Education research Question

Hi all

First off I will apologise for the complete lack of knowledge I have. I work within an educational establishment in the UK and have been asked to investigate possibilities of us putting our own presence on 'Second Life' with no real assistance or help I do have good computing skills but I am a technician not a designer.

Anyway I've read up on the premium account etc and it seems a good deal for what we want but when it comes to land purchase thats where I lose track !

As a educational establishment purchasing our own land is preferable to renting but I am unsure of a couple of things:

- How much land do we need? Am looking at setting up 2, maybe 3 buildings with some space between them so is 512m sufficient?

- Do we have to purchase it via auctions or can we, as an educational establishment, buy it direct from SL?

- Roughly what would be the one-off purchase price off the land? I need to do a proposal and split the details between one-off purchase and monthly costs.

If we do it we'll probably go for the annual premium account as it would be a 1 year commitment initially.

Thank you in advance for any advice, even if its linking to FAQ's, but I just don't have the time to spend trying to analyse all the different information

Regards

Read this page, it may have the information you're looking for:

http://secondlifegrid.net/slfe/education-use-virtual-world

No 512m isn't enough, I think you would need at least a 1/4 sim.



There are private islands and mainland, you should really, really read up on this.



There are educational discounts, but only for a complete sim. Presently you would have to purchased a 'FULL' sim with discount would be US$500 to purchase and monthly tier on top of that, (I'm not sure if tier is discounted?) Buying an island direct from LL does not require you to be a premium member.

I really recommend you read up on all of this before committing yourself.

also look up some colleges/universities who already have a presence here, find someone there to talk to. I have visited a few colleges on SL (to me totally amazing, I visited one that is not far from me in RL and had a great conversation with a professor there), the ones I have seen tended to have their own island.

Thanks for the quick replies.

I know I've barely even seen the surface let alone skimmed it but will read up more from the links you've given.

One fairly obvious question would be: What do you intend to achieve by "having a presence"?
Just putting up a sign and a building is simply funding (yet another) ghost town.
There is a weird repeat of the initial web boom, where everybody thought they had to/could make a lot of money by having their logo on a web page somewhere.
So rather than looking at land pricing (which in cases like this is likely to be negligible), I'd take a step back and look at the projects (and salaries) needed to actually *use* the place for something.

Well the main reason was to have downloadable prospectuses in pdf format, meeting foreign students for informal chats about the college and displaying work etc so would be an open, public area. In addition it would be a inter-departmental collaboration with a real product all the students/parents etc can see.

Looking at the costing though ($700 for initial purchase then $150 / month maintenance for own island) it would be damn hard for me to sell that to my employer.

Question about land auctions on the mainland though ... does seem cheaper but am concerned that we could buy some land, build a good set up but then have a 'dubious neighbour' move in next door which could cause problems with association to us.

Is that a real concern or just me getting paranoid? I know there is some control etc but our vice-principal has already highlighted a BBC news article about some of the less savoury content in SL so am fighting tht little fire before I've even started.

For educational use, I'd definitely recommend an island away from mainland, to avoid trouble, in whatever kind it may raise it's head.
But if you can't sell a budget of $150 per month, you're dead in the water already.
You'll need somebody to take care of the area; coordinating, controlling stream servers for meetings, hosting the events, even just plain building. You can *not* just buy an area somewhere and expect people to come flocking to it and something beautiful and useful to automagically appear. It needs dedicated "drivers", and you need to plan for those as well. Even if you can do it cheap, the *time* needed still has to come from a budget somewhere.

ETA: To make an analogy, you're renting a web server. Somebody has to set up the forum software, write the content, design the graphical identity and layout and code it, run the mailing lists, moderate the forums, etc. Unless you're willing to dedicate actual work (which is likely worth considerably more money than the price you pay for the server itself) to those things, your web server is useless.

Well I was thinking what age are you aiming at?
Also the age of your own students who will go into SL to see their own college.
Of course they might allready use SL and be sexually active in SL, but others might be introduced to the very adult sides of SL.
There is an under 18 SL which I know nothing about.
The UK media does show SL as if all in SL are sex addicts and worse.

Are you in SL on a personal account? Have a look around to view what is there, everthing really, and as allready suggested visit other colleges allready there and chat. Most love to chat and help, and will welcome you. By the way you might find some naughty colleges as well, just a warning.

Mainland can be obtained from LL auctions or directly from resale by a resident. (Note well that "sale by resident" means something completely different on the Mainland than on private Estate land; I'm only talking about Mainland at the moment.) Resident-to-resident sales are often less costly than auctions, but certainly not every for-sale parcel is a bargain, either.

Also, Mainland comes in two varieties, "PG" and "Mature." For educational purposes, I would think that PG would be preferable. But even if you end up on a Mature sim, and some godawful sleazy full-perm business moves in next door (or something less offensive, like a BDSM bestiality bordello), you can put up visual screens, or choose to build at an uncluttered altitude above ground level, or various other tricks to make explicit that you're not associated with the neighbors.

All that said, though, I really agree that this may be an application where finding a private Estate with similar neighbors could be better. You might try contacting Pathfinder Linden, or Searching for education-related groups, to see if something like this already exists. (I'm thinking it should... something like Nonprofit Commons, but for educational institutions. Maybe somebody knows of such a thing and can post it here.)

To comment on that specifically: Sure, there is "less savoury content". So there is on the Internet and in printed media. Your vice-principal hardly argues not using those...
Obviously, you wouldn't put up your school's website on a sluttyteens-dot-com domain name, but that doesn't invalidate the media.

Wow, if nothing else am impressed with the helpful responses here

Have now contacted the PR company who dealt with a local universities island as really don't think we want to go down the mainland route. I have an account which I've looked around and even made a few contacts and it was me who instigated this so only have myself to blame!!

Would say if we go ahead we have a lot of talented, 16+ students (we are a college rather than school) and a big aim is to get them working together on this so the vast majority of the costing will be on land purchase and maintenance.

Thanks all, will keep investigating

You may want to drop by Hyperborea. There is a fairly active community of more "serious" use there, including some schools, but you have to catch them at the right time, when there's a meeting or a class inworld.
Otherwise, contact me, and I can try to get you in touch with some of the educators there.

That is the exact argument I used in response but when its on a BBC site people get all panicky.

Actually, the under-18 SL (or Teen Grid) won't do you much good if some of your students are 18 or over, as they won't be allowed to be there - and I believe there is a lengthy process adults such as teachers have to go through in order to get access to the Teen Grid.

No one under 18 is allowed on the Main Grid, and very VERY few over 18 are allowed on the Teen Grid, so if your students are a mix of ages from 16+ to over 18, which I'm assuming they are since you're a college, a single SL campus may not be feasible for your institution at all.

Another avenue of approach that I hesitate to suggest if you're already overwhelmed with information is to look into the Open Life/Open Sim project. It may be possible to set up your own sim on your own server without connecting to SL or any outside source at all. No inappropriate neighbors or content - but no contact with the outside world, either. I have no idea what the costs would be, or how difficult it would be to construct the infrastructure (buildings, clothes, tools) you would need, as I doubt it could be imported from SL.

Which is sort of ironic, considering that they read it in a media which is generally considered to be used heavily for "less savoury content" (The Web, not BBC ) . I'd say that pretty much proves the point.
That said, there *is* pragmatically an image issue. But one would hope that your institution is so well-respected that it will, by nature, be immune to any media-sponsored scandal-mongering. (And as such in turn help SL's reputation rather than be hindered by it).
Any image issues will probably come more from the "they are wasting resources on a computer game" angle than from any "adult scandal", but that's a different discussion.

But anyway, as June pointed out, the main grid is 18+, not 16+. (American standard, not European).

I think the BBC are quite fair in the reporting of SL. Yes they reported the age play scandal and other 'bad incidents' that have recieved mainstream press, but they have also reported SL in a positive light with regards to pushing the boundaries of virtual worlds and at one point there was a weekly blog from a Beeb reporter about his travels in world which was very positive.

Anyway I digress...

Collyer, forget about land and costs for the moment. I think you have a major problem on your hands. I take it from your posts you work for a 6th form college or whatever they call it nowadays. 16.17 and 18 year olds.

There are 2 grids in SL, the Teen Grid for under 18's and the main grid for over 18's. The 2 grids are (meant to be) purely exclusive so no adults on the teen grid and no under 18's on the main grid. So you need to make a choice. Is your project going to be aimed at adults or teenagers. Parents or students. I just cannot see how you can accomodate both using SL.

If you choose to focus on the teen grid for your students then you will never actually be allowed to log in yourself neither will any other adult. So who will build it, who will manage and maintain your project? You would need to enlist the help of under 18's for this.

This forum and the account you have created yourself is for the main Grid. Build your project here only if you want to appeal purely on the parents and +18 learners.

You see the problem?

That's not true, certified adults are allowed within strict boundaries.

"Certified "
Lol I'm ok then.
ROFL

Love
June

How do you go about becoming certified other than working for LL?

If this could be done then Collyer may be able to join the teen grid to set up the project, but would still prove a hinderance to parents or over 18 students who wished to visit without Dekka's afore mentioned certification.

I must admit I hadn't thought of the whole age issue because I wasn't aware there were 2 grids.

'Theoretically' the under-18 grid would be best as the main focus is prospective students BUT with displaying students work etc we also want parents able to see what sort of thing the students do so they can encourage their students to go there in which case that would be the over-18 grid.

I have made contact with a couple of people outside of the forums now as suggested so will discuss the mechanics of how to build the island but need to make a decision and to be honest, not going to be easy

Suppose if we put it on its own island then make it over-18 grid then least that way the prospective students can look with their parents ... will have to think on it.

My recommendation would be to establish a presence by renting space first and then determine what you really need. That way you have meeting space, a presence and have not jumped in the deep end in terms of expense etc before you really have the knowledge you need to move forward. Please feel free to contact me in world...we have two educational sims and a number of groups and a univ with a presence there. Not every situation demands an entire stand alone sim and for most folks it is the wrong way to go. Integrating into an established community works well for most folks and then if you want to expand from there you will be well informed and well educated as you move forward.