 Hello, can everyone hear me? This is Dylan Danes, a moderator for this session. Please type in chat if you can hear me. Okay, it appears that everything is live right now. Hello everybody and welcome to the 9 30 a.m. breakout session of the Open Simulator Conference 2013. As a reminder to our in-world and web audience, you can view the full conference schedule on our website. At conference.opensimulator.org and you can post your questions in local chat on the use stream chat or tweet your comments using the hashtag O-S-C-C-13. This hour we are happy to introduce Buddy Sprocket who will be presenting virtual culture heritage projects for teaching collaborative virtual environments. Daniel Livingstone teaches computer games technology at the University of the West of Scotland. A co-founder of SLUDL, Daniel has been involved in a wide range of teaching and research initiatives in virtual worlds. Daniel is also on the board of governors of the European Immersive Education Initiative. Welcome Daniel, aka Buddy Sprocket. Hi there. Hello. Thank you for the introduction. Um yeah, so Some nice to see Small audience here and maybe some other people watching streaming and nice again to see a few people have not met for quite a long time some old friends from second life here. Um, so um Nice to see you today. So If you've seen me talk before this is something completely different. Um, we're really going to be talking about Uh, some of our most recent work basically from my teaching. So this is really something from a teaching point of view when I research one Um, and I've been teaching a class in collaborative virtual environments which Is a academic term and it covers things like virtual worlds but essentially where they're often in it where they're designed for collaboration often with a design for a particular purpose or Really really interest is how do people collaborate in the environment? Um And the research Does go back over the past couple of decades. So there is a distinct area that takes a field of research around collaborative virtual environments And as the virtual worlds and the collaborative use of virtual worlds falls into that as well In the terms of collaborative virtual environments, I think we can consider something like second life Or open similar creator As a platform. So that's the basically the software technology, which we can use to develop Uh cde for a particular group or task Thank you, Ellie Um So actually that actually just says what if you've got any questions I'm keeping chat open and I'm trying to catch questions at human chat And I'm trying to come up and obviously more time for questions and answers at the end I'll try not run away too long Um It's not just the basic features of a platform that define a collaborative virtual environment the 3d environment that's created the Sort of tools that are embedded in the environment to support collaboration, but also I've not really said that here, but also The processes and procedures and the ways in which people use the platform are all about how people use it to collaborate with people In particular, I mean as an example to get started with we can think of The open simulator community conference environment that we're in right here as a particular form of collaborative virtual environment And you can see here around us. We have an environment that's set up for a very particular form of collaboration We don't it's not set up for everyone here to work together and do brainstorming. It's set up for Me to sit at the front and give a talk We've got all these conference and presentation tools set in Uh, there are permissions that have been very carefully configured so that I can use this Presentation tool and hopefully random people Just logging in can't take over the presentation We've got all sorts of permission settings that have been set up for that within the greater conference environment Other discussion areas and breakout areas where people can perhaps go off the chat And also the export areas So this has been developed using open simulator But effectively there's tools and environments that have been set up on top of that To support particular types and forms of collaboration. So I'll tell you a little bit about the class I had it was a final year class Uh Some students were taking the class because they had to some students picked it as an option The class studied a wide range of collaborative virtual environments and related tools from groupware So it did Things like google docs and all the way through to virtual world. So wide range of collaborative tools Class covered theory and practice. So theory was mostly evaluated through an essay Except there was also a little bit practical because it had to be a collaborative written essay So two people had to write it together and they had to collaborate online In many cases the students working together in the essay were actually from different campuses and didn't Necessarily actually meet in person at all. They still had this essay to write together Much more practical element and it was to develop a cde using a virtual world platform And I also wanted to give them A meaningful goal to aim for in terms of what we were going to develop and what we're going to create And I've worked with a local Sort of voluntary organization So one of our campuses is based in the town of paisley, which is a Got a west coast of scotland It's a very historic town At in terms of there's an abbey in the town that dates back to the 13th century But the town more recently more recent history about the last 100 years ago was an important industrial town A lot of the industry has died away and moved away from the town So we have essentially a town that has some need of urban regeneration But there's also a town that's got quite a rich heritage both A Medieval historical heritage and also an industrial Heritage as well So it's quite an interesting. I think historic time with this recent industrial history But it's also a time that's got many areas of deprivation many areas that are not quite good And many areas that are quite badly need of redevelopment So that picture that's quite a nice picture Of the town, but you can maybe see that just behind the town hall You might be able to see some modern 60s concrete block holdings that are Also dotted around We worked with a group called plan for paisley To develop a brief for the student projects And the brief was to investigate and develop a prototype Of a collaborative virtual environment that would support public participation In the planning process So it's about creating a 3d interactive model of the town centre or an area of the town centre And Allow members of the public to come in and use that as well as for discussion And I think there's a those It's yes. No, I don't think this is necessarily a Really unique use of virtual worlds. There's one that is Very relevant So it's where the main campus and majority of the students in the class are based at the base of the campus It was a location in a well Let's I guess a location that we also can appreciate as some definitely need of Of development to be seen and your purpose behind the work that you're doing in the area Um There's some notes there that the project can be extended or could be extended as kind of marketing or interactive fronting tourism So other potential uses We had six groups of students most of the groups were drawn from two different campuses This was quite deliberate Actually, I'm slightly unusual class and it actually had classes for onto different campuses at the same time This was really forcing them to collaborate virtually and collaborate online because They weren't all based in the same campus. They're all in the same room And as I say for most of the groups where they had students on multiple campuses They never met in person. They only ever met online whether Using email Google docs to collaborate and plan other online technologies using skype or indeed virtual elements of science Students worked in a range of different platforms There was one project that was using Google Earth that project for Other reasons it was incomplete. So it won't come up again in the presentation And the remaining projects were in second life We're two projects in the simulator running on the jkda grid There was one project in open wonderland on a server running At the university and there was one project running in minecraft So it's quite a range of platforms And really what one of the nice things about that is From this range of project, what can we learn about the advantages and disadvantages of each? I know these have studied before but the platform must do change over time OpenSense constantly developed But in terms of the educational setting of this particular type of purpose What advantages and disadvantages does each platform give us? And we have to take into account considering this that the teams might not necessarily be using the platforms very well These are all students. This is a project where they're learning what's in the learning section They're learning about online collaboration At the same time as they're allowed to use these tools to create a new dynamic So we don't necessarily expect these projects to be Showing the platforms to their fullest potential Just as well perhaps And so I'm going to show you a range of pictures of Paidly now as seen through these different platforms as developed by the students In second life We had a group. The group developed a few different areas of second life This is from an area representing Paidly High Street I would say that the team working in second life left a lot of their modelling activity to quite late We didn't get an early start in this work A lot of the modelling work was quite primitive And a lot of the detail was perhaps lower than it could be But it's a recognisable presentation of the Paidly High Street First open simulator group certainly got a much earlier start The nice thing to help when they were planning the Google Maps and using the basically Plastered of those around the group Covering the entire ground of the map Of the half-sim that we had to work in And then used that as a reference for building up from there and we built But a more extensive Map 3D environment We covered several streets from the city centre And We used mainly textures from photos and from images from Google Street View To actually cover the buildings with actual photos or actual images of The buildings as seen So a lot of the building in modelling work is very simple We did modelling an entire building city block With basically a cube but with the actual texture that represents it So that's quite very quick to do in terms of these little Visuals fidelity The second open simulator group Put a lot more effort and detail into the focus Going on two particular buildings in Paidly We have the Paidly Town Hall Which we saw in the earlier photo And it wasn't in the earlier photo but behind it you can see here And just cropped out there left is the Paidly Abbey Which is 13th century event historical abbey The abbey in particular here was modelled with a great attention to detail And really a quite impressive piece of work The modelled river behind The town hall and a little bit of the landscaping that you may have around there But not much else in terms of the actual time Open wonderland was unusual in that It makes a lot of comparison because I think the avatars in the open wonderland Of course are very basic compared to the avatars that were available In Second Life Robinson But the models So that's the high street again It's the same section of the high street that we saw in the genius picture It was much as in the second life picture It was modelled much much Much better visual detail Because they were able to take models from the Google 3D way house The third party And the model was already created We posted online Of key landmarks in the buildings In the town The Kalada models can also be imported to Second Life But it was only with the Wonderland group That were successful in importing Kalada models Because it's a much simpler operation So the avatars look a lot more basic And the interaction of the environments seems a lot more Constricted than the Wonderland But the environment itself that they were able to build Was of a quite high quality And then there was Minecraft Which was a very very different thing again Because I don't know So how many people here have actually played around in Minecraft Or have been in Minecraft and used it for any purpose? No one Minecraft is incredibly popular Incredibly incredibly popular With probably a younger demographic Who uses Second Life in Openson There are many millions of users And amongst the education community around Minecraft Focus a lot on the ability to use it for collaboration Which is why it was an interesting one to include here In terms of What facilities for collaboration are there in Minecraft? And so what these students here They built a few different zones What's shown here is one of the past A hall of residence So student accommodation within Paisley Quite a new building And that's quite recognisable That building even though it's quite a blocky representation of it So we had four different platforms That were being used Five projects with four platforms And to an extent What happened in those different platforms? So yeah, so some people view Minecraft a lot And I think if you've used Minecraft You'd know where there are differences But at the same time across all the projects A lot of things came out the same But different if you will So all platforms were quite effective For the teams themselves To collaborate to develop some kind of Collaborative virtual environment All groups were successful at developing 3D environments That recognised the represented areas of the time So in some cases Students modelled much more smaller areas Than larger areas They chose different areas to modelled But they were all successful Developing 3D environments Were very recognisable Doing all it knows at the time, Paisley To be able to identify exactly where and please Maybe they were modding or something This was quite good because other than Minecraft Students have no prior experience in any of these environments So I should say again for Minecraft The students used creative mode So there were no monsters in the Minecraft community So there is the creative mode Which I think makes sense for some application So I think there are other previous people That other previous work has shown That open sim or something like that Were used for rapid prototyping Of different environments and areas and so on And again, this is just really supporting that From the system at the time Where there was the biggest difference Between the projects was If we actually think about Who the end users were supposed to be The students were not supposed to be Just developing an environment And then Standing around and looking and saying Hey, I think it's our one as a technique In principle they were giving a brief where There were end users and mine And then users would be between stakeholders And urban regeneration So public participation In urban planning and urban regeneration Was a goal that was there in the peak And this is where the biggest differences were Once you've developed that environment What features does that have For people to use it for collaboration and discussion And other types of interaction to collaborate And that was really quite varied So for example, without significant modification Minecraft in particular was very pure here And the system for someone Remembering public to come in and comment And not be there Required finding a book to suspense Or getting a book Opening the book and then using quite a clunky interface To type in a comment And then leave that in a chest And then someone Some moderator would have to go in Log into the environment Find that chest, open it Look to see if there were any books in there Open the books and then you do So it was a very, very awkward commenting system Within the world So it was very difficult for end users to come in And to comment on or interact with environment there And the permissions are very much all or nothing So users either had commissions to just use these books for commenting And nothing else Other than discussion Or they would have permission to completely tear apart the world And potentially vandalize it or ruin it And in terms of features for web integration Again, Minecraft was much purer here Without additional work modification So very poor for web integration Or putting in information or linking to other systems That's one of the key differences And I developed a brief table Not necessarily what the capabilities are With the platforms But really what the team has built Out of each So as I've noted For a range of the buildings in the Paysley High Street area And the key landmarks Tide Hall and the Abbey Google 3D Warehouse Yeah, the Google 3D Warehouse has models Other people have posted online already That are free to reuse And in principle these can be imported Into Second Life And I think, oh consider if you have things Sick up correctly, you've got the right server And the right browser version But only Open Wonderland was able to actually use And so the 3D fidelity 3D quality of the built environment Was excellent in Open Wonderland Not so good in Open 7 But in Second Life And I think being good at building with Primes is something that takes a long time to learn And so I think the opens and projects In this case came out with better quality work In Second Life But using the exact same tools And Minecraft we build using blocks So the 3D quality you can recognize thing But it's certainly not going to be there for detail And if you wanted to do things like add lights For light environments It's got very specific and limited You can do that But you don't necessarily work now with the realism And what interesting was that despite the brief students Would perhaps focus on building a 3D environment And not really consider how the environment was to be used I've told you There was a heavy emphasis on throughout the class On processes and people As being important features of collaboration So, bizarrely, only 2 defined environments Go to the developers Add in specific areas of the environment For people to have a discussion Or areas like this to have a presentation So both Open Syn and Co-Direct Were taking place on the One Syn in Jokadia Grid So it's suspect there's an element of If one group had a good idea The other group probably spotted that And thought we should do that too A little bit of variation In one group discussion on presentation areas Were embedded in the 3D model Of the Town Hall So the Town Hall had presentation areas And the discussion areas And the other project The first separate discussion presentation areas Built out with the 3D models And everyone except for Minecraft Were able to have links to the web So you could click on things And be taken to webpages The Open Syn projects Didn't use the partial media Of course, the media is a little bit awkward For people just learning about building In a second life From the media and the print Was much more reciprocated I'm not quite sure if it was Just failed to find features in Open Syn Or if it was to do with the Vertons of the client That was only really in second life The web environment was extensive And in terms of tools for the public To use was bearing in mind That this was evidence This was the target audience Was a member of the public to come in Our second life group had a web forum That was available on our web page in Second life Open Syn groups Perhaps the best Open Syn first group Had any other voting tools They had collaborative writing tools That were in second life In Open Syn, sorry And they actually had considered ways In which people might actually work together To discuss things Come up with ideas Share ideas And vote on things So you could wander around And vote on areas And I think one category We have got a series of information Once they almost all had information displays Around So all projects But only one group Really had more collaborative tools present I thought it was odd to note that These tools weren't used in Open Wonderland I don't know Many of these tools are actually With no tin Features of Open Wonderland So they're actually very easy to add To Open Wonderland and that of Because it's just dragging dot Need to see I want a collaborative Right over here And it's there You don't need to go on And buy one from a store Or anything To do something The other sad thing to note from this Is that technology issues Still cause lots of problems I've been using virtual worlds In my teaching Or enough for Like we say since about 2006 So we are going to be seven years And I'm still having problems with Technology and the things Breaking and working it off We had initially tried to host OpenSim ourselves But some of them with our network address servers And conflicts within the university network Prevented us from being able to do this And we were able to run OpenSim and host it But And do everything worked Until we tried to connect to it And be a client At which point things feel the same But not very effective Of useful Having spoke to Fleet Took About where she'd encountered Some of the similar issues When she was first setting up Our OpenSim So we knew it wasn't just us Where some ideas We thought she'd overcome In her institution We overcame it by getting Any party hostings We have a very restrictive institution Security policies for Services that have been done on servers In the university And essentially Basically locked up students From having access to the Wonderland From outside campus And this is all Not ideal If you've got a group of virtual environment You see people Won't you still need to come into the university If you want to use it In the time available We were unable to get Minecraft What's opened Again, there were a mixture of Firewall issues But also some of the related policy What's in the university in terms of Having to know the IP address Of the servers were connected to the outside And Minecraft was not being hosted on a set server We couldn't resolve that in time Perhaps because we've been using Second Life Since 2006 The problems with access for Second Life Have been long since been solved And very similar settings are required For access to open-summit sources In the university Which has just spotted the tight limit line So We actually had no problems at all With Second Life Or open-summit terms of technology Using the first party of course And what I'll also say still is We still have issues of complexity So I think Probably the very first time ever Gave a talk about teaching in Second Life I noted that It was a very complex environment And the students found there's an awful lot of stuff to learn And it takes them a long time And they get lost and confused And I think That's really still true And I know that a lot of effort we're going to do Is to simplify and improve the user interface Essentially we still have a very steep learning curve With social issues And navigational issues And technological issues So Just one example of this The model of Paisley Abbey that was built Which I've since modified slightly But I get it kind of gave up Because it's been too time consuming It was modelled to look very good So it was quite visually detailed But it was a very naive approach to development So Let me know what your thoughts on this are We've got a model of an Abbey It used approximately 2000 prims Not And none of those prims were linked at all So we have a highly detailed model built Out of about 2000 unlinked prims In In Opensyn So if anyone here is a builder in Opensyn Just Just think of it Just have a thought on that Let's probably get into the shakes Just trying to imagine that And I think that was The key thing is that was probably the most detailed And Visually the best piece of work out of all of my projects Was that model of Paisley Abbey So it was a student who put in an awful lot of time And To doing that What we can see that the complexity is not just how to use the tools But how to use them well And how you should use them And subtle things like Ways of actually just linking things together And how to use re-use the linked objects In larger scale building Are things that can take quite a lot of time to learn And is really beyond The student's ability with the NSB We also had a very significant duration in the collaborative features provided in CB Despite in some cases very similar platform capabilities So I think If I can go back to the table In terms of the features available Second life in Opensyn Very similar but if you compare the second life in Opensyn project The collaborative tools And the ways in which members of the public could come in And use these environments To discuss planning changes Or to discuss or learn about Paisley Were very varied So again that's partly that they're running a building tool They're running how to use environments At the same time they're learning About all the different tools that can be used within those environments So I'm going to end really quite early here So to end with these general points I think the cultural heritage Of a local environment Is a very rich application for virtual world So it's not by any means unique So in the very first second life community conference There's a paper on virtual Morocco Which is again a virtual heritage And social application And these can be very engaging They can be very relevant to students In this case I was very hands off So I wasn't involved in the building at all Of any of these environments So we probably had less mentoring Less direct mentoring in terms of the building and development skills That's partly a consequence of like we had Six different environments to support Sorry five different environments to support The learning curve is very steep So when students are new to these environments It's what not to underestimate the major challenge required If I was able to clone myself And do much more weighting in terms of Working much more closely with people And helping them learn how to Use all the tools effectively for building In a personal and second life that would be helpful But it's not just the technology And students working in these projects And not just students but anyone working in these projects It's not just a case of build something that looks right We need to really think about and emphasise the importance Of thinking about how the environment is supposed to be used How users are expected to interact In a collaborative virtual environment And how that use is supported So that's it, thank you And if you've got any questions The class ran for So the question was how long were students involved for Was it one semester? It was a one semester class The class ran a total of 12 weeks The students probably had more like six or seven weeks To actually develop these And then the Environments have not been tested by the public Some of the environments are still available So One of the issues with varying of these So I think the Minecraft environment is available For download I should look at the link for that If I can find it So the people that developed the Minecraft environment I actually provided the world As a file, we could download it If you're anyone else with Minecraft You could download and use that world And as I say It doesn't feature much in the way of collaborative tools With Second Life One of the issues with Second Life I didn't mention is It cost a lot of money in Second Life We no longer have a permanent business in Second Life From the university So it required me securing Quite a large piece of land for students to work in And for the period of the class So effectively as soon as this was marked We coincided quite closely with The end of our rental So everything disappeared in Second Life Almost as soon as the class finished Some of the open sim stuff we've got Are sim in Jokedi grid Sim is Paisley 2020 And I've not logged in recently But If you go to Jokedi grid And Paisley 2020 You should still be able to see the Paisley Abbey You'll see that I've actually Tried modifying it a little bit Trying to start linking up bits of it But then I got tired on board And so you'll see there's still You know, vast numbers of premises Or what's this unlinked build That's still quite convenient So Public testing that sadly wasn't there I did share Actually, obviously for public testing For public testing One of the requirements of the project was Most groups had to create A video of their work So If you give me a second, I'll get you a Video URL Find this So I'll get you a video That just demonstrates one of the projects And then you can see the kinds of things So not all the sources are still working To make sure I pick one that's still up So, yeah, all the students had to provide A website with a video And so we can see You can see one of the websites And it's got a nice video embedded in it Here, I'll actually put this up here If you So the media should have come up there So you might want to see behind me is one of the projects And we have within that You'll have to click on it Yourself, everyone gets to copy this Web page There's a link there for a video demo And so they had a video that outlined this So the videos and the project home pages Were all shared with the representative from Paisley 2020 The sort of the voluntary group And so we've got some comments back that way Rather than actually having the public in to test these out So it was really my expert evaluation of Of what features they did include for the public But I could really see that, for example, for Minecraft If you didn't know how to use Minecraft And you couldn't be able to do anything in the Minecraft environment And I think we've all got some idea of how difficult Second Life and Opensome can be for users My personal evaluation is that For someone who's never used these environments Open Wonderland is the easiest To log into and work around and work around and use And with Second Life and Opensome It also depends on how you get people started But I think that's an important issue And how much So let me go back over some of the other questions How much of the problems with bureaucratic And how much technological It's a mix Running Opensome ourselves is a technology issue Because we have had some support From IP trying to get up and running But there was something there that didn't work out And we try and find Open Wonderland group If, say, if they're just still available So some of the students hosted these in temporary sites They may no longer be available You won't be able to log in to Open Wonderland Because it was only available from within the video version So here is the Open Wonderland group So let me try and work through the questions I've got a few questions here Which is quite nice We're since quite a bit motivated It varied, as I say The group that develops the Paisley Abbey We're very motivated and we're very organized We're very motivated The group, the other group that was in Opensome with them Was perhaps I think when you're sharing a sim With a group that really motivated and doing lots of work You find that you have to do lots of work Because you can see what they are doing And you're like, oh my goodness We've got a match, but they are doing So that drove that That worked pretty So both those groups in Opensome Side by side developing their own balance Probably did the most work And got to work early So we're most organized Second life group Left things far too late To get started And I think we could achieve much better results than we did If we'd got started earlier Then we'd be more focused Similarly, Open Wonderland To be honest, I think And I think that sometimes varies according to the groups of students So some of the best students were people that was In one of the Opensome groups And they were just very, very organized and driven students So student motivation is All of the hard problem And it varies often with students So sometimes you find you've got a group of students In a virtual world And there are lots and lots of people who do ever And sometimes sadly not In terms of exporting models for other environments There are export tools to get stuff out of Second life groups And in the past I've tried to encourage students To think about export As the development So make sure that one person Creates an object And has it with permission Is required to be able to export it I didn't make that an requirement this time I'll share with you, I think I've got one other project URL So you can see the other Opensome group project So that's three of the project websites And so you can maybe see some variation there In terms of the features and what the group got onto I thought it was an interesting project We've got some good feedback from the partner It was quite useful in terms of motivation In fact that the person from this plan for Paisley Group With Paisley 2020 Group Works for a recruitment agency Certainly the zone was an ability to give us A motivation effect as you need to say that Someone's going to be looking at this And we've got for our recruitment agency As you could say for students in their final year I think that's maybe it for questions If there is anything else that you can always email me And drop me a personal email if you would ask more questions I'll just give you, that's my personal email address Just a quick signal, just drop me a line Well great, thank you buddy for a terrific presentation As a reminder to our audience You can see what's coming up in the conference schedule At conference.opensimulator.org Next will be a conference break from 1030 to 1130 There will be a keynote address at 1130 In this particular room The next session will be at 1230 El Secreto de El Balam Building an immersive experience for language learners With James T. Abraham A.K.O. A.K.A. Callisto Encio in Second Life Thank you again to our speaker and the audience We'll be back after the break and the keynote with the next session