CSL Catalog

CAMPUS SECOND LIFE, COURSE CATALOG
Here is my preliminary concept for a CSL catalog.

Plan: Objective: to inform visitors of educational opportunities in CSL. Specifically:

Show educators what courses have been offered as a basis for deciding whether to offer their own courses. Give educators will have the necessary contact information for direct inquiry if they want that.

Let potential students find courses they may want to take and educational institutions they may want to attend.

Help people in R&D identify funding sources and previous patterns of research. They can use the catalog in proposals to show that SL/VR is used in established universities.

To meet these objectives, the catalog would be like a university catalog. There would be back catalogs for each semester, starting with Fall 2005, I hope. In the future, there would also be a prospective catalog for the next semester.

The appearance should remind people of a course catalog from a university. All courses should be listed, whether they are getting CLS subsidies or not. Those who are not getting a subsidy could deny permission to list, but instructors generally prefer visibility.

The courses in the catalog would be those offered by accredited educational institutions. When courses are offered for Teen Second Life they would be offered by public or private schools approved by appropriate governmental agencies.

Course descriptions:
Course description taken from institutional catalog. Link to that catalog.

As appropriate, add the following items:
Offered in Teen Second Life only
Available for distance learning? Yes. No. Yes, non-credit. (Insert link for contact)
Expected to be offered again in the next two years? Yes. No.
Supported by grant/contract (number, title) from (agency).
Further information available at (insert link)
CSL subsidy: (space allocation, discount)

Illustration follows in a day or so. TM

Here is my proposal for the catalog. The catalog would have three campuses as in the illustration below. I have inserted current courses where I think they might fit.

Computer Science Campus
Courses centered on VR itself, generally offered by computer science departments.

Multiplayer Game Design
Designing Digital Communities
Human Computer Interface
Introduction to Game & Simulation Development

Applications Development Campus
Courses centered on development of real world applications in VR. These courses are generally R&D courses in an area of application.

Urban Planning in the Gaming World
Digital Collaboration in Architecture
Art in Virtual Worlds
Exploring healthcare applications in Massive Multiplayer Online Role Playing
Education's Second Life

Instructional Campus
Courses using developed VR technology to upgrade existing educational capabilities. They have no major research component that will impact the students. The use of VR requires no special skills beyond common computer literacy.

Introduction to Sociological Perspectives on Education
Foundations of Instructional Technology
Introduction to International Business

(This part will require further subdivision, probably into departments corresponding to common university departments.)

Spring 2006 Campus Second Life Course Catalog
TBD

An interesting start on a catalog.

If your idea is to help instructors who want to use SL as part of a university course, an important aid would be a sample syllabus for the courses, to include text, journal and on-line sources and some indication of how the course would actually be realized.

Another would be a listing or database of schools where such courses have been taught in the past, with contact info for more info from the instructors who actually taught them.


Frank.

Yes, both of these are good additions. What I am hoping for the catalogue is that CSL will add it as a page in the existing website. The syllabus and all would not be added there. Rather, there would be a link to the institution's .edu site. The syllabus et. al. would be posted there. Under the direct control of the professor. The list of things you mention would be reasonable as suggested content. But professors will put in what they choose.

As to the database: Yes, in time. Right now the catalog (including pages for previous semesters) would provide an adequate record of previous courses and institutions. If you know the institution and the course, you can easily get current contact info from the online catalog of the institution. In a year or so, when CSL has grown to hundreds of courses, they may need to set up a database.

Thinkerer, my apologies. I thought that these were actual developed courses that had been or were about to be offered in an actual university. If they are just at the "gleam in the eye" stage, then profs and instructors not already familiar with SL as a teaching or lab tool are unlikely to get much out of the catalog listing.

And where might I find the CSL website, or is it yet to be created?

Frank

Your original inference was correct. I'm not sure what I said to suggest that the courses are only imaginary. The courses I listed for the Fall 2005 catalog were taken from a posting by Pathfinder Linden titled: New Residents in Second Life this Fall - Campus: Second Life Progam Continues! It appeared in the Announcements in Linden forums. The announcement says:
Each Campus: Second Life class is for this fall semester, and they are either already in or getting ready to enter Second Life.
I suppose I was assuming that you were familiar with this announcement.

As to future courses, I assume that the CLS catalog would be published in advance, as is the case with universities. A university will have finalized not only its catalog but its course schedule several months before the semester starts. Posting in CSL catalog would probably wait till the course is firmly scheduled. That way it could be considered by prospective students. As with universities, catalogs for previous years would remain available indefinitly for reference use.

As to the CSL website, check links below. TM

http://secondlife.com/education/

http://secondlife.com/tiki/tiki-index.php?page=Campus%3A+Second+Life+FAQ