Investing in Ephemeral Virtual Worlds - An Educational Perspective

Athanasios Christopoulos, Marc Conrad

2014

Abstract

The increased demand for the use of virtual worlds in higher education has led many educators and researchers in in-depth analysis and evaluation of a number of different virtual environments, aiming to highlight their potentials. Until recently, Second Life was one of the most widely used virtual worlds for educational purposes. However, the decision of Linden Lab to stop offering the educational discount, the rumours around its future and the emergence of a novel technology called OpenSim challenged institutions’ decisions to keep using Second Life. In a try to identify the way institutions make their decision to use a virtual world, 34 interviews have been conducted with university educators. The results of this study reveal that both the cost and the persistence of a virtual world play an important role on this decision. However, there are still some unique benefits offered by each world affecting to a great extent the educators’ decision. We conclude the paper by advocating the use of a cross-institutional hypergrid.

Paper Citation

in Harvard Style

Christopoulos A. and Conrad M. (2014). Investing in Ephemeral Virtual Worlds - An Educational Perspective . In Proceedings of the 6th International Conference on Computer Supported Education - Volume 3: CSEDU, ISBN 978-989-758-022-2, pages 118-123. DOI: 10.5220/0004957801180123

in Bibtex Style

@conference{csedu14,
author={Athanasios Christopoulos and Marc Conrad},
title={Investing in Ephemeral Virtual Worlds - An Educational Perspective},
booktitle={Proceedings of the 6th International Conference on Computer Supported Education - Volume 3: CSEDU,},
year={2014},
pages={118-123},
publisher={SciTePress},
organization={INSTICC},
doi={10.5220/0004957801180123},
isbn={978-989-758-022-2},
}

in EndNote Style

TY - CONF
JO - Proceedings of the 6th International Conference on Computer Supported Education - Volume 3: CSEDU,
TI - Investing in Ephemeral Virtual Worlds - An Educational Perspective
SN - 978-989-758-022-2
AU - Christopoulos A.
AU - Conrad M.
PY - 2014
SP - 118
EP - 123
DO - 10.5220/0004957801180123