ACRL-VWIG Program November 2, 2014

A Conversation to Suggest Improvements to Second Life
Supportive of Librarians & Educators

Notes from the November 2, 2014 ACRL-VWIG Program

"Everybody lives in virtual worlds...whether or not they have an avatar!" -Valibrarian Gregg


A large group of Second Life librarians and educators met to hold a conversation about our role in Second Life and how Linden Labs could support us in carrying it out.  This came after Ebbe Altberg, CEO of Linden Lab's, asked for ideas and suggestions for improving Second Life now and, in the future as it continues to evolve into the new Linden Labs virtual world.

What Second Life Currently Offers Librarians & Educators

The conversation began with a review of some of the benefits to be had by being involved in Second Life.

-Second Life allows us to be involved & connected to the community of librarians and educators. We have developed a "purposeful community" where we can meet and talk about things we do in our jobs.  It provides a space where we can keep in touch and exchange ideas with one another.

-There is a genuine sense of presence in Second Life and none of the "disposable media" syndrome as happens with Twitter and other post/tweet technologies. The spaces and objects we create in Second Life are persistent and ongoing, and can be built upon and used by others long after they have been created.

-Second Life is a great place for networking and doing professional development. 

-Second Life gives us the ability to recreate and experience events, to actualize history, to experience events in science, architecture and literature.

-It provides a place where real life events can be modeled cost effectively and safely.  It is a space where one can provide training that would be expensive and difficult, if not impossible to do in real life, such as training rescue workers/nurses, disaster preparedness.

-While there are other virtual worlds, Second Life remains the "gold standard".  It continues to function as the place where librarians and educators active in virtual worlds meet to share information and ideas on how to utilize this medium for teaching and learning.  It has become an extension of our profession.

What Librarians & Educators Bring to Second Life

While Librarians & Educators make up such a small proportion of Second Life users and can't negotiate with Linden Labs from a position of strength, we do have skills and experiences that might help them in their goal to gain and retain new users.  This makes us a valuable asset.

-We are here.  We were some of the earliest adopters of virtual worlds.  Our longevity and trustworthy presence has contributed to making people come into Second Life and encouraged them to keep coming back.  Our presence helps with retention.  We are familiar with working in an ever changing environment where there is a flood of new information.  What's more, we bring specific skills and knowledge that would help us to mentor and train new users in navigating this world.

-Our involvement in education and non-profit projects in Second Life has generated much (if not ALL) of the positive press Linden Lab's has gotten.  Our involvement  helped bring in new users who were curious to see what all the fuss was about and it helps with retention.

-Many of us are major content creators, this adds value to Second Life and helps with Linden Lab's bottom line of making it a profitable business venture.

 

Some Librarian/Educator Success Stories

The Community Virtual Libraries 

Virtual Berlin in the 1920's

Virtual Pioneers

The Builders Brewery

Virtual Ability

Second Life has been a tremendously active forum for Librarians and educators. From hosting live events and speakers, to hosting meetings, conferences and exhibits, almost all of these projects have been successful without much, if any, support from Linden Labs.  One wonders what could have been achieved if Linden Lab's offered even the barest support such as publicizing events at the log-in splash screen or by making more of an effort to discover and list events in the Second Life schedule of events.

Obvious Suggestions for Improvement

The group echoed suggestions that nearly every other group has put forward to Linden Labs

1) Bring back the education discount.  (Ebbe implied this was going to happen at a previous public meeting, but it needs to be publicized more widely, and it needs to be done.)  What's more Linden Lab's should take into consideration the academic funding cycle and work with librarians and educators instead of acting as if they are just like every other user.

2) Make the Second Life viewer/interface simpler to use and easier for I.T. departments to support.

3) Reduce lag.

4) Improve group/voice chat.  (It mostly doesn't work for nearly everyone.)

5) Allow more avatars on a sim at one time.

6) Allow more prims to be used in each sim.

7) Provide better, new-user orientation experience.

8) Provide an easier way to document/track conversations over time.

9) Provide a good way for residents to communicate in-world when they are not logged-in.

10) Increase or do away with the caps on instant messages when an avatar is not logged in to Second Life.

11) Improve the information sharing and management tools.

12) Provide a better, more interactive search tool for residents within Second Life.

13) Provide a way for residents to track all their objects grid-wide.

14) Consider providing a "basic simplified viewer" for new users with options to incrementally move to hardier versions as they become familiar with more basic features.

15) Clarify creators rights in the Terms of Service. (Again, this was something Ebbe has said would happen at other public forums.  It hasn't happened yet.)  Intellectual property rights are a make-it  or break-it consideration for academic institutions/educators who are considering teaching or doing research in Second Life.  Clarification of creators rights would reduce anxiety about this and, in the long run, increase participation by teaching faculty and researchers.  

16) Make it possible to transport all previously created content to future incarnations of Second Life.

17) Advertise the educational events and aspects of Second Life, not just the social aspects.

18) Hire a librarian to help with information literacy issues and to help improve search features and the way information can be organized, managed and relayed from within Second Life.

19) Recognize that there are lots of people who use Second Life for teaching and learning and help create an environment that supports that.