UK UNIVERSITIES - A “Spring 2008 Snapshot of United Kingdom (UK) Higher and Further Education Developments in Second Life” report has been released.  The report can be viewed at http://www.eduserv.org.uk/upload/foundation/sl/uksnapshot052008/final.pdf

This report was funded by the Eduserv Foundation (http://www.eduserv.org.uk/foundation ) and compiled by John Kirriemuir (www.silversprite.com ).  It has four main goals:
1.  To determine the “state of play” of SL developments within the higher and further education sectors in the UK;
2.  To discover how these developments are supported in terms of time, funding, etc.;
3.  To explore the functionality of these developments;
4.  To determine how well-used these developments are and any impacts they may have.

Kirriemuir found that the number of academics in the UK using SL has grown since the last report, published in September 2007.  “… as a rough estimate some three-quarters of UK universities are actively developing or using SL at the institutional, departmental and/or individual academic level.  Of these, many institutions support several ongoing SL developments, often involving groups of people rather than individuals.”

UK professionals use SL for a variety of reasons:  running courses, doing research and allowing students to develop and demonstrate within SL.  The result is a range of essential and useful activities, some experimental in nature.

“The key advantage in SL in teaching and learning is that there are many activities in which the student must be more than a passive learner in order to progress.  The student has to develop ‘stuff,’ collaborate and participate.  Before these can occur, he or she has to master a new and transferable skill set, meaning that, in SL, learning is done more by participating and doing than by listening and absorbing.”

The previous Eduserv Foundation report in September 2007 showed UK educators largely working alone on SL.  New findings show this has changed.  Some academics are working with SL developers in teams or in collaboration with other colleagues (either formally or informally).

Measuring of the success of SL educational endeavors is still slight.  Most UK academics use raw visitor statistics or informal feedback techniques to determine the effectiveness of the build.