Presentation for ACRL given on Second Life December 18, 2011 about virtual worlds in use beyond Second Life.

1. Association of College Research Libraries
December 18, 2011
Joe Floyd & Ilene Frank
University of South Florida Library

3. Info Island - Libraries

4.  Virtual world developed by Linden Lab. Has its own
currency, the Linden dollar.
 $1 usd=$251 linden dollars.
 No membership fees.
 Full region $295 a month. ($1000 setup)
 Homestead region $125 a month. ($375 setup)
 Users may also rent, share or use public spaces at lower
or no cost.
 32,035 regions (November 2011)
 26.1 million registered users (May 2011)

5.  Costs of “land” went up with educational discounts
ending
 Linden Lab downgraded the attention given educators
 Some were simply interested in trying out different
options where they felt more in control
 Some liked the idea of the “walled garden” where they
had more control over where students went and whom
they might meet
So what about other options?

6. Microsoft Conference Center, ReactionGrid

7.  Allows users to run a virtual world on their own
PC/Server.
 Can be run as a stand-alone or as a collaborative world
like Second Life
 Better security…can be run behind a school’s firewall
 Portability-can run world on a USB stick
 Faster-no limitation based on speed of your internet
connection since the world can be run locally.

9.  The Islands of jokaydia is a virtual worlds community
of practice facilitated by Jokay Wollongong.
 Jokaydia residents explore the use of virtual worlds and
games for education, arts and social change.
 $25 with a $50 setup fee on the education-focused
JokaydiaGrid. Underlying infrastructure is handled by
ReactionGrid. No currency.
 91 regions 1832 registered users (November 2011).

11.  Largest growing OpenSim. Two types of land
available: private isles and mainland regions. You may
also rent parcels from InWorldz land owners.
 Mainland region: $60 a month with $60 setup fee for
a 30K prim region.
 Private isle region: $75 a month with $75 setup fee for a
45K prim region
 846 regions with 47,232 total users. (November 2011).

13.  A virtual world for education, collaboration, and
learning. ReactionGrid has a formal partnership with
Microsoft.
 Educational discount built in.
 $75 per month with $220 setup fee, for 4 regions
 76 regions 9921 total users.
 “Best for: hanging out with teachers”

14.  Bibliotheque  A library /exhibit on the
history of information

15.  French free community grid
 390 regions
 3722 users
“Best Hypergrid for hanging out with French
people”
Free to users, landowners pay membership fees

16.  Dreamland Metaverse: regions start at $30 a month
for 12K prim region, no setup fee, either on OS Grid or
as a separate world. Reputation for reliability.
Customers include Fortune 500 companies. Includes
voice, groups, search, offline messages and hypergrid
access.
 SimHost: regions start at $150 per month for a mini-
grid. $99 setup fee. Reputation for high-end custom
development work.

18.  The easiest user interface of any hosting provider, Kitely allows any
Facebook user to create, load, and enter an OpenSim world in less than
2 minutes. Once you've set up your virtual world, log in via Facebook
and choose which Facebook friends can visit. Supports up to 100
concurrent visitors per region.
 Virtual world stored is stored in your account . Costs 10 cents a month
for 100K prims
 Costs for users visiting one of your virtual worlds .20 cents per hour.
 No setup fees
 1327 regions 1,832 registered users (November 2011).

19. Jibe is the name of a virtual world running on the Unity 3D web
browser, developed by ReactionGrid. Unity 3D is a professional game
development platform used for creating 3D environments. Jibe allows
anyone to deploy multi-user worlds built with Unity 3D.

22. Croquet
Active Worlds
Immersive Education
Open WONDERLAND

23.  If you create /purchase content on one virtual world, can
you bring it with you to new worlds?
 What about your avatar and your avatar’s name? Can you
register for the same name in each virtual world? Will you
need to have a number of avatars?

24.  How will educators and librarians know what is happening
on various virtual worlds?
 Will educators and librarians still be able to collaborate as
well if everyone’s using different virtual worlds?

25.  One avatar / many worlds: Becoming possible with
importing/exporting capabilities
 Create once/ experience everywhere: Exporting and
importing content not yet automatic or easy, but
becoming a possibility.
 OAR (OpenSimulator Archive): Archive of resources
shared by creators of works on OpenSim worlds

26.  Hypergrid Business http://www.hypergridbusiness.com
 iED immersive@googlegroups.com
 jibe-and-unity3D@googlegroups.com
 OpenSim Education List
http://list.opensim-edu.org/listinfo.cgi/education-
opensim-edu.org

27.  SLED
https://lists.secondlife.com/cgi-
bin/mailman/listinfo/educators
 Virtual Worlds Educause discussion list
VW@listserv.educause.edu
 VWE Virtual Worlds Association (Facebook)
 3D Immersive Learning Quality (Facebook)

28.  More worlds listed at the Association of Virtual
Worlds: http://www.associationofvirtualworlds.com/

29. Joe Floyd
jfloyd@usf.edu
Joe Cupola in Second Life
Ilene Frank
ifrank@usf.edu
Ilene Pratt in Second Life