(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.”
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.
This is of huge moment. I think though that at present the only people who will read and be moved by this are already comitted big-time to the OUtopian ideal. We need to find a way to get the word out there to those who are members of the SL community, but do not make use (perhaps they don't know) of the facilities that OUtopia offers, and to those who have not experienced Second Life at all yet.
ReplyDeleteI would certainly hope for some support in PR terms from the OU itself - this needn't cost much if anything - finding out anything at all about an OU presence in SL is extremely difficult - and I knew the OU was there lol.
We need to act, certainly. We also need to support those OU staff who give of their time to provided us with OUtopia too.
...How can I help?
21 December 2010 20:38
Can you please clarify when the events you mention are actually taking place? For example according to your schedule above, the parties are held every other Saturday, but I was under the impression (rightly or wrongly) that they were only on the second saturday of every month and that was why the event was called "Second Saturday".
ReplyDeleteThank you.
The parties are held on the OUtopia Village Green on the second saturday of every month :)
ReplyDeleteI am saddened by the recent turn of events that have made Outopia a place where I no longer feel I can go for a chat and a laugh.
ReplyDeleteThe turn of events that occurred on Thursday16/12/10 has soured the atmosphere which was gearing up for some pleasant Xmas fun. This has happened because of the way the information about the future of Outopia was delivered, which was not appropriate.
That said we do now need to move forward and do so quickly if we want to retain the use of Outopia, how this is achieved is up to the residents. We need to be self regulating and have control of the environment to enable us to implement any changes that would be of benefit to the group and to encourage new students to use the island, thus giving us a chance to keep the excellent resource we have now.
What do we need to do this!
I do not take credit for any of these ideas but just pass them on for your consideration, and there is probably many more things that have yet to be considered
1. We need a residents/Outopian’s meeting as soon as possible, if we are to be given to power to regulate ourselves then some form of focus group need to start discussing the issues
2. A clubhouse built for events- dances, live music, parties etc was a priority.
3. Access to a music stream, for the above
4. Change of housing to designated areas – e.g. beach houses on the sea front, log cabins in a wooded area. Halls of residence in tower blocks, giving choice of housing but leaving a tidy and organised environment. This would take time but could be implemented in stages.
5. A building and scripting group established with the knowledge and ability to physically change the Island would be required with volunteers’ who would be reliable and trustworthy to take this over.
6. The permissions required to do this would need to be devolved to the groups or persons running events
ReplyDelete7. Sporting activities established such as orienteering, archery and bowling. Treasure hunts etc were suggested.
8. Arts productions’ using the amphitheatre or something similar and an the creation of a library
9. Groups set up for arts projects and students interest groups.
10. A reorganisation of the Island into compartments as required
11. A linking of the island’s via a prominent teleport system so that OUtopia becomes part of the group of Educational Islands and becomes known as the residential and activity centre.
12. The ‘Circle of Knowledge’ can be reinstated on O.U. Island until a move to OUtopia becomes viable. But to do this it is necessary to have willing members who will spend time talking to noubies and showing them around the islands. This will be essential in January when the new intake of students start arriving.
13. Publicity for the use of Second life within the open university needs to be given on student home to encourage students to come and meet there peers in the same way as they would in a red brick university, making friendships when studying with the OU is difficult as you work on your own more than 90% of the time.
14. We need to make sure that the powers that be understand that this is a viable and very useful resource that could improve communication between students, staff and the outside world
We all want Outopia to succeed but this needs to be done in a way that will bring the residents past, present and future together in harmony and not fracture the island with in fighting and petty squabbles.
With the demise of first class a new forum has been set up by Commander Quandary where you can have a discussion about what you would like to see happen on Outopia or just resume the normal chit chat
ReplyDeleteTo join go to http://www.outopians.org.uk/forum/