All change for OUtopia

Interview by Cadence Mhia with Niall Sclater, Director of Learning Innovation at the Open University.

(Photograph © OU 2009. Used by permission.)

On the 16th December Niall Sclater gave a lecture on Open Life 2 as the avatar Kismet Zapatero (his PowerPoint slides are available at: http://www.flickr.com/photos/ouvirtualworlds/5271287278/in/photostream/.

During the lecture several things were said that have raised concerns with the residents of OUtopia. The purpose of this interview was to clarify these points and give the residents of OUtopia a clear understanding of what our situation is and the likely consequences in the coming months. Before I begin, let me put his comments into the context of the various Real Life financial threats to the OU (including reduced funding and increased costs) whose cumulative effects will affect not only Real Life OU but also Second Life OU.

Financial threats to OU
1. April 2010: Since the start of Second Life the educational SL islands have enjoyed half price rentals. In April 2010 it was announced that the prices of these islands would double “All education and non-profit private regions of any type, purchased after Dec. 31, 2010, will be invoiced at standard (i.e. non-discounted) pricing. All currently discounted renewals which occur after Dec. 31, 2010, will be adjusted to the new price at that time.” (see http://www.betterverse.org/2010/10/linden-lab-doubling-price-of-virtual-land-for-nonprofits-and-educators.html) Thus, the cost to the Open University for OUtopia and the OU ocean that connects OUtopia to the main OU islands will now be doubled.

2. 08/12/2010: The government issued the “Changes to higher education funding and student support from 2012/13” document which states that “It is expected that all core funding will be cut for lower cost arts and humanities courses and an equivalent amount will be cut from funding for higher cost courses including medicine, dentistry and lab-based courses. (See page 7, http://www.parliament.uk/briefingpapers/commons/lib/research/briefings/snsg-05753.pdf)

3. 08/12/2010: The OU was named in the Universities at Risk report published by the University and College Union. It is named as one of 49 universities who are at risk of struggling to survive the recently announced changes in higher education funding and so may face merger or closure. The report cited three categories of risk with the OU being classified as being ‘medium high’ risk (the lowest of the risk categories ) (See Y. Cook’s article dated 08/12/2010 at http://www.open.ac.uk/platform/news/ou-news/ou-named-ucu-universities-risk-report).

4. 20/12/2010: The Department for Business, Innovation and Skills is sending out a letter to English universities detailing budget allocations for 2011-12 (with cuts expected to be around 6% on last year's funding). This will not include:
· the expected teaching budget cuts of up to 80% (planned for 2012) that universities hope to replace with annual fees of up to £9,000,
· the axing of teaching grants for all subjects (except for subjects such as maths, science and maths) which is expected by 2014.
During the Spending Review period it is expected that the higher education budget will be reduced by 40%, or £2.9bn, from £7.1bn to £4.2bn by 2014-15. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-12019678

5. 20/12/2010: Universities minister David Willetts outlines the precise figures for 2011-12 in a written ministerial statement to Parliament. Critics warned that hundreds of jobs will go and dozens of courses will have to be slashed as the 6% cut announced today will be imposed from April 2011 – more than a year before universities start to get extra income from increased graduate tuition fees. The government wants to see in house payroll, property management and IT functions contracted out to the private sector. Shadow higher education spokesman Gareth Thomas said: ‘On the basis of conversations I have had with vice-chancellors, it is difficult to see how they could not cut courses and staff, so I am afraid student choice will suffer and the quality of their experience at university could be badly affected.’ (See article by Tim Shipman: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1339995/Universities-save-300m-2011--sparking-huge-losses-jobs-courses.html#ixzz18dqSrvay)

Interview with Niall Sclater
Q1. Does the university believe it is ‘at risk’ as stated in the recently published Universities at Risk report?
“The view of the senior management here is that the OU is not under threat of merger or closure. What is certain is that we are engaged in huge efforts across the institution to look at cost savings.”

Q2. When is the renewal of the OUtopia island?
“The invoice has just arrived and I will be paying it now. The lease is for a year so the island will definitely exist that long.”

Q3. Does the OU regard an island for socialisation as a permanent feature of their SL presence?
“We regard this as a fixed feature of the OU’s Second Life presence, if it can show it has enough users and it is self sustainable then it might eventually be more sustainable than the teaching and learning side.”

Q4. What do you envisage as the future of OUtopia?
“It will certainly be there until the end of July 2010 in its current form with its current level of support.
During the next few months we have got to decide whether we can justify its current level of support, the thing is costing us quite a lot from a support point of view. If the community can work out a way to sustain itself then it makes it much more viable. There may well be a future for the social community but the community has got to prove that it can run itself and it will not cost a lot of money. The cost per student is rather high (given how few students presently use it) so the bigger the community can grow the more it justifies itself. “

Q5. You mentioned in your lecture that the residents of OUtopia need to self organise – what do you mean by that and what would you like to see the residents do to enable OUtopia to become self sustainable?
“The residents need to raise their responsibility levels and get everyone organised. If things changed and OUtopia’s residents had a committee where you ran the place and you allocated responsibilities to people who were competent, and were enabled to make changes, then you could become self sustainable.

We need to look at a transition period from now to July 2011 during which the students move to control of the island including policing it. We need to ensure that any potential legal situations aising dealt with appropriately so the OU and the residents need to have appropriate mechanisms in place to deal with situations such as bullying.”

Q6. So an arbitrator whose role it is to resolve resident disputes would be appropriate then?
“Yes.”

Q7. Since the OU needs to monitor any situation that would cause them a legal liability or loss of prestige then would it make sense for it to be an OU member of staff who is both a member of OUtopia and one of the OU’s IT tutors ?
“It might well be but obviously we’d need to discuss with them whether they were prepared to take on that responsibility.”

Q8. We don’t have an ability to change and adapt the island – this ability would help develop a sense of ownership by the residents that is presently not there. Would it be possible for us to have more access to changing the island?
“You haven’t previously been given the power to make any changes but the present costs of making changes are unsustainable so it will need to be done by volunteers. We can potentially ask Ann and Greg over the next few months to train you up. ”

Q9. You are suggesting that we need to attract more students to the island. To do this it would be helpful to have access to the data on the present visitors to the island. We could use this data to find more support from bodies such as OUSA. Can we have access to that data?
“Yes, Greg has installed the person counter – we can check the actual stats as to how many people are using OUtopia and yes these can be made available to you.

This is absolutely brilliant. If you can garner support it gives the island much more future. We are unlikely to be able to justify paying people to keep OUtopia going indefinitely. The question is - can the community become self sustainable?”

Q10. Would you support SL information being put on student home?
“If it was up to me solely then I would probably say yes as I think it provides a valuable service to students. There was a pilot of SL however which was advertised heavily and far too many students tried to get in. That resulted in a lot of frustration by those who were unable to log in or were confused by the sheer number of avatars present. It has perhaps put off some in the university from further engagement with SL. I think very few people really ‘get’ SL and there are also some valid concerns about its technical robustness and accessibility. Somehow we’ve got to get the balance right here. We need more residents to make the community self-sustainable but not so many that it becomes unusable.”

Q11. A OUtopia Focus Group is in development that we hope can reflect the range of residents of OUtopia including undergraduates, postgraduates, tutors and alumni. Would it be possible for me to have access to Deep Think to lure over to us some doctoral students?
“I think that it’s a great idea. I can put you in touch with the person who is responsible for Deep Think Island.”

Q12. The new LOL will be set up so that people can send in their anonymous concerns so that the LOL can be used to help resolve any resident difficulties by directing residents to the appropriate Outopians or by speaking on their behalf if they wish to remain anonymous – what do you think of that idea?
“That’s a really good idea.”

Q13. Any further comments?
“It’s an exciting possibility that OUtopia can be run by the residents – perhaps the community has grown up now and can look after itself and let us see if we can facilitate that.”

Editorial Conclusion
As you can see from the above information, the OUtopia rental is being renewed now (so it is still being charged at the half price rate). As from December 2011 the rate will double and so we have to prove during 2011 that we are a sustainable community that causes little cost to the OU (and does not bring the OU into disrepute) if we are to survive. Niall Sclater indicates above that we have until July 2011 to create a stable self sustainable OUtopia. However, since paragraph 5 of the Financial Threats section above shows that the OU’s revenue stream will drop in April 2011 (and that the government wants university IT functions to be privatised) we don’t know what the consequences will be. The interview with Niall Sclater indicates that he wishes to be proactive in assisting us in moving towards a self sustaining destiny, however, we will all need to work to together and make some rapid changes if that goal is to be met.

If you have any further questions for Niall Sclater we will be happy to do a follow up interview – simply IM Cadence Mhia the questions in SL [or email me at cadence.mhia@gmail.com] and I will endeavour to ensure that as many are answered as possible.

PUSS IN BOOTS WOWS OUTOPIA

(Written by Delayne, theatre critic
Photographs by Tori Landau, for more photos see http://www.flickr.com/photos/ouvirtualworlds/5274224719/)

Puss in Boots - the latest offering from FOUtlights (the OUtopia amateur dramatics society), was a wonderful start to the final week before Christmas.

The final scene of the panto - from left to right: Sahiz De Vaye the king, Tarquin the troll, Whiny Aimhouse the fairy godmother, Harry the miller’s son, Turner the page, Puss (aka Princess Raunchia)

A feature of this very enjoyable production was the eternal theme of ‘nothing is what is seems’ rather appropriate since the SL world is literally a world of its own. Thus, normally in panto we have a principal boy played by a girl in a tight fitting costume, fish net tights and high boots whilst a feisty female plays the female lead. In this production Princess Raunchia (played by Elsbeth Biedermann) cleverly amalgamated both elements by being definitely female including the fish net tights! Titiana Haystack played Harry, the youngest of the miller’s sons who had inherited only three bags of flour and cat upon his father’s death. Again, panto convention was ignored as Titiana’s avatar favoured an obese miller’s son who sported a beard which worked well as a good contrast to Princess Raunchia.

Good and evil are always represented in panto usually via Fairy Queens and Demon King type entities though the cast chose not to follow ‘panto’s’ unwritten rule of Good entering from stage right and Evil from stage left. Puss in Boots, also changed the rules by making the fairy godmother (Whiny Aimhouse) into the bad fairy too. This role was also played by Elsbeth Beidermann who courageously stepped into the part at short notice due to Elsa Dickens being unable to perform on the night. All Evil panto characters either end up being redeemed or destroyed. So in this time honoured tradition the godmother’s fate was sealed by her unwittingly signing away her own fate (and losing her magical powers) when she signed false marriage papers. This allowed Turner (the page) played by Kered Rickena, to come into his own as the ‘dues ex machina’ character (literally the ‘god out of the machine’ so favoured in Roman comedy). So, at the end of the play Turner tidies up all the loose ends (rather appropriate given Kered’s role in OUtopia as the prim warden!).

The world of panto (like many of Shakespeare’s comedies) thrives on mistaken identities and rebirth in another form. Thus, Douglas (‘a game bird’) played by Kickaha Wolfenhaut, was the unfortunate rook destined to repeatedly become pie fillings for the king’s delight by being reborn into various forms e.g. bunny rabbit and finally a multicoloured haddock. The humorous dialogue between the cat (played by Hennamono Morpork) and the rook delighted the audience who saw only too well that the naïve rook was about to become dinner. Pantos have always entertained their audiences by showing the actors skill at quick changes and Kickaha’s changes were well thought out though (as we noticed at the end of panto party) Kickaha’s final change did leave him sporting a haddock’s tail!

On SL where the text is all (and what the text doesn’t say then the avatar must visually show) it was lovely to see that Hatshepsut Linette, who played the king, had given serious consideration as to how he should be portrayed. One wondered whether her interpretation was influenced by Joseph and his technicolour dreamcoat’s use of a pharaoh based on the all-time king of pop – Elvis. Hatshepsut’s creation of the Elvis avatar (complete with rotund paunch) and his signature all white costume was a deft stroke and an absolute audience pleaser.

Congratulations to the writers of Puss in Boots (who at the moment we believe to be that world famous and prolific writer ‘Anon’). The dialogue abounded in puns including those within the character’s names, thus ‘Sahiz De Vaye’ appears to being a play on the phrase “c’est la vie” as the name of the king who cared little about life except food . No panto would be complete without the double entrendres (and there were plenty of those) and witty references that would be understood by their audience (in this case there were ample OU world, OUtopia and SL world references to go around).

Audience participation is a key feature of panto. The audience happily contributed ‘he’s behind you’ at just the right place in the production as well as taking pleasure in being designated the Marquis of Carapace’s serfs and confirming that they were working on the Marquis’ land. (At this point the audience contributed to the panto’s humour as only one person managed to avoid the typo’s that infected the rest of the audience in the heat of the moment and correctly named his ‘master’ as the Marquis of Carapace. Of all the responses perhaps Xara’s was the most inventive with her “carspace guy”.) By the later scenes there was some enjoyable bandinage between the audience and the panto characters too. Like others in the audience, one didn’t want to interrupt the flow of the text with too many audience comments but it was apparent that the humour was so good that few could resist inserting the odd comment and there were lots of ‘lol’.

All pantos rely on the unexpected and the odd hint was given in the text that maybe Harry, puss’s master was not actually that attracted to Princess Raunchia and that perhaps his tastes lay elsewhere. So, in the final scene we could look forward to the civil union between Harry and Tarquin (an excellent troll avatar wielding a giant axe in an exuberantly camp manner) played by Rocky Joans.

There were two notable costumes. The fairy godmother went for the girly floral look complete with outlandish pink wand along with very attractive pink and white organza gown). Harry, once he ‘came out of the closet’, wore a very handsome Georgian style dark green suit complete with very tight tights - very appropriate for his new self! Various sets were displayed from the rural idyllic (as the background for the demise of the rook) to the finale where the set emphasised the fairy tale nature of the panto by displaying a little girl’s version of the exterior of a castle that we would expect Barbie or My Little Pony to own - bright pink with fairy-tale turrets.

So, at last we reach the puss – who was very well played by Hennamono Morpork. The reliance on text enabled a joke that would not have been possible in RL. Thus, the audience was quite happily reading the pronunciation of Puss (as in the word ‘cat’) only to find it revealed later in the panto that it was actually Puss (as in pustular infected ulcers caused by his ill-fitting boots!). In true form the panto finished with an unusual twist – Turner, the lowly page, being raised to high estate by the Puss. (It turns out that Puss was actually the king’s daughter Princess Raunchia who had been bespelled by the evil Whiny Aimhouse. At last all the jokes about the princess being into drink and cigarettes that littered the start of the play make sense once it was revealed that the evil fairy godmother had taken the princess’s identity many years ago.) So, at the end, the princess declared her undying love for Turner. The page seemed quite keen on the idea too (which may have been a bit of a surprise to Xara who was killing herself laughing in the audience!).

Puss in Boots did raise issues of just how one effectively translates theatre onto the SL platform. The production relied on a HUD which failed in the last scene, however, the cast quickly and seamlessly rose to the challenge by inserting their character’s name before each piece of dialogue. Song and dance are always a feature of a panto and Puss in Boots finished with the cast enjoying a bit of River Dance.

All in all, Puss in Boots (directed by Eshala Tabacznyk and Kickaha Wolfenhaut) was a very enjoyable and funny panto and no doubt the audience is already looking forward to next year’s production.

Cast
Hennamono Morpork - Puss (a cat)
Titiana Haystack - Harry (a miller's son)
Hatshepsut Linette - Sahiz De Vaye (a king)
Elsbeth Biedermann - Raunchia (a princess)
Kered Rickena - Turner (a page)
Rocky Joans - Tarquin (aTroll)
Kickaha Wolfenhaut - Douglas (a game bird)

Special guest appearance:
Elsa Dickins - Whiny Aimhouse (a fairy godmother)

Fame at last

The OU's SL community got together to pose for a picture for The Times to use in an article about The Open University.

The photoshoot took two attempts - they didn't like our first offering! - and you can see us in all our glory in the pic below.

You can read the article on The Times website here: http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/life_and_style/education/student/article7110689.ece

Competition

A new island has appeared but what is it going to be?

Snuggled in between Open University Island and Open University HRD is a new and mysterious looking island currently named Open University 2. Bearing a vague resemblence to a giant four-leafed clover at the moment it has prompted much debate amongst residents about what it is going to be.

We here at LOL! would like to hear your ideas about what it will turn out to be - the wackier the better! IM your suggestions to Eshala Tabacznyk inworld and we will publish the best of them in the next issue.

Time gentlemen please

LOL! introduces your new pub landlord

Avatar name: Prash Mavendorf

Role: Pub Landloard at the Open Arms.

What inspired you to be the landloard? Being a non-alcoholic drinker in Real Life, I felt at home taking this role. I will be able to remain sober (despite some Second Life pictures showing me in less favourable drinking positions), serve good drinks and good food. I love being around people and love to chat about loads of things. My general knowledge may not be great, but I do know a thing or two about the Open University (especially as I have been with them for 9 years). I can try and help point you in the right direction for help and advice. If you can't trust your friendly pub landlord for advice, who can you trust?

What are your plans for the pub? I have a few ideas. Nothing set in stone just yet. I'm hoping to introduce some Glass of white wine / fruit-based drinks for the ladies and more pints for the gents (ok, that's enough of the Al Murray talk. lol). I am hoping to put a juke box style device in the pub so that the punters can listen to a radio station of some choice. Further down the line, I am looking to host events such as League Pool (outdoors), League Darts and more frequent pub quizes. These are just ideas at the moment, nothing concrete, and would welcome ideas from the community. Don't worry, I won't be banning smoking in the pub (unless it's banned anyway!).

Will you be offering food and other drinks? I hope so. I would like to introduce some non-alcoholic beverages, choice of sarnies and snacks and other nibbles. I don't think I will be doing Curry nights just yet. But ideas are always welcome. It may take a while to get it right, so please hang in there.

SLOODLE

Kickaha Wolfenhaut tells us about the next big thing.

The Open Life regions are witnessing a quiet revolution. After months of planning and technical jiggery-pokery by the computer boffins at Walton Hall, we finally took SLOODLE out of its box this morning. Over the coming weeks and months it will be tested with the help of an elite band of OU volunteers.

SLOODLE stands for Simulation Linked Object Oriented Learning Environment. No, I didn’t have a clue either, but let’s just say that while it might stand for Simulation Blah-de-blah-blah, what it actually means is this: Cool stuff in Second Life. SLOODLE is a set of tools and web based widgets that together enable us to do something hitherto impossible: Link the Second Life avatar you use around the OU islands to the “real” you – the one that logs onto http://www.open.ac.uk/ to submit TMAs and read course materials. For example, a quiz created by course staff on the website can be taken in Second Life and its results then fed straight back into your student record. And that’s just the beginning.

I foresee a time when virtual worlds will form a mainstream part of many Open University courses. I won’t rake over the case for virtual proximity, or start quoting from the massive amount of published research – chances are, if you are reading this, that I’d be preaching to the choir. Open Life has already hosted exploratory building tutorials for an engineering subject and unless you are a complete SL Muggle, it doesn’t take much effort to imagine an assignment in, say, an art & design course which is set, created and submitted within Second Life. SLOODLE’s Prim Drop tool makes the administrative side of such a proposition far easier and more scalable.
On the next page of this article you’ll find a list of the main SLOODLE tools and short descriptions, but I’d just like to give a special mention to one. Once you take rank paranoia and media hype out of the equation, the single biggest (and only really compelling) objection to the mainstreaming of virtual worlds in education is accessibility. Or rather, the lack of it. I’m not just talking about those with visual disabilities, for whom Second Life must seem at best a pain in the backside and at worst an unattainable Shangri-La, but also the technically impoverished – those for whom a high-specification computer and high-speed Internet connection are geographically impossible or just plain unaffordable. When defending Second Life and its peers in the face of jeering Luddites (did I say that?!!) the one statement which stops me in my tracks is this: “I can’t run Second Life.” There’s no objection in that. It’s just a bald fact. Enter WebIntercom, my favourite SLOODLE tool. WebIntercom allows those without Second Life to participate in live text chat with a group of in-world classmates. And what’s more, it’ll do it on a machine which would likely melt if its owner attempted to run Second Life. OK, so WebIntercom doesn’t allow non-SL users to build in-world. OK, so the interface looks like the north end of a southbound cow. But the biggest obstacle to mainstream SL has definitely begun to evaporate before our very eyes.

SLOODLE Website: http://www.sloodle.org/

YouTube videos: http://www.youtube.com/user/Sloodle

SLOODLE on Twitter: http://twitter.com/SLOODLE_News

SLOODLE on Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=2396239341&ref=search


Some other SLOODLE tools

SLOODLE Presenter* - Create media presentations mixing images, video and web-pages, without having to upload images into Second Life.

Sloodle WebIntercom - Synchronizes chat (live!) between a course chat and Second Life.

Sloodle Toolbar - Wearable toolbar/HUD for blogging, classroom gestures and more. A SLURL for the user’s position and a snapshot of the location may be automatically included with a blog entry. Note that at this time the OU’s preferred blog system is a non-standard one and is therefore not compatible with SLOODLE. We may be able to recode the SLOODLE side in the future.

Sloodle Quiz Chair - Fetches questions from the course Quiz module and gives students the quiz in-world.

Sloodle Pile On Quiz - A multi-user quiz to involve a whole class.

Sloodle Prim Drop - Accepts Second Life objects and logs transactions in a Web database. A great way for students to hand in assignments in-world!

Sloodle MetaGloss - Lets you access a course glossary in-world

Sloodle Choice - Lets students respond to a course Choice in-world

Sloodle Vending Machine - Allows web-controlled and in-world distribution of objects for courses, tutorials and other activities.

Sloodle Awards System - Enables points to be awarded to students in Second Life, and also connects with the course grade book.

Jacquie Sholokhov

Elsa Dickins tells us the story behind the name of our former halls and the village tor - Sholokhov.

Jacquie Bennett was an associate lecturer on several courses, including T175, and was a teaching fellow with COLMSCT at the OU. Her project was to get an island in Second Life - called Cetlment - and see how people might use it. She was a lifelong gamer and had been in SL as Jacquie Sholokhov since SL started. She always believed virtual worlds were going to be big for education and was just waiting for the rest of the world to catch up with her.

It was Jacquie that got me into SL by nagging me to give it a try, and when I did I was blown away by the potential of it, and I immediately started working with her. She was one of my closest friends and we often said that we talked to each other more than our families, as we would be on Skype or in SL all day, often joined by lizit.

We were both tutoring T175 at the time and we started bringing our tutor groups into SL and working with them together, and it was all very new and exciting and our students were really enthusiastic, so we had great results. About 11 months after we started working together in SL that cohort of T175 came to an end and we wrote a paper about our experiences, to present at the international conference on computers in learning in Austria, in September 2007. I wasn't able to go, so she went by herself to present it and the night she arrived she said she was going to bed early with a migraine. In fact she had a brain haemorrhage and died that night - the hotel staff found her in the morning. Her death was totally unexpected.

COLMSCT bought a new island, which was Open Life (Linden wouldn't let us transfer Cetlment so it had to be abandoned), and we put it next to Schomebase. Jacquie and I were both very active members of Schome and were working on the Schome project in the teen grid at the time (the kids had an inworld ceremony as an act of remembrance, which was very moving). I did the development of Open Life and Schomebase and when the halls on Open Life needed a name it was a good way to keep a reference to her memory on the island. Nobody ever asked about the name, which was as I’d hoped, so it was just part of the way things were.

Jacquie and Elsa enjoying a tipple, early Cetlment days

Cut to the village, and when we moved here and didn't have the halls as such any more we had the requirement for a spiritual/peaceful area, and it seemed a natural thing to transfer the name. It means something to those of us who knew her, and it has a whole other meaning to people who were around for the original halls, which is nice.

She wasn't a sentimental person, she was very kind and a brilliant tutor but could also be bitingly funny, and she wouldn't have appreciated anything soppy, nor would it have been appropriate, particularly as the project expanded and more and more people came on board who had never known her in the first place, so I like the way it worked out.

She had a husband and 2 young children, and about a year before she died they moved to a remote farm in Wales and bought some sheep and goats. They loved their new lifestyle and Jacquie was learning to sheer and spin in order to start a business selling their own wool. I do believe that however successful it became she would always have continued to spend significant time each day in Second Life.

Role-play for beginners.

Aseret Quintessa & DeeDee Bookmite tell us about role-play sims (with thanks to Riss Altman).

You may or may not have heard that role-play is available in Second Life. For those that already into role-play elsewhere, Second Life opens up a whole new experience. For those who don't know about role-play read on. Often people jump to the conclusion that role-play is about sex. This is NOT the case and while some sims and some forms of role-play do have that element most do not.

Role-play to put it simply is not unlike children's imaginative play in that you construct your own character, your race, your motivations, but your character is driven by an adult mind. It's not unlike being in a stage play but you provide your own lines; both leading and reacting to the other characters involved. Most stories are organic in that they develop as they go along. Occasionally if someone has a major storyline they might ask other players to get involved, although they shouldn't tell other characters how to 'play' the story. Dictating to other players in this way is called ‘God Modding’ because it takes away their freedom to act how they see fit and can inhibit the flow of the unfolding story.

Within Second Life there are sims dedicated to many different genres. If you are interested in fantasy, urban, city, war, combat, science fiction, wild west, mostly anything else you can think of, there is a good chance you can be involved in role play within your chosen genre. Remember to check whether your chosen sim is PG or Mature. It's no good thinking you will fit in a Mature role-play sim if at heart you are a PG player. Decide if you are easily offended, or prefer not to be involved in more adult themes, and if so stick to PG sims. To check this is look on the tool bar at the top of your screen and it will show the name of the sim and what the rating is. If it doesn't show on the toolbar right click on the ground in the box that opens look at the General tab, look down the list and you will see Rating.

Sill interested? The first step is to look in Search; for example type in 'Elves, role play'; a large selection of sims will come up. Go to the sims and a have good look around, it could take a while to choose. Quite often as you arrive at a sim you will be in the welcome area. In general, although not always, there will be information in that area that pertains both to the sim, style of role-play, dress code, and usually offers free items such as male/female clothing and weapons.

For this article we chose to visit Valahari; The welcome area was slightly confusing as there were no directions, but in just a short walk we found all the information we needed to join the group, plus clothing and weapons.

When filling in your application you are asked for a backstory. This is your character's personal history up to present day. The more depth you can give to your character the easier it is to play it believably.

If you are interested in role play its worth thinking about this aspect before you apply. You will be asked to submit this information to the admin in charge of role-play on the sim. This person is usually identified in the welcome notecards. Hopefully your application will be approved quickly, and once approved you are then free to join in.

A word of caution - don't just leap into an obvious on-going story, its the best way to get off on the wrong foot! Most Rp'ers are very helpful and welcoming to newcomers; if you ask, someone will help.

"Hang on!" I can hear you saying, "I don't feel ready to just jump in.". Quite understandable - when DeeDee and I first started it was a bit hit and miss, the funniest episode I remember as Deadwood newbies was when DeeDee had got slightly lost somewhere in the worst part of town and I got an IM from her saying " I am being held at knife point and mugged!". DeeDee had accidentally wandered into some ongoing roleplay but had no idea how to deal with it., but she improvised fast and said, "I have no purse young man, I have lost my way to the boarding house, would you be a dear and show me the way ", I still giggle reading that! Luckily a handsome outlaw rescued her and pointed her to home! The other difficulty was most of the other women were playing 'goodtime girls' in the saloon, whilst Dee and I were running a boarding house. We had far less opportunity to role-play than the saloon girls.

There are two ways to learn how to participate in role-play, one is literally to just jump right in and try out your character; do gentle role-play, establish some interaction with other players but not deliberately trying to start a story, this way other players become used to your character and will gradually interact with you. The other is to loiter on the edge of others who are role-playing, observing rather than attempting to take part. Try to take on board the way character's greet each other, what the etiquette is, what mode of dress seems the most popular and ask about training classes. Most RP sims hold classes and they can be really enjoyable in themselves. I personally have learnt a great deal about herbalism from Gianfar. Many role play sims also hold role play classes.

If anyone wants any further information or help with a character back story, please feel free to contact me: tm3382@student.open.ac.uk or contact us inworld by sending a notecard to either Aseret Quintessa or DeeDee Bookmite as IM's tend to get capped. If we don't know the answer to a question we will either find out for you or will put you in touch with someone who can. All enquiries with be treated confidentially.

Valahari: http://slurl.com/secondlife/Valahari/128/128/2
Deadwood: http://slurl.com/secondlife/Deadwood/128/128/2
Gianfar: http://slurl.com/secondlife/Gianfar/128/128/2

A slice of OLiVe

A mini OLiVe appears at the land expo.

The Open University was recently asked by Linden Labs to participate in their first ever Land Expo which took place in Second life from Tuesday June 9th to Saturday June 13th. The purpose of the expo was to “share best practices, compare land development offerings, and encourage the exploration of innovative uses of land”. Linden felt that the OU’s innovative use of land in education would make an ideal showcase at the expo.

The OU was assigned a parcel on one of the land expo sims and it was decided to recreate the character of Open Life Village on the parcel. OLiVe residents Elsbeth Biedermann, Jadis Mai and myself (Eshala Tabacznyk) decorated the colourful houses and Leornian Naidoo created an allotment to give visitors a taste of life on OLiVe. Decorating proved an interesting task due to the amount of lag on the sim. On one occasion one side of the house did not rezz at all leaving me wondering if I had accidentally deleted a wall and would have to face the wrath of the management!

An information area was also set up on the parcel giving details of the history of the OU’s presence in Second Life and information on the numerous study and research opportunities with the OU.

As well as recreating OLiVe for the expo the OU was asked to make a presentation inworld. Kickaha Wolfenhaut was charged with this task and made a presentation about the largely spontaneous emergence of the OU social learning community and how the project team observed this emergence and then adapted plans to incorporate the best possible support for these students and faculty members.

Happy snappers

Elsbeth Biedermann tells us about Open Minds first ever exhibition.

22nd May saw the opening of the very first exhibition in Open Minds. With OLiVe only a matter of weeks old (from official opening), I thought what better way than to celebrate it by having OLiVers submit their own snapshots of the island.

So, with the project officially approved by Elsa and Kickaha, I went off to rally up the troops and to gather submissions.

Seeing OLiVe from others’ perspectives was always going to be interesting, and it really lived up to expectation – everything from the beautiful to the absurd was submitted, and a dash of cuteness to top it all off. Photos of the scenery around the island were absolutely wonderful, while an oversized dragon DeeDee in her house with her tail poking out the side wall was among some of the photos that provided the light relief.

I would like to thank Elsa Dickens, Kickaha Wolfenhaut, Commander Quandry, Eshala Tabacznyk, Kira Gilgandra, Arthur Arkwright and Paprika Pevensey for submitting snapshots to this exhibition, and a special thanks to Kickaha for all his behind-the-scenes help. Without you all this would not have been possible.

What lies beneath?

LOL! dons its snorkel and flippers to explore the vast watery expanse that is Open Life Ocean.

Nestled between Open Life and Open Life Village is the tranquil-looking Open Life Ocean. With the sun reflecting off its clear blue waters and the sandy island glistening in the middle, the ocean is as inviting as any place on Open Life. But what exactly is under those calm waters? It’s time to find out!

Armed with a waterproof fun camera a highly-trained underwater reporter (well, me, Eshala) descended into the Open Life Ocean to see what she could see, see, see. After swimming around aimlessly for a few moments my eye came upon a fearsome looking shark. There had been reports of unfortunate residents being attacked by bloodthirsty creatures in the ocean so I wasn’t keen on getting close. After bravely swimming a little bit closer to take a snapshot I retreated to a safe distance to watch the shark circle round and round in almost mesmeric fashion. Many other fish, eels and stingrays passed by but I was most taken by the appearance of our old friend Olivia! For those who don’t know Olivia is our resident octopus. As she glided by I’m sure she smiled, though it may just have been a spot of wind.

Further exploration of the ocean revealed a couple of shipwrecks and sunken submarines along with the usual ocean bed junk of discarded anchors, oil barrels and shopping trolleys. The seabed itself has a wealth of coral and plant life living on it which makes for a very pleasant landscape. After taking a couple more snapshots I surfaced and made my way to the sandy island in the middle of the ocean to relax on the warm, soft sand and look out over our marvellous water.

New beginnings

The opening of the new village gives residents a place they can call home.

After weeks of standing at the sim border between Open Life and Open Life Ocean gazing wistfully towards the “under construction” signs surrounding the new village, residents were finally able to set foot on OLiVe at 8pm and survey their new surroundings.

To celebrate the event an Easter-themed party was held on the village green with our regular OU party night DJ Quentin Calvert providing the music from 8.30pm. A treasure hunt and a fancy dress competition added to the fun. The treasure hunt provided us with lots of new things to add to our already-bulging inventories while the fancy dress competition was jointly won by a couple of cute Easter bunnies and a bemused tiger cub!

On landing on the new village the first thing many residents did was excitedly dash round the island trying to look at everything at once and wondering which of the pretty houses was going to be theirs. Thanks to the efforts of the village designers/builders there were plenty of things to see and places to explore.

One of the most exciting parts of the evening came when the boards informing residents of their OLiVe addresses were displayed. Amid cries of “Which way is Lower Lag Street?” and “Anyone know where OLiVe Green is?” those lucky enough to be allocated a house went off in search of their new homes. Later in the evening residents were able to ‘buy’ their land and officially claim their home.

The music and dancing continued long into the night until one by one people headed off safe in the knowledge that after being homeless for so long following the demise of our previous base we all now have a place we can call home.