Risk assessment issues in relation to VW's.

This is an excerpt from an email chain I received a few days ago and thought this would be a great topic to include on this site....

Our risk manager attended a risk management and insurance conference in September. One of the presentations focused on key risks and liability concerns about the use of Second Life:

• Securing the virtual campus:
  
  • Cyberbullying and cyber-rape can cause victims real emotional distress and trauma.
  
  
• Tort liability....
  
  • What if the real-world person behind the aggrieved avatar suffers actual physical or emotional harm from witnessing the attach?
  
  
• Off-campus Problems/Policy Issues.
  
  • If your institution teaches a course on 2nd Life and "forces" students into the virtual world, where does your chain of responsibility end? ...
  
  

My response to the email...

"... we have not treated the virtual environment with any less attention than we would our physical campus. If anything, we have alleviated the division between virtual and real world when it comes to emotional health responsibility on behalf of the college in relation to our students or personnel. I guess I am looking at it being our responsibility as a college to offer support services addressing the needs of our students no matter the delivery platform. Once again, I may be naive to the legality of the world we live in, but I still fail to see how the delivery method makes us any more or less responsible than we are as an organization as a whole. In other words, all of the listed concerns are valid no matter the environment and should be addressed as a college and not as a delivery medium. And yes, we do address these issues through our student handbooks and college operating standards/procedures. The same code of conduct prevails no matter the delivery mechanism.

I do find it particularly interesting that the insurance and legal entities have begun to address possible opportunities in relation to virtual worlds. Really says a lot as to the solidification of these environments. I am wondering if these are the same conversations that arose when the internet became an essential mechanism of delivery for online learning..."

So what is your idea on this? Anyone know of other organizations traversing similar terrains?

Welcome to Virtual World Education!

Hello fellow educators or educational enthusiasts. I know it has been a long time coming, but hey better late than never. This site will focus on aspects of virtual world education. The aspects we focus on will primarily be driven in direct relation to issues and/or concerns I come across as my team and I travel the exciting waters of VW education. It is important to understand that the comments made in this blog are my personal beliefs and are in no way official endorsement from TSTC or any other entity. I will use this forum as a personal communication of my experiences and beliefs.

Let's start with an introduction...I am Chris Gibson, and I lead a team of educational artists at Texas State Technical College (TSTC). One of our primary team projects is developing virtual world learning experiences. We currently use Second Life(SL) as the primary delivery platform, but understand the environment is dependent upon need and not any specific virtual world branding issues. My team is dedicated to utilizing whatever tools we feel are the best tools for the job at hand and currently SL meets that criteria.

Most recently we have been recognized for developing and leading TSTC to the head of virtual world education by being the first college (vTSTC) to offer a completely online college program using virtual worlds as the primary delivery method (yes, this means an actual college degree obtained using SL). Now enough with the portfolio, let's get to the meat of this site and that is virtual world education.

What is VW education? First, I will be upfront about the term virtual world education, to me it is synonymous with online education. It is my belief that in the very near future (3-5 years) we will reference the two as one in the same. Yes this means, I believe, we will see a shift in the coming years for educational online delivery methods. This shift will introduce "traditional" online educators to a new paradigm for teaching and learning. This new paradigm will revolve around using 3D environments in an effort to establish a more immersive engaging environment than current 2D delivery methods readily offer.

What are your thoughts or ideas in relation to online education and virtual worlds?