You people with this line of argument *are* aware of this, aren't you?
http://blog.secondlife.com/2008/07/08/ibm-linden-lab-interoperability-announcement/
http://secondlife.reuters.com/stories/2008/07/11/interview-linden-prepares-for-an-opensim-future/
enjoy!
~f
> I agree. It would be a great loss if educational virtual worlds were all kept
> apart. There is a lot to be gained for staff and students to visit each
> others creations, or to attend joint seminars/events; and many tutors who
> develop resources or environments for their own students on a particular
> course would be happy for other people to use them at other times. Open
> virtual worlds give an opportunity for the academic community to work as a
> community, something a bit different from usual, and possibly a benefit?
>
> Andrew
>
>
> Dr Andrew Rothery
> Head of E-Learning Innovation
> Information and Learning Services
> University of Worcester
>
> ________________________________
>
> From: For anyone working in education with an interest in virtual worlds on
> behalf of Andy Powell
> Sent: Fri 29/08/2008 15:13
> To: [log in to unmask]
> Subject: Re: [VIRTUALWORLDS] OpenSim hosting for academics
>
>
>
> I was going to make a similar point... that it is the (social) network
> effects of working within a global environment that we stand to lose by
> building closed (or semi-open) virtual world intranets. My suspicion is
> that there is a loss even in the kinds of scenario you describe, even if
> it is only in the sense of students having a larger audience with which
> they can show/discuss work.
>
> But I understand the arguments for more closed environments -
> particularly concerning the age issue - and in any case I'm very
> strongly in favour of more experimentation with things like OpenSim
> because the advantages of developing a viable open-source alternative to
> SL are self-evident.
>
> In my brief talk at Virtual Policy 08 I tried to draw an analogy with
> what has tended to happen in the schools sector where we have somewhat
> competing government agendas around schools playing a greater role in
> their local communities (which one might assume to mean becoming more
> 'open' to those communities) vs. the health and safety drive to
> literally wall themselves off from the outside world (fences, gates,
> etc.). However, I accept that for various reasons it's not a perfect
> analogy by a long way.
>
> http://efoundations.typepad.com/efoundations/2008/07/education-panel.htm
> l
>
> On the cost issue I think that the Web 2.0 environment tends to
> encourage us towards assuming that everything can be free (though this
> does not apply to SL of course). But long term sustainability is also
> important. If we make the assumption that there is no viable long-term
> advertsing-based business model for hosting virtual worlds (is this a
> valid assumption?) then at some point institutions will either have to
> bring the costs in-house (by doing their own hosting) or pay a
> sustainable rate for external hosting by a third-party. (I'm making a
> second assumption here that any central funding will only be for a fixed
> term... but I don't think that is unreasonable). Again, I can see that
> there are arguments in favour of "centrally-funded, free to institutions
> at point of use" kinds of solutions, but there are also downsides in
> terms of skewing what would otherwise be an open market and in terms of
> assessing real cost/value.
>
> Andy
> --
> Head of Development, Eduserv Foundation
> http://www.eduserv.org.uk/foundation/
> http://efoundations.typepad.com/
> [log in to unmask]
> +44 (0)1225 474319
>
>
>> -----Original Message-----
>> From: For anyone working in education with an interest in
>> virtual worlds [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On
>> Behalf Of J Ross Nicoll
>> Sent: 29 August 2008 12:26
>> To: [log in to unmask]
>> Subject: Re: [VIRTUALWORLDS] OpenSim hosting for academics
>>
>> Which if fascinating, actually; we see Second Life primarily
>> as a way of doing things that would not be cost
>> effective/feasible in the real world, for example a
>> recreation of an archeological dig site, or a simulation of
>> wireless network traffic. We do this in the relatively
>> controlled environment of our own island.
>>
>> Second Life from a social aspect isn't so much what we've
>> been looking at, and... well, if that's what you're using it
>> for, I have to admit I don't think we'll be in a position to
>> help any time soon (the next year or so, anyway). As OGP
>> progresses and grid-hopping becomes simpler and more
>> powerful, it might make sense for student's "home"
>> grid to be non-SL, but that's off beyond the timescale we're
>> dealing with initially (which is my way of saying I haven't a
>> clue when it will happen).
>>
>> On 29 Aug 2008, at 12:13, jeremy hunsinger wrote:
>>
>>
>>> well, the main counter-argument is a wee-bit understated, it isn't
>>> just the content, it is the cultures, peoples, architectures, etc.
>>> etc. second life is immensely rich. opensim is hugely poor, and
>>> likely to be seen much like activeworlds by students, which
>>>
>> is what i
>>
>>> tend to tell people to use if they want a private world. it is
>>> stable, it has been around a very long time, and at least students
>>> find it quaint and tend not to find it to be a creepy
>>>
>> treehouse, which
>>
>>> is what i suspect students feel about sl, if they aren't allowed to
>>> join and actively participate in its communities and
>>>
>> cultures as part
>>
>>> of class.
>>> On Aug 29, 2008, at 6:13 AM, J Ross Nicoll wrote:
>>>
>>>
>>>> The main counter arguments I'm aware of are that you lose
>>>>
>> the giant
>>
>>>> library of pre-existing content in Second Life. On the other hand,
>>>> I'm not sure about other universities but most of our core
>>>>
>> content is
>>
>>>> developed locally, and one of our core goals is that everything be
>>>> copiable, so you'll have a small but entirely free library of
>>>> textures, scripts etc. to use. Depending on timescales, it
>>>>
>> may even
>>
>>>> be that the Open Grid Protocol is far enough along by the
>>>>
>> time we go
>>
>>>> live, that you can pick up your own items in SL, teleport to our
>>>> grid, and drop it (the teleport works right now, from the SL beta
>>>> grid anyway, but inventory doesn't).
>>>>
>>>>
>>> Jeremy Hunsinger
>>> Center for Digital Discourse and Culture Virginia Tech Information
>>> Ethics Fellow Center for Information Policy Research
>>>
>>>
>>> Computers are useless. They can only give you answers.
>>> --Pablo Picasso
>>>
>>> Access the list, archives and filestore via the web on
>>> http://www.jiscmail.ac.uk/VIRTUALWORLDS
>>>
>> The University of St Andrews is a charity registered in Scotland : No
>> SC013532
>>
>> Access the list, archives and filestore via the web on
>> http://www.jiscmail.ac.uk/VIRTUALWORLDS
>>
>>
>
> Access the list, archives and filestore via the web on
> http://www.jiscmail.ac.uk/VIRTUALWORLDS
>
>
>
> Access the list, archives and filestore via the web on http://www.jiscmail.ac.uk/VIRTUALWORLDS
> Email has been scanned for viruses by Altman Technologies' email management service - www.altman.co.uk/emailsystems
> .
>
>
--
\o/ Don't fight back. Fight forward \o/
\o/ What I'm thinking outside of isn't even a box \o/
Ferdinand Francino aka Gwynn Gunawan
Project Manager CU There
GCU Second Life (Web 3.D) Presence
http://www.caledonian.ac.uk/cuthere
Glasgow Caledonian University is a registered Scottish charity, number SC021474
Access the list, archives and filestore via the web on http://www.jiscmail.ac.uk/VIRTUALWORLDS
|