New monthly event coming to OUtopia!

Starting 11 January 2011 at 8pm, Elsbeth Biedermann presents "Tune Tuesday". This monthly gathering will have a musical theme, but could be anything from a classical chill-out to a Desert Island Discs style evening to a name that tune style quiz or even a live recital from one of our talented OUtopians.

The first session will be “OUtopian Island Discs” - chose up to three of your favourite songs and share your reasons for choosing them - so please contact Elsbeth Biedermann or Jadis Mai with your requests by Sunday 9 January 2011.

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)