Virtual skills for the real world

We have only just begun to explore the huge potential of virtual environments and the advantages they hold for teaching

Virtual environments allow students to benefit from communication with businesspeople they would not otherwise meet

Virtual world environments such as Second Life have immense potential, providing a shared and interactive space where groups of people can meet and work together in real time, regardless of their physical location.

The graphical interface and three-dimensional platform of virtual environments allows people to interact easily and cost-effectively in a form that might be expensive or even risky in the real world. Almost anything is possible, provided you have the funds, imagination and the technical expertise.

So it comes as no surprise that the business and leisure sectors are making increasing use of virtual worlds. For example, organisations from global technology firms to hotels have set up islands on Second Life to facilitate collaborative product development, problem solving, recruitment, training and customer feedback.

Virtual worlds also have the potential to enhance and enrich education. Such technologies can bring learning to life in a way that is not readily matched by other digital media.

For example, virtual environments can offer students a vibrant, fully immersive location where they can meet each other and their teachers to receive lessons, undertake projects and present work. Second Life and similar platforms also provide a format for students to talk to people they would rarely have the chance to encounter in person, such as senior business leaders.

Virtual worlds provide an inclusive and accessible environment for work-related learning, enabling students to work on genuine business problems under the guidance of an industry supervisor. The platform is ideally suited to simulation-based learning, something particularly relevant to science and technology-based subjects such as IT.

Simulation-based learning allows students to experiment, model and test new systems without having to worry about potential faults. Virtual worlds also engage young people and reflect how such individuals now communicate with each other.

New graduates have grown up with technology and social computing sites such as YouTube and Facebook, and the Web 2.0 phenomenon of user-generated content is helping to transform how people maintain social networks and share information.

Sector skills council e-Skills UK’s latest research into future trends in IT has revealed that the “digital native” generation responds best to a flexible and collaborative approach to education ­ something virtual worlds are well-placed to support.

In many ways virtual world environments are still in their infancy. The real potential, benefits and limitations of use are still emerging and there remains a number of obstacles in terms of use in education.

For example, users appear in Second Life in the guise of a virtual avatar identified by a pseudonym. These rules can make it difficult for teachers and lecturers to get to know individuals and their educational needs, particularly if the virtual world environment is not complemented by traditional face-to-face learning.

It can take time for organisations and individual users to get to grips with the technology, and costs can rise steeply if you choose to buy and develop your own island. However, such issues will be resolved over time.

As the sector skills council for IT and telecoms, e-Skills UK is committed to making the most of new technologies to enhance our activities and add value for our customers and stakeholders.

We were fortunate in being able to use IBM’s Second Life facilities to run our special event for employers and university students ­ – see 'Uniting employers and students through virtual worlds' below.

The event provided a glimpse into the potential of virtual world environ ments. And in 2008 we will be running a virtual careers fair as part of the new Revitalise IT programme, which is a major initiative to transform the attitudes of young people to IT-related education and careers.

The fair will bring school and college students together with employers and universities running technology-based courses. We will also be back with more Information Technology Management for Business (ITMB) events on Second Life.

Karen Price is chief executive of e-Skills UK.

The employer-backed Information Technology Management for Business (ITMB) degree programme was developed by e-Skills UK in collaboration with universities and employers.

The degrees develop the high-level business, management, communication and technical skills increasingly required by business-oriented IT professionals and are now offered at 13 universities:
www.e-skills.com/itmb

How organisations are using Second Life

“Virtualisation is a huge area for Procter and Gamble, and we mix the virtual and real worlds a lot. For example, designing a new Hugo Boss perfume bottle uses a fraction of the cost of making physical mock-ups. We also use fully immersive 3D environments such as Caves (computer-augmented virtual environments) to demonstrate ideas to our big customers. “So whereas before we would have to convince Tesco to actually change a store layout to test an idea, we can now create it virtually and walk them round it.”
Meri Williams, information decision solutions manager, Procter and Gamble

“My team was founded as a result of the enthusiasm of the community of IBM employees who believed that virtual worlds had the potential to transform the world and the web as we know it. Their commitment resulted ultimately in the foundation of an emerging business unit to explore the business application of virtual worlds. “There are now about 5,000 IBM employees around the globe working with clients,
collaborating with the public and investigating how virtual worlds can enable IBM to operate more productively. We are exploring a large number of virtual world platforms, some of them located behind the company firewall, to allow us to explore and experiment on internal projects.”
Holly Stewart, UK lead for IBM’s 3D internet and virtual business team, part of the digital convergence emerging business unit within IBM Research

“We hold a regular Friday Club in Second Life to explore how we could make best use of virtual world environments in teaching, learning and marketing Manchester Business School. The club brings together undergraduate and doctoral students, academic and central marketing staff and web developers.”
Professor Linda Macaulay, professor of information system design, Manchester Business School, University of Manchester

Uniting employers and students through virtual worlds

e-Skills UK held a pilot event in Second Life on 28 November last year, uniting companies, universities and students who are taking the employer-backed Information Technology Management for Business (ITMB) degree.

Employers included companies such as IBM, Procter and Gamble and Micro Focus, with higher education backing from the University of Manchester and Northumbria University.

The purpose of the event was to determine if Second Life could add value to the ITMB degree ethos of uniting employers, students and universities to help prepare students for business-oriented careers in IT.

During the session, students were able to watch a video of Andy Stanford-Clark, master inventor at IBM, who delivered a lecture on pervasive messaging technology.

Students were also able to discuss with employers and tutors the business and educational benefits of virtual world technologies. Special booths were made available for one-to-one discussions between students and employers.

The event was designed and developed with IBM UK and held on the firm’s University Relations Island on Second Life, which was originally developed by a group of university students working within IBM’s Extreme Blue internship programme. The island was tailored to meet the needs of the ITMB event.

After an initial meeting between e-Skills UK and IBM, all subsequent development and discussion work was undertaken through the virtual medium of Second Life.

All elements in the ITMB event auditorium, from the stage to the seating arrangements, were developed in Second Life’s own code language, Linden Scripting Language, and by Metaverse Evangelists from IBM UK, following a design specification that was provided by e-Skills UK.

e-Skills UK gave detailed guidance and support to help participants create avatars and negotiate their way around Second Life.

Matt Whitbourne, senior inventor and Extreme Blue European manager at IBM UK, says the ITMB event highlighted how virtual worlds can bring people together in a way that is not always easy in the physical world.

“It enabled senior business executives to take 60 minutes out of their working day to meet with students and discuss some of the important challenges facing our industry, without ever having to set foot outside the office,” he says.