Want to study SL? Here's a way how.

Not long after beginning in SL I met a woman who said she was doing a thesis on the residents in SL. She gave me the date, time, and location to meet. When I arrived there were over a dozen others waiting also.

The student would throw out an idea or a question while we all would get into heated discussions. She let us all know she was saving the chat..

This went on every week for about 6 weeks or so and I looked forward each time because debating some issues is just plain fun.

Getting in world and talking with people is the BEST way to study SL. Posting in the forums you aren't getting a true measure. In fact, some of the residents in these forums will give you false answers because, frankly, many of us are just damn tired of surveys posted in the forums.

To make this a question....Would you all be more accomodating if you were asked to participate in world rather than here in the forums

Possibly - I used to attend a Roadside Philosophy discussion awhile ago - I suppose that would be similar - at the time we were all 'studying' each other and it was mostly fun.

Absolutely.

No. I'm not in SL to be someone's lab rat.

Keep in mind that all students are not in the same situation. There is a difference between gradutate-level research generally, and undergraduate-level research.

At the graduate level, the students are generally better trained, have access to advice directly from a professor, more time to complete the research, and are held to a higher standard of quality to get their final grades. (A thesis is something graduate students do.)

At the undergraduate level, the students are less well-trained, are probably in classes too large for them to have guidance from professors, get shorter deadlines, and in the end just need to turn in something, no matter the ultimate quality, to get the grade.

A lot of the forum posts, I'm guessing, are coming from undergraduate students who are up against deadlines to get their work done. Whether it is because they let the assignment sit to long, or they never had the appropriate amount of time in the first place, they have to go for the quickest route to get the job done.

I've noticed a lot more forum posts over the past few weeks about scholarly studies (near the end of many students' semsters) than I remember seeing earlier in the year (at the beginning of students' semesters). That tells me that most are up against deadlines and appealing to the forums as the fastest way of getting the assignment done.

And personally, having spent a lot of time as an academic, I have empathy for those undergrads trying to make deadlines. I would answer their forum posts, but I just have one requirement. It has to appear to me that they took at least as much time constructing their forum post as it would take me to answer it. That, I rarely see.

nope

I agree . I attended my first relationship discussion inworld this month. It was a great insight into other peoples SL Lives.



I would say YES . However I dont wanna be anyones Lab rat either.

Possibly - it would depend on the nature and purpose of the research. I'd need to be convinced it would be worth while and would make for some benefit somewhere.

What if handcuffs and duct tape were involved?

Perhaps the idea needs revisiting

What Amity said!

While never having one dealing with Second Life, I did have a prof., give me an assignment once that involved interviewing twenty people I did not know, with some reasonably personal questions. All this while having a job, and five other classes.

I ended up using a political blog I belonged to. There was no other choice. I worded it as politely as I could, but I still got hammered pretty good, and it took almost three-hundred nasty posts to get twenty actual responses.

This was an assignment handed out at one of the better Universities in the country.

My favorite is the advice some gave to go in world and meet people. I didn't even get a computer with a graphics card, until my last year of school.

I love that idea. It would almost make to turn straight.

I'd take a survey from you anytime big boy.