Beyond second life_acrl_final version

Association of College Research Libraries

December 18, 2011

Joe Floyd & Ilene FrankUniversity of South Florida Library

Beyond Second Life: New Immersive Worlds for

Educators and Librarians

Virtual Worlds – Number of Users – Quarter 2 2011 – 1.400 billion by age range

Second Life: A popular option for educators and librarians

Info Island - Libraries

Virtual world developed by Linden Lab. Has its own currency, the Linden dollar.

$1 usd=$251 linden dollars.No membership fees. Full region $295 a month. ($1000 setup) Homestead region $125 a month. ($375 setup)Users may also rent, share or use public

spaces at lower or no cost.32,035 regions (November 2011)26.1 million registered users (May 2011)

Second Life: Some Basic Information

Costs of “land” went up with educational discounts ending

Linden Lab downgraded the attention given educators

Some were simply interested in trying out different options where they felt more in control

Some liked the idea of the “walled garden” where they had more control over where students went and whom they might meet

So what about other options?

Why have some educators and librarians left Second Life?

OpenSim

Microsoft Conference Center, ReactionGrid

Allows users to run a virtual world on their own PC/Server.

Can be run as a stand-alone or as a collaborative world like Second Life

 Better security…can be run behind a school’s firewall

Portability-can run world on a USB stickFaster-no limitation based on speed of your

internet connection since the world can be run locally.

Advantages of OpenSim

Jokadia : OpenSim Grid

The Islands of jokaydia is a virtual worlds community of practice facilitated by Jokay Wollongong.

Jokaydia residents explore the use of virtual worlds and games for education, arts and social change.

$25 with a $50 setup fee on the education-focused JokaydiaGrid. Underlying infrastructure is handled by ReactionGrid. No currency.

91 regions 1832 registered users (November 2011).

Jokaydia

InWorldz

Largest growing OpenSim. Two types of land available: private isles and mainland regions. You may also rent parcels from InWorldz land owners.

Mainland region: $60 a month with $60 setup fee for a 30K prim region.

Private isle region: $75 a month with $75 setup fee for a 45K prim region

846 regions with 47,232 total users. (November 2011).

InWorldz

ReactionGrid

A virtual world for education, collaboration, and learning. ReactionGrid has a formal partnership with Microsoft.

Educational discount built in. $75 per month with $220 setup fee, for 4

regions 76 regions 9921 total users.“Best for: hanging out with teachers”

ReactionGrid

Franco Grid

Bibliotheque A library /exhibit on the history of information

French free community grid 390 regions3722 users

“Best Hypergrid for hanging out with French people”

Free to users, landowners pay membership fees

Franco Grid

Dreamland Metaverse: regions start at $30 a month for 12K prim region, no setup fee, either on OS Grid or as a separate world. Reputation for reliability. Customers include Fortune 500 companies. Includes voice, groups, search, offline messages and hypergrid access.

SimHost: regions start at $150 per month for a mini-grid. $99 setup fee. Reputation for high-end custom development work.

Even More Hosting Providers

Kitley

The easiest user interface of any hosting provider, Kitely allows any Facebook user to create, load, and enter an OpenSim world in less than 2 minutes. Once you've set up your virtual world, log in via Facebook and choose which Facebook friends can visit. Supports up to 100 concurrent visitors per region.

Virtual world stored is stored in your account . Costs 10 cents a month for 100K prims

Costs for users visiting one of your virtual worlds .20 cents per hour.

No setup fees

1327 regions 1,832 registered users (November 2011).

Kitley

Virtual World in a Browser: Jibe & Unity 3D

Jibe is the name of a virtual world running on the Unity 3D web browser, developed by ReactionGrid. Unity 3D is a professional game development platform used for creating 3D environments. Jibe allows anyone to deploy multi-user worlds built with Unity 3D.

HyperGate: Linking Virtual Worlds

How to Link Virtual Worlds? Use HyperGate to travel between virtual worlds

Even MORE Virtual Worlds

Croquet

Active Worlds

Open WONDERLAND

Immersive Education

If you create /purchase content on one virtual world, can you bring it with you to new worlds?

What about your avatar and your avatar’s name? Can you register for the same name in each virtual world? Will you need to have a number of avatars?

Multiple Virtual Worlds: Issues Librarians & Educators Should Consider

How will educators and librarians know what is happening on various virtual worlds?

Will educators and librarians still be able to collaborate as well if everyone’s using different virtual worlds?

More Questions to Consider

One avatar / many worlds: Becoming possible with importing/exporting capabilities

Create once/ experience everywhere: Exporting and importing content not yet automatic or easy, but becoming a possibility.

OAR (OpenSimulator Archive): Archive of resources shared by creators of works on OpenSim worlds

Some possible answers:

Hypergrid Business http://www.hypergridbusiness.com

iED immersive@googlegroups.com

jibe-and-unity3D@googlegroups.com

OpenSim Education List http://list.opensim-edu.org/listinfo.cgi/education-

opensim-edu.org

Finding more information

SLED

https://lists.secondlife.com/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/educators

Virtual Worlds Educause discussion list VW@listserv.educause.edu

VWE Virtual Worlds Association (Facebook) 3D Immersive Learning Quality (Facebook)

Finding even more information

More worlds listed at the Association of Virtual Worlds: http://www.associationofvirtualworlds.com/

There are many virtual worlds

Joe Floydjfloyd@usf.eduJoe Cupola in Second Life

Ilene Frankifrank@usf.eduIlene Pratt in Second Life

For Additional Information