{"id":355,"date":"2012-08-08T13:15:49","date_gmt":"2012-08-08T12:15:49","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.silversprite.com\/?page_id=355"},"modified":"2017-04-17T11:08:35","modified_gmt":"2017-04-17T11:08:35","slug":"snapshot-1-july-2007","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/www.silversprite.com\/?page_id=355","title":{"rendered":"Snapshot 1: July 2007"},"content":{"rendered":"

A July 2007 \u201csnapshot\u201d of UK Higher and Further Education Developments in Second Life.<\/strong><\/p>\n

This report shows that a growing number of UK academic institutions, departments and groups are at different stages of Second Life (SL) development. It is, perhaps, presumptuous to conclude that UK Higher Education has reached a \u201ctipping point\u201d in terms of using and developing facilities in SL. However, there has been a considerable increase in activity between March and July 2007, marked by the beginning and end of this survey. The appendix lists over 40 UK Universities and Colleges that have a building, land or island on the grid, many appearing in the last few weeks and not yet open for public visiting while they are being developed.<\/p>\n

While some institutions are openly and actively developing in SL, others are doing so less publicly, and others still are either watching developments before making a decision, or being slowed down by institutional bureaucracy. Support services for Higher and Further Education are noting a high level of consideration:<\/p>\n

\u201cThere’s been a lot of interest in SL within the colleges in our region recently and we’ve received quite a few requests for information on the subject.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Several institutions are interested in SL from the income stream perspectives of marketing (future students) and alumni (previous students):<\/p>\n

\u201cThere has been quite a burgeoning of interest in SL across the university, and our Alumni Office is getting very interested. Their aspirations are, of course, quite different from ours.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThe island was to include promotional information on the college, the University of Greenwich and our HE computing courses.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

It will be interesting to observe how these different perspectives \u2013 marketing, teaching and learning \u2013 drive institutions\u2019 developments on the grid.<\/p>\n

One point that came through very strongly in this survey was that many academics are developing in SL with a view to providing facilities for the 2007-2008 academic year:<\/p>\n

\u201cWe are not officially open yet but plan to be in October 2007 and that’s when we will start teaching.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cTeaching with students is planned for later this year.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cMy aim is to launch four large courses in September.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

The end of the 2007-08 academic year, therefore, should provide an opportunity to take stock of these developments and discover how widespread and \u201cmature\u201d they are. At that point, there should be sufficient qualitative and quantitative data to provide a more considered analysis of the effectiveness or usefulness of SL in the provision of learning services within UK education.<\/p>\n

Snapshot 1: July 2007<\/a> (221Kb PDF document)<\/p>\n

This report was one of the deliverables of the Virtual World Watch<\/a> project and service.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A July 2007 \u201csnapshot\u201d of UK Higher and Further Education Developments in Second Life. This report shows that a growing number of UK academic institutions, departments and groups are at different stages of Second Life (SL) development. It is, perhaps, presumptuous to conclude that UK Higher Education has reached a \u201ctipping point\u201d in terms of using and developing facilities in […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"parent":353,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-355","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.silversprite.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/355","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.silversprite.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.silversprite.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.silversprite.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.silversprite.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=355"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.silversprite.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/355\/revisions"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.silversprite.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/353"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.silversprite.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=355"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}