Alternative to LL's Proposed Educational Vouchers

Let me propose an alternative to the Educational Voucher proposal floated by Linden Labs in Tuesday's Instructor's meeting:

Automated Attendence Taker (AAT). The AAT would be a scripted object that counts attendees, taking multiple "snapshots" during hour to average. When the class is over, it would either a lump sum or per attendee. It could also be configured to pay per 1/2 hour increments, so that longer classes would be rewarded, and shorter classes could still be held for "smaller" subjects.

The AAT system would be tied into "Events" calender. Once you set an "education" event, you are in the system. But to be paid, a class would have to be posted in Events and have an AAT report generated for it. Only LL-certified instructors would get AAT boxes (no transfer/no mod, of course), and the boxes only work for them.

No Linden involvement would be required for normal operations. Classes could be audited on a spot-check basis. AATs could even be programed to randomly "record" some classes for later review. (Or LL could appoint rotating "ResMods" for education).

If something like the AAT is going to be coded anyway as a stopgap system to take the load of manually paying classes off the Lindens, why not go all the way? I know scripting costs money--perhaps LL could take advantage of the scripting talent among the instructors and outsource the development of parts or all of this system to residents?

Opinions?

Wow, quite an interesting proposal Carl. The scripting for this would be significant but its far from impossible. The only catch I see is the memory constraints on memory allowed in a single script. Occasionally a class includes enough chat and questions that it might break those limits. This could especially occur in class areas where there are other attractions so speech outside the immediate vicinity would overlap the area and create a larger burden on your AAT.

If recording is implimented you would also need to notify and get permission from all the students. Recording people w/o their knowledge is a little unethical to say the least

This one's already embedded in Second Life's TOS Section 6.2. LL has access to all communications in-world, and I imagine they keep it to themselves.

But I agree, from an ethical, rather than a legal, standpoint, it wouldn't hurt to mention it again if used for classes, to ensure everyone's awareness of it. Most residents probably don't read the TOS before they log in to play for the first time.

The AAT proposal addresses a lot of the issues raised by LL. I'd like to see something like that put in place first, to see if it does solve most of the problems, before any more drastic changes are hastily thrust upon us.

Prudence is still a virtue, isn't it?

Come to think of it, recording the full class would not be necessary for the monitoring function. All LL has to do is be able to spot check to see that an actual class is being taught. For that grabbing one or two ten minute text "windows" from the hour class should be enough.

If LL sees something in a spot-check that disturbs them, they can send a Linden undercover as a newbie to sit in on the full class.

Classes are public events. There is no expectation of private communications at them. Futher--at least in the past--I believe that LL did monitor classes on a random basis (I assume by using a "stealth Linden". At least the terms of the Instructors programs gave them that right.

Finally, as Selaras points out, the ToS does give LL the right to monitor in-world communications.

I had a few other thoughts on the scripting requirements for the Automated Attendence Taker (AAT):

1) How would the AAT deal with people who come into class early or leave late? What if a class runs over or under the normal time? A one-hour class will often run over (if there are lots of questions), or may run a bit under (in an environment where there are classes scheduled back to back).

I find what works for me is to take a snapshot of my class midway though--that catches people who have come late--and few people are going to leave early if they have sat through that much of the class.

2) Can the AAT be designed in such a way as not to record people who are just in the area of the class, but not attending? At NCI's New Citizens Plaza, we have a freebie area, an info area, and a sandbox fairly close to the class area.

Could the "detect AV" radius be adjusted for the environment perhaps?

3) Can the AAT be designed with the understanding that some people will try to abuse it/game the system? It should record the sim and check it versus the sim announced in Events, to prevent people from popping over to a crowded club or mall with the AAT and claiming those people as attendees for their class.

True enough, Lindens have done and still do "spot checks." At least one of Ishkiia's classes had a couple Lindens sitting in fairly recently.

Edit: ... and I agree, they should continue :3

If it comes down to an in-game system I fully support you carl. But to address come-early or leave-late type of issues (among others) i went ahead and copied the body of an email i sent in as counter argument to the whole voucher thing. Id love your feedback but disclaimer: its a good long read.

Sorry i'm long winded =-)

I would like to be able to do one-on-one tutoring, however, and if instructors could accept vouchers for that, it would be nice. It always bothered me that you had to have 5 people in a class to be paid, when teaching a class of 3 is just as much work as teaching a class of 6.