University Interested in Virtual Info Center... Cost?

I'm a student worker at Louisiana State University's admissions office, and I've been asked to find out about Second Life and what it would take to establish some presence therein. How much would it cost in L$ and US$ to buy land, set up an LSU information center on it, and in some way promote the virtual center? Keep in mind that someone may need to be hired to build and/or maintain the information center.

Well the first place to look would be here:

http://secondlife.com/whatis/landpricing.php

That's for mainland, island billing is different. Obviously it's hard to say how much it will cost before you know how much land you'll need and you probably don't know how much land you need until you know how big a building you need.

I'd advise that you look to see if other organisations in your field have a presence here and take a look at what they're doing. I've seen at least one college and university here but can't remember the names.

Oh and as for promotion, I'm sure your students could come up with a good marketing campaign that might catch the attention of the populace here, if you're innovative about that it will be a very welcome sight.

Go through the Developers Directory - http://secondlife.com/developers/ - and drop a line to people there, see what they come back with as a response.

Most builders work in US$ only.

An island is $1675, with a 50% discount for educational groups using the land for their work.

An island is $295 a month for land fees.

A build from someone on the developers directory can cost anything from $500 to $20,000 depending on who they are, what you want done, and if they give a discount to educational facilities.

A permanent staffing of your build in SL is a separate issue altogether from getting someone to build in the first place.

You have PM's turned off; I was going to chat some things over with you rather than cluttering up the forum.

Broccoli

I'd certainly look to invest in a more stable platform. Introducing SL to serious businesses and organizations at this point would surely make you a laughing stock.

Oh good call, I forgot about that.

http://secondlife.com/education/

That's a complete crock of sh$#, and a huge slap in the face to the many educators, large and small, who have established extremely successful presence in Second Life.

Mike - start here: http://secondlife.com/businesseducation/education.php

Contact me in-world and I'll get you in touch with some folks who can advise you better than I can about how to get started with this.

Hello,

I also work at a University so...

A lot of that you will have to go in world to find out, land prices vary widely. Obviously PG Sims are cheaper than Mature Sims. If a University was serious about it I really think they would need to buy an island which runs kind of pricey I think. If you don't want to spend that much, you probably want to look at land that has covenents. What that means is you pretty much have full control except for some zoning restrictions on buildings and such. Anshe Chung is one such person, I know there are others but I have no idea who they are. I lived on Chung land for a while and to start the restrictions are frustrating but once you settle in it is kind of nice not having to worry about something ugly or inappropriate setting up next to LSU.

As far as conversions for L$ and US$ well it varies a little, I spend a little less than $20.00 for $5,000L. Once again that is an in world question.

And people that know more than I do can answer those questions better than I.

The question I have is why?

If you are just looking to just give exposure to LSU, basically advertise, I think you will be wasting your money. But if you are looking to do something interactive like start admissions process or register for on-line courses or perhaps use it as a WEBCT (what we use here) for course content and for professors and students to keep in touch, then there might be possibilites.

I always thought SL had wonderful possiblities for interactive education, the streaming video and being able to place objects to aid in a lecture would be awesome, imagine doing an engineering study with 3-D modelling and being able to move in and around it, or an anatomy lab! But two things I have noticed that keep that from happening. One is thier servers cannot support that many people very well, the classes would have to be small. And two, server down times, I am guestimating but I would say their down time (and I mean fully functional which is what you would need, today being a perfect case in point) is two to three times worse that your own university servers. Students trying to get assignments in through SL today would be SOL.

I think Linden Labs has shown people the possibilites that are out there for thinking outside the box when it comes to distance learning. But is SL the place?

Wow Five people posted while I was writing!..hehe

And people get upset even about this?!

Phew

There are a number of strong educational presences in SL. Can I suggest that you search for EduIsland which is actually a great starting point for educational institutions in general.

In the UK there is Education UK, which is about 3 months old and growing fast. Its specifically for UK places, but you could take a look and see the diverse things that are going on, (not just a tthe moment 'cos its summer holidays here, but you'll see what is being developed).

mature sims are more expensive???
if that for mainland where the owner sets the price or do you mean private sims, I thought they were the same price regardless of what you choose to set it as PG or mature...

That is just my uneducated experience, like I said I really don't know a whole lot about virtual land. But when I was looking and found great deals they were on PG. So I assume they were prices set by the sellers?

As far as a brand new Sim I have no idea, so feel free to ignore the top of my post...lol

I certainly didn't mean to slap anyone. I'm not knocking your accomplishments, just bringing up the point that until we have a stable platform again, I'd be wary of investing at the time or of being the one reponsible for bringing my organization onboard. I would have been much more comfortable a year ago at this time. I am by no way bashing anything that anyone has built up here or questioning the effectiveness of your work.

There is an element of truth, unfortunately.

Someone mentioned UK Education - well SL has now been effectively unusable for a full working day in the UK - indeed Europe, with no indication on the blog when "normal" service might be resumed. I've no idea if any European University/Educational establishment was planning a course/workshop/event or whatever today but if they were then I suspect that it will have been cancelled or rescheduled.

Anyone in Europe building a sim would likewise have had to put off work today since rezzing objects would at best be frustrating and may have resulted in inventory losses with no guarantee that anything built today would still be there tomorrow.

Also, unfortunately you can probably expect four or five days a month when either the grid is down for maintenance (either planned or otherwise) or performing so badly as to be either unusable or not particularly pleasant to use.

So it does depend how you are going to use this presense as to how sensible it is. If for example you hope SL will be a primary mechanism for online teaching, the downtime and issues could be a problem, if it is a secondary supportive or experimental thing it should be alright.

Matthew

Thanks for the input. I didn't mean to upset anyone... I'm not aware of a definite plan for anything yet. I'm just a lowly student worker that was asked to find out about Second Life.

From what I understand, the goal would be to provide information about the university and possibly give people a virtual taste of the campus’ atmosphere.

Ah use it as an excuse to let your bosses sanction you to have a wander around during work hours. There is potential here.

I know one of the big problems is organisations come to Second Life because it's "the in thing" to be doing right now, but actually don't know what they want to achieve here. A lot of developers are also more interested in taking your money than taking the time to find out what you want, and how what you want can work in Second Life.

I'd suggest going through all the companies in the directory (not just "full service" - the categorisation really doesn't work well) with a standard email, and see what responses you get. Information on their website, and the kind of response you get from them, will help you shortlist a group of people that you can go into more detail with to achieve what you are wanting to, before selecting the builder you want to employ to do the task.

Broccoli

Well for that I think it would be very neat. There are some wonderful builders that could make it look very close to the real thing.

This question is for the community. Is there a way to have easily downloadable maps for people that want to visit it live after this tour? Or links to the outside web, to say thier on-line application, or thier financial aid website? I know there are links to get into SL, is it reversable?

I mean the whole goal is to be able to connect it to the real world LSU, otherwise it is just another pretty Sim.

That kind of stuff would be cool, to have "Want to Know More?" signs around the virtual campus.

I am a LSU Alum.. Go Tigers!!! Got My BA there, oh how I miss LSU!

First, practical advice (WHAT to do), then, The Rant (WHY your university should do this).

Practical Advice: visit a lot of university sims, which can be found in "seach" when it is working. Talk to people there, see what works for them. Better yet, go to the IBM sims--there are dozens of them--and see how they have things set up. IBM uses SL for practical purposes, but it also provides employees research opportunities.

Also, see if you can get your alumni association to fund a sim for LSU.

Now, for a lot of more detailed advice, The Rant:

I think the point people need to realize when they get into SL is that the way it is today is not the way it's going to be a month from now, six months from now, or five years from now. I am willing to bet that it will still be around in some form in 2012, enough so that I've invested money in some land and some business prospects. There will be unintended consequences and unknown, undiscovered-as-yet benefits.

Universities have two reasons for being, teaching and research; in the end, both are learning experiences. Here you have a new rich internet application that has the potential to effect technology and society for the next couple of generations, or not (remember how many people thought the www was just another CB radio fad back in the early 90's?). How do you want to bet?

And yep, SL has some problems. It's a complex system of systems utilizing what is, in reality, not much more than complex and continually changing beta software.

BUT, for the cost of one student's room and board for a year (half the regular cost for an island, and $295 a month maintainance), a major univeristy like LSU can get in on SL, and at least experiment. Let marketing students do a marketing plan; let architecture students design and build the site; let computer science students write some scripts and hack things up; let educators model virtual classrooms. Or just give everyone an avatar and let them fool around with it: LEARN some things and do some RESEARCH.

Kee-rist, what a bunch of whiners I see on these forums sometimes. To tell you the truth, I think it's a CRIME that all universities don't just pop the minimal bucks for an island and go for it. Think of it as pure reseach, and don't expect a return on this penny-ante investment. Just give it a go and see what comes up!

Have you looked at any university reseach budgets lately? The run into hundreds of millions--and they can't come up with about US$5k a year to host an island?

Hey-zeus, just find an alumus with a master card and get going!