Interview: Andrew Campbell – Director of Prometheus Research Team, University of Sydney

(Published earlier today on Metaverse Health)

Over the past couple of years I’ve had the opportunity to chat with Andrew Campbell on a couple of occasions. As Director of the Prometheus Research Team, Andrew is heavily involved in the area of mental health and technology. I’ve always been struck by Andrew’s objective view of gaming and virtual worlds, which he rightly sees as simultaneously providing significant opportunities and challenges.

I caught up with Andrew to discuss his work and perspectives on mental health, gaming and immersive virtual worlds.

DH: Can you describe the main focus of your clinical work?

AC: The main focus of my clinical work is divided into two categories. Firstly, research. My primary job is an academic researcher and teacher in the field of Psychology. I conduct research particularly in the area of Cyberpsychology, which is the study of how technology is impacting human behaviour, both in good and bad ways. Secondly, I am a general practice psychologist who specialises in child and adolescent mental health and behavioural problems. My clinical work to date has been focused on treating children with ADD/ADHD, anxiety and depression, conduct problems, as well as parental counselling and family therapy.

DH: What led your career to the stage it is at today – what got you into the issue of mental health and technology?

AC: In 1997 I was finishing my undergraduate degree in Psychology and Education at The University of Sydney and decided to spend some time in the United States working as a teaching assistant at a few universities. I became captivated with work being done by a handful of academic psychologists in the US at the time who were focusing on how the internet was going to be a revolution to impact human behaviour and society at large.

I read everything I could get my hands on at the time to do with online relationships, virtual societies and even gaming communities that were developing international reputations and new cultures in cyberspace. I asked myself at the time ‘could this be the start of a new movement in human enrichment?’ and set forth to find out the good and the bad (and the down-right terrible) aspects of spending a lot of time engrossed in an online world, be it chat, gaming, shopping, finance, politics etc. Thus, my interests turned toward career aspirations to develop psychological research and an applied track record in the use of information communication technology and the use of other technologies in helping the ‘human condition’.

DH: Arguably the number one and two areas of broader public interest with mental health and technology is gaming and violence and addiction. What percentage of your work is spent dealing with actual or perceived issues in those areas?

AC: To date, my clinical work as a generalist psychologist in child and adolescent mental health has only touched lightly on these issues. I have mainly dealt with traditional mental health concerns of parents over their children, but of those clients I have seen about gaming violence and addiction, I’ve noted that the parents themselves do not know anything about the games their children are playing. They tend to have a view that all games are violent or addictive. Given this, I normally direct parents to learn more about what their kids enjoy about their game in order to learn more about behaviours they may be modeling from the game. For example, two of my client’s parents had no idea that strategic games such as ‘Age of Empires’ actually have huge cognitive and historic learning benefits. The game is akin to modern day chess, with historical lessons of ages past. Other games that promote team play
increase problem solving skills in a collaborative environment, therefore promoting team work and clear communication strategies.

Adversely, some team playing games are based on a violent theme, such as the popular game ‘Counter Strike‘. Overall, through my work I’ve found that parents do have concerns about violence and addiction to games, but really do not have an understanding of games themselves. This is troubling in an age where gaming is increasing in popularity across generations and content is still not regulated well by Government or other ‘watchdog’ agencies. As such, parents need to be cognisant of the types of games out there – their pluses and minus points – and be involved in selecting and learning about the titles with their children in order to curtail negative behaviours related to certain genres.

DH: The issue of technology and its influence on behaviour has been around for decades, with the TV / Film and violence link being hotly debated for most of that time. Before we get onto gaming / virtual worlds, is there yet any empirical agreement on TV/Film and violent behaviour?

AC: As surprising as this may sound, no, there is not any empirical agreement on TV/Film and violent behaviour in contemporary society. Incidents such as the Columbine School Massacre and more recently, the Virginia Tech shooting have led psychologists to argue for renewed policies censuring violent films and TV shows from minors and suggestible personality types. Although games are becoming a popular target for connecting atrocious violent crimes to the perpetrator, TV and Film are still front runners in the causation of violent behaviour in, not just the younger population, but the population in general.

DH: The popular media perception of gaming is that there is at least an anecdotal link between the regular playing of violent games and violent real-life behaviour. From your work, have you seen any evidence of this?

AC: Unequivocally, no! To say that violent games or even violent TV/Film is causation for a violent crime is ludicrous. I won’t go so far to say that violent games, TV or Film have zero impact on violent crimes, but to look at it as a sole causation does not address the pathology of the individual to begin with, let alone motive to carry out the behaviour that may lead to a crime. Ergo, playing a violent game is no more likely to trigger someone’s violent behaviour than eating your favourite food is going to motivate you to become a chef! In my private practice, any child who has presented with conduct disorder or oppositional defiant disorder, or even anger management problems, may or may not have been a gamer – however – all have had pathology and environmental problems that
have led to their disorder that are more consistent and pervasive than just playing a violent video game a few hours a day.

DH: Is there actually an argument that gaming can have an ameliorating effect on real-world behaviour and if so, is there research supporting this?

AC: Yes, a number of studies have shown wonderful results helping people to ameliorate either behaviour or, in some cases, the management of pain. My own research has looked at how biofeedback video games that encourage the player to control a task on a screen using their breathing technique, has led to improved attention and relaxation strategies in ADD/ADHD children. Other research has shown that virtual reality games that are immersive can actually help in the treatment of PTSD. One of the best breakthroughs in serious games has been the treatment of burn victims from the current Iraq and Afghanistan wars. These patients have to undertake pain dressing changes and skin grafts. During these procedures, the patient plays a game called ‘Snow world’ which immerses them in an environment that triggers their subconscious into believing they are in a cool and calm environment that distracts them from the pain of the treatment they are receiving. The research in all these examples is very new, but compelling. It is beginning to influence the game developers in entertainment to consider the market for ’serious games’. This has already commenced with popular programs such as the Nintendo Wii releasing Wii fit and associated sports programs to tackle obesity.

DH: In regards to addiction and online gaming or virtual world environments, what’s your overall take?

AC: My overall take on addiction is that it is possible in either the virtual world or gaming environments online. What needs to be clarified is what aspects of these activities and functions are ‘addictive’. To say we are addicted to the Internet is like saying we are addicted to shopping – what items are we addicted to? The internet houses many areas of interest. It is obvious to posit that sex addiction offline could also be met online, as could be gambling. But gaming offline vs gaming online has different stimulus effects I would theorise.

Also, virtual worlds – what do we gain in socialising in these worlds that we don’t in our offline world? Is there such a thing as addiction to socialising?! Most likely not, because socialising is part of being human. Therefore, what is the attraction to these worlds that stimulates us highly enough to spend hours online engaging with strangers vs. meeting strangers in the offline world? The answer probably lies somewhere between the functions of pursuing anonymity, creativity, cerebral connections and/or reducing the chance of being socially awkward – all reasons one person may prefer the online world.

DH: If addiction is only quantifiable in a small component of the population, is that component larger or smaller than other behaviours such as substance use, gambling etc?

AC: I think if we look at gaming addiction in comparison to substance use, for example, we can quickly conclude that substance abuse is both physically and psychologically damaging and perhaps more wide spread globally across ages, genders and cultures. But the damage of gaming addiction is growing in certain cultures, such as in Asia where gaming is an accepted pasttime for all ages and genders and thus could be on the rise without society realising it since it is not an illegal behaviour or even an invasive or obviously destructive past time compared to drug taking.

However, it is psychologically damaging both in psychosocial relationships, employment responsibility and accountability and can even affect our general health to a large degree. You might therefore say that although substance abuse and gambling are faster and
harder-hitting addictions, gaming addiction is fast becoming a contemporary societal problem that is slow to build in destructiveness,
but easier to ignore.

DH: For those who do require actual treatment for addiction, what’s your take on the use of online treatment when the issue is related to online behaviour i.e. addressing the traditional view that you can’t use the mechanism for facilitating addiction to treat the addiction itself.

AC: One of the earliest therapies provided online by Psychologist, Dr Kimberly Young, was treatment for online addiction. She began this service, online, in the early 1990’s. Although it has been a growth industry for Dr Young and others who believe in her treatment modality, I personally find it to be flawed therapy and lacking in best-practice evidence. Addiction, be it to specific functions of the internet, gaming, substance abuse, gambling etc, is an extremely difficult pathology to treat, let alone treat well. Therefore, all scientific practice indicates that addiction therapy should be done in a face-to-face or group counselling environment. It requires ongoing resource support utilising mentors, friends and family. It is something that may (but only in very specifically suitable cases) use the internet as a support tool, but in all other regards addiction, especially to internet functions and gaming, should be done away from the primary stimulus.

DH: With growing immersiveness in gaming and in virtual worlds more broadly, what do you see as the mental health challenges and opportunities?

AC: Research right now is looking out how we can harness immersive environments, be they virtual worlds or games, for tackling problems in health, behaviour and education. The challenges we face at the moment are actually not to do with the quality of the environments being delivered to consumers over the internet or through off-the-shelf games, but more through the cost of developing serious games or health purpose virtual worlds by the commercial sector. In addition, we are facing a health professional vs tech industry challenge in trying to have these two expert bodies effectively harness the ideas that are scientifically based delivery of health interventions. In short – the health professionals need to learn more about the tech industry and vice versa. Once this bridge is finally built, I believe we will be entering a new error of technology consumerism – games for wellbeing and ICT for personal health management.

Popularity: 1% [?]

Interview – Prof. Young Choi and Dr. Thomas Furness, HIT Lab Australia

In 2008, with not a lot of fanfare, the Human Interface Technology Laboratory Australia (HIT Lab) was created. Part of the University of Tasmania (UTAS), its brief is to be a specialist human interface technology teaching and research centre.

Headed in an interim capacity by Professor Young Ju Choi with significant involvement by veteran virtual reality researcher Tom Furness, HIT Lab has an ambitious brief that could position it as one of Australia’s virtual reality engine rooms. I took the opportunity to catch up with Prof. Young Choi and Dr Furness, who compiled the answers collaboratively, to discuss what’s likely to be a hectic future.

TMJ: Can you give a potted history of how HIT Lab got its Australian iteration?

HIT Lab: Attracting Australia’s first HIT Lab to UTAS Launceston was a case of serendipitous alignment of vision and aspiration with a visit to Tasmania in 2006 by Tom Furness – as a keynote speaker at an international conference in Hobart, organised by Professor Young Choi. By way of background, HIT Lab US at the University of Washington was established by Tom in 1989 followed by HIT Lab NZ in 2002 at the University of Canterbury in New Zealand.

In recent years UTAS has been considering strategic directions and initiatives for the Launceston campus. As part of this exercise Professor Choi was investigating opportunities for cutting-edge, world-class technology for a potential world-leadership, niche technology development. The current UTAS Vice-Chancellor, Professor Daryl Le Grew, was previously VC at the University of Canterbury when HIT Lab NZ was established. He encouraged Professor Choi to have a conversation with Professor Furness during the 2006 conference, and the HIT Lab Australia initiative developed from there.

TMJ: Structurally, how closely do each of the HIT Labs liaise?

HIT Lab: HIT Lab Australia and UTAS (and HIT Lab NZ and University of Canterbury) each have a formal Memorandum of Agreement (MOA) with the University of Washington and HIT Lab US, which establishes, among other things, a framework for collaboration and cooperation in research, teaching and other endeavours.

The Australian and NZ HIT Lab’s are also establishing an MOA to formalise and strengthen their relationship. Professors Furness and Mark Billinghurst (Director of HIT Lab NZ) are also Adjunct Professors of HIT Lab Australia and have contributed to a number of activities including curriculum development and teaching.

TMJ: A key aspect of the research and learning components at HIT Lab is collaboration across many disciplines, from Architecture to Nursing. How do you envisage this will be managed and do you have buy-in from each of the faculties at present?

HIT Lab: From the outset HIT Lab Australia was established as a trans-disciplinary strategic development of UTAS. The location at the Launceston campus was determined on the basis of plans to develop collaboration in teaching and research across many of the Launceston campus academic schools including Architecture and Design, Nursing and Midwifery, the Australian Maritime College, Visual and Performing Arts, Education and the School of Computing and Information Systems.

HIT Lab Australia has an academic planning and development group to identify and plan cross-disciplinary developments in teaching, research and commercial projects. The group includes the heads of a number of academic schools mentioned above.

A pleasing development for the HIT Lab Australia has been the interest shown in undergraduate HIT units in the summer school and first semesters by students from a range of schools. The units have attracted student enrolments from many schools/courses including Architecture and Design, Contemporary Arts, Arts/Social Science, Education, and Business as well as Computing and Information Systems.

TMJ: What are the key research priorities for HIT Lab in the short and medium term?

HIT Lab: An announcement will be made shortly on the inaugural appointment of Director of the HIT Lab Australia. The Director will commence duties later in the year and will be instrumental in establishing research directions, strategy and priorities. Having said that elements of the research strategy will include:

• a focus on creative design, visualisation, simulation and interactive entertainment

• application of cutting-edge visualisation, immersive virtual reality (VR) and augmented reality (AR) technologies to underpin collaborative training & education, research & development programs and commercial development by linking key disciplines and centres in the Launceston Campus

• building international collaboration in research through our partnership with the world-renowned HIT Lab US, University of Washington and the HIT Lab NZ, University of Canterbury, as well as in China, Korea and elsewhere

• research and commercial projects that will help to fulfil the objectives for HIT Lab Australia to develop as an economic engine for Tasmania and Australia

TMJ: Are there significant human interface milestones that excite you in the short and medium term?

HIT Lab: The key driver behind the research agenda of the HIT Lab Australia will be the solution of challenging problems that confront the nation and the world. We just don’t want to work on technology because we can – we want to solve real problems. To this end we will start in Tasmania and Australia then branch out to the world, especially the third world. As for short term milestones, we definitely want to develop new and more efficient ways of generating 3D content for education, training, medicine and entertainment applications. This plays well with the interdisciplinary partners in the venture. In the longer term we would like to spin off several companies that build and market interface appliances that solve the problems above.

TMJ: What are your thoughts on human interface products already commercialised?

HIT Lab: We are just at the beginning of a new era of developing interfaces that deeply couple humans to machine – in an attempt to amplify or augment human capability. New products will follow this theme of looking at the deeper physiological and emotional aspects of design interfaces. In the end, we want to build the ‘Nextant’, or the next sextant, that lets us use our mind for navigating in virtual spaces much like the sextant allowed early navigators to use their eyes and the stars to navigate in physical space.

TMJ: What do you see as the key measures of success for a good human interface for virtual worlds?

HIT Lab: In general, good interfaces should be seamless and transparent. That is, they shouldn’t get in the way. Interfaces and the tools that they link to humans are only a means to an end. It is the end, or application, that is most important – what is it supposed to do, versus what is it! The ideal interface would be one that is so intuitive, that the user doesn’t have to learn anything new to operate it, while at the same time performing tasks that were impossible before, or at least with more efficiency than before.

TMJ: Aside from the neurological / physiological aspects of such interfaces, what do you believe are the key psychological and/or sociological challenges of developing human interfaces with virtual worlds?

HIT Lab: Clearly the greatest challenge is understanding consciousness and how that maps to brain function. There is also a lot going on subconsciously where processing takes place in the background before being brought to the surface. Ideally we would build advanced interfaces that serve both levels, e.g. subliminal interfaces.

TMJ: Using nursing as an example, how do you see HIT Lab’s work making an impact in the next five years?

HIT Lab: One of the key issues in nursing is the time and quality of training it takes to produce a well-qualified nurse. As in other clinical practices, the key factor is practice, and opportunities for practicing on real patients is limited. Virtual humans can take the place of real humans in training and thereby provide a more rich, diverse and intensive training experience for nurses. We want to work with the School of Nursing to develop a suite of training devices that can not only be used for task training but also provide visualisation of processes normally not seen, e.g. how contamination spreads by viewing virtual bacteria or how a drug or injection infuses the body, etc.

TMJ: Immersiveness is something heavily sought after in virtual worlds – is that a key goal of HIT Lab’s work or a secondary objective?

HIT Lab: Presence or the sense of ‘being there’ is clearly one of the more powerful attributes of immersive virtual reality. The feeling of being in a place provides vital hooks to memory, or the ability to retain things that are experienced. In general, a person immersed in a virtual world never forgets it. So in answer to the question, yes, this is a key goal. But the key goal is solving real world problems, even if immersion is not necessary.

TMJ: What are HIT Lab’s markers of success – are there objectives required to be met for ongoing funding etc?

HIT Lab: HIT Lab Australia has been established as a strategic initiative of the University of Tasmania with seed funding to establish the staffing profile, teaching and research staff profile, curriculum development and research program. A condition of this funding has been the development of a business plan which was approved by UTAS earlier this year.

The business plan covers the first five years of operation and establishes a number of key targets and milestones including undergraduate, postgraduate and research higher degree enrolments for domestic and international students. There are also targets for course development, research and commercial project outcomes and so on. Progress towards objectives will be monitored progressively.

HIT Lab Australia has the strong support from the UTAS Vice-Chancellor and Senior Executive as well as from senior academics from a number of allied schools and faculties. Interest from enrolled students, prospective students, colleges and schools, business and industry has been tremendously encouraging and point to long term success of this exciting initiative for UTAS and its Launceston campus.

TMJ: How do you view the virtual worlds sphere locally – are there any developments outside of HIT Lab that interest/excite you?

HIT Lab: The Launceston Campus of UTAS is a great place to begin the HIT Lab since it has not only the Nursing School and Australian Maritime College but also the design element in Architecture and Visual and Performing arts to name a few. The confluence of these disciplines and activities can be enriched by the catalyst and technologies provided by the HIT Lab AU. In the end, we would hope to involve existing local companies as well as develop new start-ups that we spinoff from the HIT Lab and UTAS. Within Australasia, the USA and Europe there are a number of links (beyond the HIT Labs) that we would like to establish involving projects and student exchanges etc.

TMJ: How important is some form of agreement on virtual world interoperability to HIT Lab’s work?

HIT Lab: There will be a time when standards for interface appliances supporting virtual worlds will need to be developed -but not too soon, as these will tend to restrict or constrain the progress of this remarkable technology. This is true especially as new functionality is developed along with growth in supporting technology. For example, we don’t want to be constrained by 8 bit byte standard when in the longer term we will need 128 bits per byte or more to grow the technology. Although standardisation can help interoperability, it can limit the vitality of a technology. Instead of standards, what would be useful is guidelines to give investigators and developers a feeling for best practices and what needs to be considered in the design and human factors engineering of virtual interfaces. Such a foundational understanding would then grow as the science and technology grow. The HIT Lab Australia, along with sister labs in the US and NZ will be the world’s repository for these best practices and guidelines.

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A big thanks to Chris Carstens for his help in coordinating the interview responses. Below you can find more detailed biographies:

Professor Young Ju Choi

Born in Kwangju, Korea, and Australian by naturalisation, Professor Young Choi was educated at the Australian National University and the University of Adelaide.

Professor Choi has worked as a Computer Science academic in Australian higher education since his initial appointment at the University of Adelaide. Before coming to Tasmania he was Head of Computer Science and Deputy Dean, Faculty of Mathematical Sciences at Flinders University, Adelaide.

He was subsequently appointed as the Foundation Head of School of Computing at the University of Tasmania (UTAS) and served in this role for nearly twenty years. He has published widely in areas including concurrent and distributed computing, multimedia and internet technologies, and eLearning technologies.

He is recognised internationally for his work in international education, especially in China and Korea, including Chair of the Academic Advisory Committee; International Education Network, China; Asia Pacific Digital Multimedia Education Network member; and the ACHEM Computing Curriculum Board, Malaysia.

Professor Choi is currently Interim Director of the Human Interface Technology (HIT) Lab Australia at the University of Tasmania which is linked to the world-renowned HIT Lab US at the University of Washington, Seattle, USA.

Dr. Thomas Furness

Prof. Furness is a pioneer in human interface technology and virtual reality. He received the BS degree in Electrical Engineering from Duke University and the Ph.D. in Engineering and Applied Science from the University of Southampton, England. Dr. Furness is currently a professor of Industrial Engineering with adjunct professorships in Electrical Engineering, Mechanical Engineering, Aeronautics and Astronautics, and Human Centered Design and Engineering at the University of Washington. He is the founder of the Human Interface Technology Laboratory (HIT Lab) at UW and founder and international director of the HIT Lab NZ at the University of Canterbury, Christchurch, NZ and the HIT Lab Australia at the University of Tasmania, Launceston, Tasmania. He is also an Erskine Fellow and Adjunct Professor at the University of Canterbury and an Adjunct Professor at the University of Tasmania.

Prior to joining the faculty at the University, Prof. Furness served a combined 23 years as an U.S. Air Force officer and civilian at the Armstrong Laboratory at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, Ohio, where he developed advanced cockpits and virtual interfaces for the Department of Defense. He is the author of the Super Cockpit program and served as the Chief of Visual Display Systems and Super Cockpit Director until he joined the University of Washington in 1989.

Dr. Furness lectures widely and has appeared in many national and international network and syndicated television science and technology documentaries and news programs. He is the inventor of the personal eyewear display, the virtual retinal display, the HALO display and holds 15 patents in advanced sensor, display and interface technologies. With his colleagues Dr. Furness has started 24 companies, two of which are traded on NASDAQ at a market capitalization of > $ 2 B. In 1998 he received the Discover Award for his invention of the virtual retinal display.

Popularity: 2% [?]

A Second Life success story: NCI

It has been in Second Life for four years (having just celebrated its fourth anniversary), has over 150 staff, costs about US$13,000 each year to operate, holds 46,592 square metres of Second Life land (and rents quite a bit more), and is among the virtual environment’s most well-trafficked organizations.

It isn’t one of those corporate sites you read about, though. It’s a non-profit group, with little existence outside of Second Life. It’s NCI, a volunteer organisation that ranks among the most successful groups in Linden Lab’s virtual world.

NCI’s basic mission is to assist and support newcomers to Second Life. Originally founded by Brace Coral in April 2005, Coral named the organisation New Citizens Incorporated (though the ‘incorporated’ part was merely in jest), and founded it on the principle that everyone in Second Life was able to contribute to the orientation and support of new users. Even those with only a few days of experience would have answers and information that newer users lacked.

Originally a self-help facility with social events and a building sandbox, the scope of NCI was already expanding by the time Carl Metropolitan took over as executive director in a popular vote in September 2005, when Brace Coral scaled back her Second Life activities.

With Metropolitan at the helm of the organization, NCI expanded significantly both in land and personnel, offering large numbers of classes and events, funded by advertising and donations, and standalone ‘aid stations’ called Infonodes scattered all over Second Life near areas where new users are likely to be found. NCI’s financial picture isn’t always a rosy one, however.

Advertising and donations don’t quite meet the operational bills each year, usually falling about US$1,500 short, which necessitates periodic fundraising activities to make up the shortfall, often in the form of charity auctions. NCI’s charity fundraisers are supported by quite a number of Second Life creators, as well as some corporations, such as Microsoft who donated software to the last big fundraising auction.

In an environment where users only have a limited number of group memberships available, NCI’s free-to-join group sports nearly 9000 members at present, and provides round-the-clock live-help for new users with questions and queries.

The NCI’s watch-words are civility, respect and courtesy, but maintaining a safe space for new users, protected from those who would exploit them or intentionally disrupt or harass them isn’t easy. NCI maintains strict rules of conduct, and enforces them swiftly when staff feel that new users may become upset or disturbed by the actions of a disruptive or abusive visitor. Indeed, one of the main pillars of NCI’s popularity is swift and strong enforcement of local conduct rules.

Keeping an organization like NCI running isn’t an easy job either. While class instructors and event hosts recieve payments from the organisation for their duties, nobody is getting a wage from the process. Senior staff can be under tremendous amounts of pressure. In the wake of NCI’s 4th anniversary celebration on 18 April, executive director, Carl Metropolitan decided that he needed a sabbatical, partly from the daily pressure of work, and partly due to unavoidable circumstances related to the USA’s economic downturn.

Presently, a new interim management team are settling in, with Afon Shepherd and Gramma Fiddlesticks cooperatively managing the organisation until Metropolitan’s return to duty. That NCI works at all is something of a surprise, being an expensive operation, with so many people from all walks of life, from most of the countries in the world, bonded primarily only by the willingness to help others and to donate their spare time.

NCI does work, however, and it works well. If you’re new to Second Life, it’s one of those must-visit places.

NCI Major Locations

• Original site at Kuula
• NCI South (Hamnida)
• NCI Beach (Fishermans Cove)
• NCI Caledon (Caledon Oxbridge Village)

Popularity: 6% [?]

Superstruct: initial results

In October 2008 we covered Superstruct, a forecasting MMO with some very real-world aims: to determine the challenges facing humanity in 2019.

This week, the group behind Superstruct, The Institute for the Future (IFTF), released some initial research as part of its ongoing mission to use the MMO as a means of communicating key global challenges. The overview is:

For the past five months, IFTFs Ten-Year Forecast Team has been analyzing the collective body of Superstruct work, in light of other major perspective essays on new forms of governance, networked citizens, geoengineering, and superstructed realities. We have focused our Superstruct research on the following question: What is the next major evolutionary phase for human organization?

And today, we are pleased to share with you the first round of findings.

These Superstruct findings are the first in the IFTF Annual TYF Superstruct Series. With these we present to you the first 50-Year Scenario, “The Long Crisis” and the “Superstruct Strategies”, 7 actionable strategies that emerged during our game analysis. Over the next few months, we will be publishing additional Superstruct maps and perspectives online. You will be able to follow the series and download all of the research at our 10 Year Forecast RSS feed

You can download the 5.2 meg PDF of the research here.

Popularity: 3% [?]

Skoolaborate: Linden Prize finalist

Linden Lab have announced the finalists for their US $10000 Linden Prize, and amongst the handful of finalists is Skoolaborate,

By its nature, Skoolaborate is an international venture, but some Australian educators are key driving forces behind the project. Good luck to all the finalists – all illustrate some of the significant good coming out of virtual worlds.

Popularity: 4% [?]

PIVOTE – open source learning for virtual worlds

British firm Daden have been releasing virtual worlds products for a while now – we covered their in-world web browser last July. Their latest launch is an “open-source learning system or virtual worlds, the web and iPhone”. Its moniker is PIVOTE and it’s the result of a project called PREVIEW funded by the UK Government’s Joint Information Systems Committee (JISC). The project’s focus was problem-based learning in virtual worlds, and PIVOTE is the end-result. Paramedic training for St George’s, University of London was the initial focus that’s led to final product.

Essentially, Pivote is a web-based learning management system where detailed exercises can be formulated as fairly standard, text-driven scenarios with decision pathways, or as avatar driven exercises in Second Life or OpenSim (Daden states its platform can easily be adapted to other virtual worlds). The text-based options can also be utilised in-world via what is presumably Daden’s in-world browser. St George’s have a sim in Second Life (click here to see for yourself) that is publicly accessible.

St George’s Senior Lecturer in Paramedic Science, Alan Rice said “This programme provides the students with a fun learning environment, where they can afford to make mistakes online, which they could not afford to make in the real world. When they make a mistake online, they are always keen not to make the same mistake again.” A paramedic student at St George’s, Fiona Cropp, was happy with the virtual training process – “It’s a really useful tool. It’s much better to be able to actually perform treatments rather than just talk about it. Everyone is online at the same time so you can bounce ideas off each other and make an informed decision. I had never used Second Life before, but I found it really easy to get on with.”

A useful overview of the paramedic training scenario can be viewed here:

Pivote isn’t the first integrated training solution using virtual worlds, but it’s certainly progressed things considerably. The challenge for any platform is convincing key management that scarce health dollars should be sunk into virtual worlds-based training. Health professionals and academics are perfectly positioned to demonstrate just that, and there’s no shortage of evidence of the cost benefits of effectively trained clinicians. Anything that increases the confidence of new practitioners in the breadth of the clinical decision-making in a cost-effective way, will surely gain some traction in what is usually a very conservative space.

Anyone wanting to install PIVOTE for themselves can do so for free by installing it on their own servers or paying Daden to host it for them. The full instructions can be found by browsing the ‘Getting Started’ section of the PIVOTE website.

Popularity: 7% [?]

Skoolaborate: a growing success, despite government ineptitude

I spent this morning at a session organised for a team of French innovators called ‘Lead Educators : Virtual Worlds and the Immersive Web’ . I’ll talk more about that in another post but I wanted to devote this one to a topic we’ve covered previously: Skoolaborate.

Since that time, there’s been some incredible progress, with more than forty schools now involved. I had the opportunity to see Skoolaborate up close at Sydney’s MLC School today. Director of Online Learning at MLC and Skoolaborate’s founder, Westley Field, spent an hour or so presenting the outcomes to date from the project, which was established in 2007. Essentially, the outcomes demonstrate the power of a well designed 2D content delivery system combined with the use of Skoolaborate’s islands in Second Life. Here’s a small example of such an outcome:

The main messages I took out of the session aren’t news to educators working regularly with virtual worlds, but they bear repeating for the rest of us:

1. Virtual worlds provide a powerful complementary role within the broader learning context

2. Some students immerse themselves in the virtual world aspects, others don’t like it, and most fall somewhere in the middle

3. Having an evangelist within a school for learning innovations like Skoolaborate is crucial, but having a supportive Principal is even more important

It’s not an entirely rosy picture for Skoolaborate though. Funding has improved although it remains an ongoing battle, and the time commitment from educators involved is significant. Most importantly, I detected a level of frustration around some inequalities existing in accessing Skoolaborate. One of the most stark illustrations of inequality with it is due purely to State Government ineptitude.

Let’s use the NSW Department of Education and Training (DET) as an example. Essentially, no NSW (or Australian) public schools are involved with Skoolaborate. The reason: schools falling under the control of the NSW DET cannot access Second Life. Why? The usual response on blocking content is around protecting children from unwanted information. The thing is, in the case of Skoolaborate, educators have already identified the issue and solved it. Participating schools are set up in Second Life so that only authenticated students and teachers can access in-world activities. In NSW, the private schools involved have mandatory ‘working with children’ checks and worldwide each participating school must complete their own relevant police checks for each adult participant. In fact, successful registration to access any content requires completion of the police check. This would have to make Skoolaborate one of the most child-secure online learning environments in existence.

Westley Field – MLC and Skoolaborate

What makes this issue particularly frustrating is that key bodies within the NSW DET actually understand that initiatives like Skoolaborate are delivering for students. The NSW DET’s own Centre for Learning Innovation (CLI) has staff well and truly across virtual worlds, and there’s recognition from its General Manager down that immersive worlds will be key to further online learning initiatives. 
Given that any school should be attempting to prepare its students for the realities of the outside world, and that units like the CLI already see the potential of virtual worlds for education, why would the DET have a policy of preventing access? It’s either a politically motivated call or a case of plain ignorance at the higher levels of the DET.

Either way, some serious questions need to be asked on how long the situation will occur. This may be a case of failing to protect children by not equipping them with appropriate knowledge. How will kids know how to navigate emerging technologies if they have no exposure in their schooling?

Update: Westley Field has contacted me to correct the assertion that no Australian public schools are involved with Skoolaborate – there are in fact public schools involved, just none from NSW. He also added: “The National Government , through its values in action program is leading the way by supporting us. This support partially based on the fact that we have all three sectors involved. We are very proud of that fact.”

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