Panda in a petri dish

Panda - the class has temporary use of the land for the few weeks they'll be visiting SL. Once the class is finished, the land will be auctioned to the community.

And yes, I've read the blog and reminded the professor that posting private emails and chat logs without the agreement of the individual you're speaking with is not allowed in SL.

Awesome. Thanks for the reply

Questions:

(1) Granted there is a certain amount of choice regarding conversation. Does that choice extend to other expression or activities? Do we have a choice not to allow our inworld builds, objects, events, or avatars to be given over to examination or analysis?

(2) Are these undergraduate classes governed by the same rules as academic researchers dealing with human subjects? If not -- beyond the SL community standards and the individual professor's sense of responsibility, what rules are they subject to?

(3) Has there been discussion about the inworld impact of classroom instruction on the SL community? Any policies and procedures the community should know about?

There have been professional researchers in Second Life long before now. I've met a number of them. They don't worry me too much; with the usual exceptions, they follow guidelines, are unobtrusive, and work to preserve anonymity. Notice that this controversy heated up when non-professional classes were brought to SL and behaved -- non-professionally.

You can also read more about this program on our corporate web site, where the press release was posted on 9/20/04:
http://lindenlab.com/press_story_17.php

My suggestion, build a honking great big microscope pointing over their land..

Or perhaps a 'stall front' with a sign 'pelt the freaks'

Or following my 'inside out theme' from Burning Life, and inspired by Douglas Adams, build a 'Reverse House' and call it 'Outside the Asylum'

The possibilities are endless.

Hehehe I'm the same person in and out of SL as far as personality goes at least (I am occasionally bald, no ponytail..... I do occasionally wish I had tits though -- I'll work on the man-boobs some more).

My social defect is that I occasionally have too much time on my hands, and that I like to procrastinate from time to time - SL is a great solutions to both of these problems.

Oh yeah thats gonna get those subscription numbers up LOL. So far anti SL, interesting. I just love it when the master plan blows up in the faces of the creators.

ROFLMAO!

The tribe has spoken (extinquishes torch).......

Wow this opens up a whole can o head games to be played! When I get back on I may even break my cardinal rule (do not do in SL what you do in RL) and bust out the virtual camera!

I could make my own SL TV show -- you'll never say 'virtual reality' the same way again

Siggy.

One word: Biodome.

(Though I like the giant microscope idea too.)

OO! I know! I could rez one of my new AV-Tracking wisp generators nearby! It's a pretty effect for a while, but gets to be rather annoying once you have six-twelve tiny clouds of everchanging light whipping around everyone's heads.



But Lash... I thought you were one of those types that goes off and spends most of their time creating, with little time for any of that "socializing" crap.

I know I am.



Yes.

And his statement is entirely correct. One can not observe something without affecting the thing you are observing. The key to scientific study is to minimize this effect as much as possible.

Want to be adopted?

They're on the other side of the one-way window!

And neither is my class.

But thanks for asking. Really. I appreciate it. I know that when I have a concern, I jump right on the IM and ask my question of the person responsible. It makes me feel loads better.

As Robin mentioned, there is no study. My class is not in Second Life to catalog your biological uniqueness and assimilate you into the academic writing collective. As you'll note from my blog, my students are in Second Life to participate in Second Life so that they can write up their experiences *from a postion of authority.* That authority being, of course, their own participation with, and interaction with, the society of Second Life. Not as ethnographers, anthropologists, sociologists, or psychologists -- but as student participants who want to learn. If you've been following anthopology and ethnography over the past decade, in fact, you'll find lots of very smart people making the same point -- "observation and study" from an "objective, distanced" perspective is crap, gets crap results, and screws (unethically) with the people being studied & observed.

I know this. It's pretty obvious. I wouldn't (and didn't) ask my students to do this.

I asked them to dive into Second Life, to spend hours in-world and to learn how to be Second Lifers. Which you all do. Which you all have done. Nothing more, nothing less.

I would have loved to have explained this before it grew to a 5-page forum flame-fest. Your concerns are completely valid. Unfortunately, you're in no danger of being "studied" by my class.

If you want to study us, go right ahead. We have nothing to hide. We're just here to learn. If you want to harass us, go right ahead as well. We're here to learn.

Hmmm.. all sarcasm aside.. I think you are missing some key points, professor.

Your student published a chat log of a conversation with me. He/she edited out certain parts, including his/her speculations which led to some of my comments. He/she named me.

It's really not that academic.

Your student falsely represented me, your virtual neighbor, after ONE conversation.

Your student violated TOS

And as i sit and type this.. another one of your "students" is on my land... and from the first words out of his mouth.. he seems to be here for retalitory reasons.

And I won't even get into the abject snobbery I see within the posts by your students.

It's less like big brother and more like untrustworthy, unethical, and snobbish brother.

Dear Professor.

Please read your own blog about how your students plan on doing their study; read the obtusive and rude posts about what they think they will find in Second Life; read how they will go about getting this information. Also read the link and previous discussion on ethics when doing online studies at Terra Nova (gathering of information).

Your ill-preparation of their ethical (?) standards of gathering information has impacted SL, it has impacted the relationship that your students will have with all members of this community.

Like I said, Perfessor. Welcome to the Island. Glad you brought Gilligan for the humour aspect of this study. Now, can we find Ginger and MaryAnn for that orgy you promised us?

Hi Richard,

Welcome to SL! Like all communities, this one is wary of outsiders. Once you've been initiated through the customary hazing period in world and on the forums (just to test your commitment to the community of course) you will be accepted with open arms!

I'd like give some advice to you and your students to fully immerse yourself in the SL experience. One of the foundational idealogies of Second Life is phenomenology. To be is to dwell. It is the essentials of meaningful human and av existence. As you can see from the forums, dwell and land are the most important aspects of SL. So I encourage you to purchase land! Free land deprives you of the true SL experience!

Look for me in world and I will hook you up! I sell snow land cheap.

Jauani

Lynn....I heard they are here to gather toes

Because I can see him/her looking at me and making notes.

Hmmm, from reading the updated blog entry on their site as well as the response from the professor, I think there has been quite a bit of overreaction on my part, as well as many others...

I mean, heck, I don't care if there are classes beign held in SL or using SL for class-related projects or whatnot. If they are here just to chronicle and explore SL and it's inhabitants in a manner that seems awfully similar to many of hte inworld publications and off-world blogs, than so be it. I am actually intersted to see what they get out of this crazy mixed up grid.

As for some of the comments on the blog, well it sounds like perhaps some of the students got a bit overzealous about their project. I remember my first project in freshman year. I researched so much information for that paper and pulled in data from sources all over the place and distilled it to a lean 12 pages (it was supposed to be a minimum of 5). It happens.

So, to all of the new SL residents, welcome and I hope that we can all get off on the right foot. Make sure to remember that we are all real people here and for many, our SL persona is a reflection of our real personality. I've foudn that if you ask for help here, people will generally respond quickly and helpfully. If you need anything (or just feel like picking some brains), feel free to IM me or drop by my place in Isabel.

BS . If you were concerned about this, you would at the very least clean up your own web page comments and remove the chat logs (which are still there as of this post). This is not a flame fest, you and your pitts violated the community and are getting away with it due to your academic connection.

Thankfully, you all have the same last name so it is a little easier to ban you from our land.

Clean up your own house and apologize and maybe you can start over with us. Otherwise all you will learn is how griefers are treated by the legitimate users of an online world.

Mol, this is not a scientific study. This is a college classroom exercise -- and as best I can tell from looking at the blogs, LL documents, and Professor Pitt's response above -- there are few minimizing strategies either identified or practiced here.

We're confabulating two different species of animal here -- the academic researcher, and the college classroom experience. And both the blog and Professor Pitt's comments indicate that there are none of the built-in procedures that insure professional behavior or credibility in latter animal. That's cause for concern -- because you will interact with groups of people with an allied agenda but without true research concerns or experience. But that's also cause for less concern -- because their end-products will likely not survive the end of the semester.
____________________

Mr. Parent, I'm surprised. Second Life is like any small resort town with no government, few social restraints, startingly-heterogenous views, enormous growth, a loose sense of mission, at least a dozen classes of residents -- all with the ability to do supernatural things, like fly, be immortal, or create complex structures out of nothing. In other words, it's like no community that exists in the real world.

And you would allow your students to "dive" into such an experience without prior instruction, socialization, or adequate procedural agreements? And expect them not to be noticed, or to create some controversy?

Very smart ethnographers and anthropologists aside, I know of no program which allows undergraduates to dive into the cultures of aboriginal peoples around the world without adequate preparation; perhaps it was a mistake to assume that Second Life and similar VWs would be different?

There have been university-level academic instructors who have been carefully selecting, instructing, and leading small numbers of advanced students into Second Life for specific purposes -- at least since last January. Those students have never created controversy inworld, so far as I am aware. Perhaps those instructors could help?

ed. sp.

that makes them ethnographers.

which gives the lie to:
how do i contact your human subjects committee?

You're asking The Professor to alter his students opinions on something, forceably?

(That should so be his name! The Professor!)

Sorry. Ain't going to happen. The ENTIRE point of this exersice is for the students to basically study themselves and the world around them as they interact with it. This means taking things from their own, opinionated perspective.

Yes, it's a bit different from how we all joined SL. We all CHOSE to come here because we wanted to. We didn't choose to come here because it was part of a class we were taking. So they're going to be a bit 'weird' compared to the rest of us. So? They'll form opinions based on EXPERIENCE once they have some. And it's neither your, my, or T3h Pr0fess0rz jorb(sic) to change that opinion. The Professor will merely be grading them on presentation, if I'm reading the description of this class correctly.

It's a class on how to write an essay. My subject matter was coin collecting. Theirs is communication within Second Life. So what?

"By creating this alternative universe, its users are creating all new identities for themselves, masking their true selves and perhaps trying to compensate for some social defect."

Oh no, life is so scary outside my house, I dare not step out!

First off, sorry Panda. After visiting the students blogs, it is obvious that the things that were said and specifically pasteing a conversation with you was wrong. On that, I totally agree with you and I'm sorry for posting without giving it a better read.

Second, sorry Prof for maybe leading the discussion towards some "study" conspiracy. I was at the SeriousGames Summitt in Washington D.C. a few weeks ago, and heard of a social MMOPG study and somehow that just popped into my mind. A communications class in SL is brilliant, but perhaps lesson one should be ethics, and lesson two should be online ettiquite. I'm sure your students learned a wealth of information from this forum post alone.

And last, sorry to everyone for my half baked post. As the vision of Phillip Linden is for SecondLife to become the next WWW, it is important to build bridges to the outside world. Remember Universities were pioneers in pushing forward the WWW. They are an important piece of the bridge. I never meant to suggest advertising, just important early adopters, who could publish scientifically sound academic papers proving the social, political and economical merits of virtual worlds. I'm sure the more the Pitts interact with our world, the more they will realize we are not misfits but RL docters, and lawyers, programmers and artists, firemen and retail workers, retired and unemployed (etc) all communicating in a virtual world with social barriers cast aside.

no need to apologize satchmo.. i'll put you on my "student not to shoot off of my land when they approach" list.