Second life research

Shailey draws on her experience of researching in second life and how it can be used as a platform for conducting research.

She was initial skeptical but now sees a lot of benefits to using it. 

Second life is a 3D-interactive world, much more human experience that 2D- environments, a sense of 'being there'. 

Some of her previous research on students' experience of using blogs and wikis highlighted that they had difficulty critiquing each others work because they didn't know each other well enough. Second life provides a space for socialisation. 

Second life to support research

Research meetings, networking, virtual collaborations

Seminars, conferences, share resources

Second life as a platform for conducting research

Conduct interviews, observations

Evaluate prototypes of concepts and designs

Bring in real data and develop simulations

PhD Supervisions in second life plus email, sense of visual presence and a sense of place, large pool of praticiants, transcript of text conversation or audio record of conversation

Sense of realism which is hard to match in other online environments, but there is a steep learning curve, it takes less time to learn to use Skype, flashmeeting or Elluminate. Also demanding systems requirements - graphics card, memory broadband, etc.