video vidi visum : virtual

In running 10-person classes for Legal Aid University, I ran into my share of logistical difficulties but never experienced the kind of numbers that bona fide universities experience, which in turn generate the demand for Course Management Systems. (At least as I define them, CMSs emphasize managing the logistics of courses — registration, attendance, etc. — from the administrator’s POV first, teacher’s POV second, and students last. By contrast, Learning Management Systems put teachers and students first, generally with the bias towards teachers.) With some 40+ students in CyberOne, and with students popping in and out of State of Play Academy, I’m now seeing the light as far as administrator-oriented software.

I will need to think about this more when I have more time and experience with the process, but to capture my preliminary thoughts, here are some of the problems/issues that such a system needs to address:

• Cross-platform authentication. At a minimum, simply being able to identify that “Sam Chin” is behind the avatar “Krzy L00tr” is essential. Of course, actual authentication — being able to log in to the MUVE directly from the CMS/LMS — would be even better. Best would also include a process for the CMS/LMS to create/assign your MUVE account for you. (In There.com, we have a number of pre-created avatars with voice already enabled which would otherwise take the average user some 20 minutes, plus $10, to set up). Frankly, in general most CMS’s have a bad habit of putting in inferior homegrown modules rather than figuring out how to cross-authenticate with best-of-breed software. Moodle’s homegrown forum is a good example of this.
• Cross-platform record-keeping. Right now I am taking attendance with pen and paper or by parsing transcripts of the event. Both methods seem ridiculous given that these are the kinds of automated tasks that computers should be perfect at. But even if there was a MUVE-native attendance object/script, that only solves half the problem. Ideally this object then needs to send data over to the CMS/LMS so we, the instructors, never have to do manual data transfer ourselves.
• Cross-platform activity syncing. On the flip side, MUVE objects should be able to tap into a CMS/LMS and pull assignment data in. If authentication isn’t possible, at least pull in the assignment text itself; if it is, ideally one could get grades and even submit assignments through this object.

I know there are projects underway to make some of this happen in Second Life. I’ll do some research and post my findings back here as I find time (!)

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