corporate games!

game engine

rendering system -- 2D/3D graphics
input system -- user interaction
sound system -- ambient and re-active
physics system -- for the blockbusters
animation system -- motion of objects and characters
artificial intelligence system -- for real challenge(s)

comparative overview

	BlC	AW	$%D$3D$	HL2	SL
in-game building	-	+	+/-	-	++
avatar manipulation	+	++	+/-	+	++
artifical intelligence	+	-	+/-	+	-
server-side scripts	+	-	+/-	+	++
client-side scripts	++	-	+/-	+	-
extensibility	+	-	++	+	+/-
open source	-	-	++	-	+/-
open standards	-	-	+/-	-	+/-
interaction	+/-	+/-	++	++	+/-
graphics quality	+/-	+/-	++	++	+
built-in physics	-	-	+	++	+
object collision	-	-	++	++	+
content tool support	+/-	-	++	+	-

simple script


  default {
    state_entry() {
    llSetText("Do you want to learn scripts?",
              <255,255,255>,5); 
    }
  }

teleport(s)


  vector target= <162,134,27>; // coordinates 
  default { 
  state_entry() { 
     llSetText("Info @ VU",<255,255,255>,5); 
     llSetSitText("teleport"); 
     rotation my_rot=llGetRot(); 
     llSitTarget((target - llGetPos()) /
          my_rot,ZERO_ROTATION / my_rot); 
     } 
  
  changed(integer change) { 
     llUnSit(llAvatarOnSitTarget()); 
     } 
  } // end default

success factors (1/2)

convergence of social networking and content creation
immersive networked 3D environment
inclusion of elementary economic principles

success factors (2/2)

don't miss the boat effect
free and easy accessible 3D design tool set
adoption by big companies like IBM, Reebok, ...
marketing of Second Life by Linden Lab (?)
the promise to make (real) money (?)

reference model

rules -- construct and communicate!
outcome -- a second world
value -- virtual and real (monetary) rewards
effort -- requires elementary skills
attachment -- a virtual identity
consequences -- transfer to first life

...

Fig 3. VU @ SL -- visitors outside

...

Fig 4. VU @ SL -- visitors inside

virtual economy

... the internal economy was predicated on the notion that designers could produce in-game objects that they could then sell. these objects would ostensibly be scarce (in the economic sense) because the designer could put limits on how many copies s/he would sell, and because -- in principle -- other residents couldn't make copies except by tedious efforts to reproduce a design by hand. Although the only "raw material" involved in the creation of Second Life goods is the memory & storage space needed on the SL server, the capability to design desirable objects serves as a market-generating form of scarcity. No matter that everyone can have the capability to make limitless numbers of in-game objects -- unless you can design something that other people want, you're just making digital junk.

In this paper we have reported on our experiences in building a virtual campus, giving our university presence in Second Life, and we have delineated the prospects of Second Life as a platform for education and research, embodying our university's credo: to be a community of learners. After enjoying our 15 minutes of fame, however, we need to reflect on what technical requirements must be met to deploy Second Life effectively as a platform for education and research, and, perhaps more importantly, what paradigm of learning to adopt to have real benefit of the potential of Second Life.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENT(S)

We thank the students involved, Viola van Alphen (FEWEB), Tom Bestebreurtje (FEW), Elbert-Jan Hennipman (FEW), and last but not least Bjorn de Boer (FSW), for their enthusiasm, creativity, and of course their hard work which led to an amazing result.

[Cyberspace] Anders P. (1999),: Envisioning Cyberspace -- Designing 3D Electronic Spaces, McGraw-Hill
[Query] Ballegooij A. van and Eliens A. (2001),: Navigation by Query in Virtual Worlds, In: Proc. Web3D 2001 Conference, Paderborn, Germany, 19-22 Feb 2001
[Remediation] Bolter J.D and Grusin R. (2000),: Remediation -- Understanding New Media, MIT Press
[CSCW] Churchill E.F., Snowdon D.N. and Munro A.J., eds,: (2001). Collaborative Virtual Environments -- Digital Places and Spaces for Interaction, Springer
[Stories] Davenport G.(2000),: Your own virtual story world, Scientific American, november 2000, pp. 61-64
[Jamming] Eliens A., Welie M., van Ossenbruggen J.,: Schonhage S.P.C (1997). Jamming (on) the Web, In: Proc. of the 6th Int. World Wide Web Conference --- Everone, Everything Connected, O\'Reilly and Associates, Inc. April 1997, pp. 419-426
[OO] Eliens A. (2000),: Principles of Object-Oriented Software Development, Addison-Wesley Longman, 2nd edn.
[Platform] Eliens A., Huang Z., and Visser C. (2002),: A platform for Embodied Conversational Agents based on Distributed Logic Programming, In: Proc. AAMAS 02 Workshop -- Embodied conversational agents - let\'s specify and evaluate them!, Bologna 17/7/2002
[TIDSE] Eliens A., Dormann C., Huang Z. and Visser C. (2003),: A framework for mixed media -- emotive dialogs, rich media and virtual environments, In: Proc. TIDSE03, 1st Int. Conf. on Technologies for Interactive Digital Storytelling and Entertainment, Göobel S. Braun N.,n Spierling U., Dechau J. and Diener H. (eds>), Fraunhofer IRB Verlag, Darmstadt Germany, March 24-26, 2003
[ECA] Eliens A., Huang Z., Hoorn J.F. and Visser C.T. (2006),: ECA Perspectives - Requirements, Applications, Technology, In: Z. Ruttkay, E. Andre, W.L. Johnson and C. Pelachaud (eds), Evaluating Embodied Conversational Agents, Dagstuhl Seminar Proceedings (04121)
[VULife] Eliens A. and S.V. Bhikharie (2006),: Game @ VU -- developing a masterclass for high-school students using the Half-life 2 SDK, In: Proc. GAME'ON-NA'2006, Sept. 19-21, 2006 - Naval Postgraduate School, Monterey, USA
[Dossier] Eliens A., Wang Y., van Riel C., Scholte T. (2007),: 3D Digital Dossiers -- a new way to present cultural heritage on the web, accepted for the Int. Web3D Symposium 07, 15-18 april 2007, Perugia, Italy
[Serious] Eliens A. and Chang T. (2007),: Let's be serious -- ICT is not a (simple) game, accepted for FUBUTEC 2007, April 2007, Delft
[VideoGame] Gee J.P. (2003),: What video games have to teach us about learning and literacy, Palgrave Macmillan
[VirtualArt] Grau O. (2003),: Virtual Art -- From Illusion to Immersion, The MIT Press
[Reality] Hoorn J.F., Konijn E.A., Van der Veer G.C. (2003),: Virtual reality: Do not augment realism, augment relevance , In: Human-Computer Interaction: Overcoming Barriers, 4:1, pp. 18-26
[AWC] Hoorn J., Eliens A., Huang Z., van Vugt H.C., Konijn,: E.A., Visser C.T. (2004). Agents with character: Evaluation of empathic agents in digital dossiers, Emphatic Agents, AAMAS 2004 New York 19 July - 23 July, 2004
[Participatory] Jenkins H. (2006),: Confronting the Challenges of Participatory Culture: Media Education for the 21th Century, White Paper, MIT MediaLab
[HalfReal] Juul J. (2005),: Half Real -- Video Games between Real Rules and Fictional Worlds, MIT Press
[KonijnA] Konijn, E.A. and Bushman, B.J. (2007),: World leaders as movie characters? Perceptions of G. W. Bush, T. Blair, O. Bin Laden, and S. Hussein at the eve of Gulf War II, , Media Psychology, 9 (1), pp. 157-177
[KonijnC] Konijn E.A. and Nije Bijvank M. (2007),: How to become a tough guy? Identity construction through video game play, In: Annenberg Workshop on Games for Learning, Development ∓ Change, Los Angeles, CA, USA
[KonijnB] Konijn, E.A. and Van Vugt, H.C. (2007),: Emotions in Mediated Interpersonal Communication: Toward modeling emotion in virtual humans, In: Mediated Interpersonal Communicationa, Konijn, E. A., Tanis, M., Utz, S., Barnes, S. (eds.), Mahwah, NJ.: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates
[Semiotics] Kress G. and Van Leeuwen T. (1996),: Reading Images: The Grammar of Visual Design, Routledge
[SecondLife] Rymaszewski M., Au W.J., Wallace M., Winters C.,: Ondrejka C., Batstone-Cunningham B. (2007). Second Life -- the official guide, Wiley
[Context] Rutledge L., van Ballegooij A., Eliens A. (2000),: Virtual Context - relating paintings to their subject, Culture Track of WWW9 in Amsterdam, The Netherlands, May 16th, 2000
[Ultimate] Sherrod A. (2006),: Ultimate Game Programming with DirectX, Charles River Media
[Utz] Utz S. (2003),: Social identification and interpersonal attraction in MUDs, Swiss Journal of Psychology, 62, 91-101.
[Playing] Vorderer, P. and Bryant, J. (eds.). (2006),: Playing computer games - Motives, responses, and consequences, Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associate Playing Video Games,
[PEFIC] Van Vugt, H.C., Konijn, E.A., Hoorn, J.F., Keur, I.,: Eliens, A. (2006). Realism is not all! User Engagement with Task-Related Interface Characters, Interacting with Computers, 2006
[Vugt] Van Vugt, H. C., Hoorn, J. F., Konijn, E. A.,: de Bie Dimitriadou, A. (2006). Affective affordances: Improving interface character engagement through Interaction, International Journal of Human-Computer Studies, 64 (9), 874--888
[Panorama] Vyas D., van de Watering M., Eliens A.,: van der Veer G. (2007), Engineering Social Awareness in Work Environments, accepted for HCI International 2007, 22-27 July, Beijing, China
[Social] Vyas D. van de Watering M., Eliens A.,: van der Veer G. (2007b), Being Social @ Work: Designing for Playfully Mediated Social Awareness in Work, accepted for HOIT 2007, Chennai, India in August 2007
[DeepTime] Zielinski S. (2006),: Deep Time of the Media -- Towards an archaeology of Hearing and Seeing by Technical Means, The MIT Press

-->

Æliens

2009

VU @ Second Life -- creating a community of learners

...

...

document.write(' <a href=');if (!slidemode) { document.write('@slide-'); } else { document.write('@tmp-paper-secondlife.html#slide-'); } document.write('sl-edu-1'); if (!slidemode) document.write('.html');document.write('>');

document.write(' <a href=');if (!slidemode) { document.write('@slide-'); } else { document.write('@tmp-paper-secondlife.html#slide-'); } document.write('sl-edu-meta'); if (!slidemode) document.write('.html');document.write('>');

document.write(' <a href=');if (!slidemode) { document.write('@slide-'); } else { document.write('@tmp-paper-secondlife.html#slide-'); } document.write('p-secondlife-engine'); if (!slidemode) document.write('.html');document.write('>');

document.write(' <a href=');if (!slidemode) { document.write('@slide-'); } else { document.write('@tmp-paper-secondlife.html#slide-'); } document.write('secondlife-table'); if (!slidemode) document.write('.html');document.write('>');

document.write(' <a href=');if (!slidemode) { document.write('@slide-'); } else { document.write('@tmp-paper-secondlife.html#slide-'); } document.write('secondlife-simple-scr'); if (!slidemode) document.write('.html');document.write('>');

document.write(' <a href=');if (!slidemode) { document.write('@slide-'); } else { document.write('@tmp-paper-secondlife.html#slide-'); } document.write('-images-logo-0'); if (!slidemode) document.write('.html');document.write('>');

document.write(' <a href=');if (!slidemode) { document.write('@slide-'); } else { document.write('@tmp-paper-secondlife.html#slide-'); } document.write('secondlife-builtin'); if (!slidemode) document.write('.html');document.write('>');

document.write(' <a href=');if (!slidemode) { document.write('@slide-'); } else { document.write('@tmp-paper-secondlife.html#slide-'); } document.write('secondlife-wiki'); if (!slidemode) document.write('.html');document.write('>');

document.write(' <a href=');if (!slidemode) { document.write('@slide-'); } else { document.write('@tmp-paper-secondlife.html#slide-'); } document.write('secondlife-resources'); if (!slidemode) document.write('.html');document.write('>');

document.write(' <a href=');if (!slidemode) { document.write('@slide-'); } else { document.write('@tmp-paper-secondlife.html#slide-'); } document.write('secondlife-slurs'); if (!slidemode) document.write('.html');document.write('>');

document.write(' <a href=');if (!slidemode) { document.write('@slide-'); } else { document.write('@tmp-paper-secondlife.html#slide-'); } document.write('secondlife-succ-1'); if (!slidemode) document.write('.html');document.write('>');

document.write(' <a href=');if (!slidemode) { document.write('@slide-'); } else { document.write('@tmp-paper-secondlife.html#slide-'); } document.write('secondlife-succ-2'); if (!slidemode) document.write('.html');document.write('>');

document.write(' <a href=');if (!slidemode) { document.write('@slide-'); } else { document.write('@tmp-paper-secondlife.html#slide-'); } document.write('secondlife-crit'); if (!slidemode) document.write('.html');document.write('>');

...

...

document.write(' <a href=');if (!slidemode) { document.write('@slide-'); } else { document.write('@tmp-paper-secondlife.html#slide-'); } document.write('secondlife-future'); if (!slidemode) document.write('.html');document.write('>');

document.write(' <a href=');if (!slidemode) { document.write('@slide-'); } else { document.write('@tmp-paper-secondlife.html#slide-'); } document.write('secondlife-developme'); if (!slidemode) document.write('.html');document.write('>');

ACKNOWLEDGEMENT(S)