Student Blog: Applying This To Your Institution (Phil Long)

Created by Jim Thomas (North Carolina State University) on March 28, 2007

Again, I lost my notes on this session.

Phil Long of MIT describes his experience creating the MIT island in Second Life.

They started out looking at several other technologies, but the massive growth of SL made it an obvious choice. The motivation was to introduce incoming freshmen to the MIT dorms. There was a web site that showed the external characteristics of each dorm - size, appearance, but this did not capture the enormous cultural differences. Apparently, for the past several decades, the bright folks in MIT have used the first two weeks for the freshman to move around until they decide which dorm to move to permanently.

So, SL would be ideal. In fact, not only did current students express interest, but so did alumni.

Because I lost my notes, I found this web link for you:
http://confab.mit.edu/confluence/display/SL/Second+LIfe+at+MIT+Home;jses...

The key thing is that there were big hurdles with two different aspects of the Univerisity's legal exposure in buying an island in SL just for MIT.

First, "indemnification". MIT does not want to be responsible for all content students might put up on SL. This was solved by having a third party (in this case, NMC) host the the island on behalf of MIT.

Second, branding. There is hesitation to tarnish the MIT brand with public display of all that goes on in dorms. This was solved with some carefully worded disclaimers, and policy publication. A good start for creating SL policy in house is to take your web/Internet policy statements and do a global/search replace of "web" to "Second Life".

Right now, they are two weeks in to a contest for each dorm to establish a presence on SL. They were able to find $100K to offer as a prize. Awesome!

jt

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		Student Blog: Applying This To Your Institution (Phil Long) Created by Jim Thomas (North Carolina State University) on March 28, 2007 Again, I lost my notes on this session. Phil Long of MIT describes his experience creating the MIT island in Second Life. They started out looking at several other technologies, but the massive growth of SL made it an obvious choice. The motivation was to introduce incoming freshmen to the MIT dorms. There was a web site that showed the external characteristics of each dorm - size, appearance, but this did not capture the enormous cultural differences. Apparently, for the past several decades, the bright folks in MIT have used the first two weeks for the freshman to move around until they decide which dorm to move to permanently. So, SL would be ideal. In fact, not only did current students express interest, but so did alumni. Because I lost my notes, I found this web link for you: http://confab.mit.edu/confluence/display/SL/Second+LIfe+at+MIT+Home;jses... The key thing is that there were big hurdles with two different aspects of the Univerisity's legal exposure in buying an island in SL just for MIT. First, "indemnification". MIT does not want to be responsible for all content students might put up on SL. This was solved by having a third party (in this case, NMC) host the the island on behalf of MIT. Second, branding. There is hesitation to tarnish the MIT brand with public display of all that goes on in dorms. This was solved with some carefully worded disclaimers, and policy publication. A good start for creating SL policy in house is to take your web/Internet policy statements and do a global/search replace of "web" to "Second Life". Right now, they are two weeks in to a contest for each dorm to establish a presence on SL. They were able to find $100K to offer as a prize. Awesome! jt Conference Coverage \| ELI_07_SpringFocusSession \| immersive learning environments and simulations Jim's blog Login or register to post comments 2632 reads
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