I meant to properly blog this the other day, but hopefully some saw it through a brief tweet.
In this video, an Iowa State University panel of faculty, staff, and administrators consider the implications of using Second Life from an institutional perspective. Both the pros and cons are debated, and I would recommend it not just to educators, but those representing an institution of any sort. When discussing legal liability issues, the focus is necessarily on US law, but the.. ethical and philosophical questions inherent in the presentations really will apply globally.
I’ve been to many panels and presentations and conference sessions about Second Life, but this one gets to some questions that I haven’t seen addressed elsewhere, and despite the fact that most of the participants seems to have done some homework on Second Life, with many having accounts and demonstrating competence in-world, many of the participants are what I’d consider laymen in SL terms. Not newbs, but not residents. And their concerns are ones that I imagine will be shared by many of our bosses and administrators and legal departments and HR departments.
Worth the time investment to watch the whole panel, the Q&A can be skipped.
View the Iowa State University Second Life Panel video here.