Vue Regional Planning Authority (VRPA) Meeting 7 - 8-Oct-2008 ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Attendees: ---------- Rose Dewar (Corporate Services Group) Fiona Littleton (E-Learning, Higher & Community Education) Hamish Macleod (MSc in e-Learning) Naomi Nunn (Development & Alumni) Jessie Paterson (Divinity) David Richardson (Informatics) Austin Tate (Informatics & AIAI) Apologies: ---------- Aghlab Al-Attili (Edinburgh Stanford Link & Entrepreneurship MSc) Sian Bayne (E-Learning, Higher & Community Education) Mike Clouser (Edinburgh Stanford Link & Entrepreneurship MSc) Dawn Ellis (Corporate Communications & PR) Ian Graham (Management School) James Stewart (Research Centre for Social Sciences) Morag Watson (Information Services) Minutes of meeting on 14-Apr-2008 --------------------------------- Available at http://vue.ed.ac.uk/sl/vrpa/vrpa-meeting-2008-04-14-minutes.txt Approved. It had been suggested that a list of points of contact for the various in-world Vue locations be added to the web site and Wiki entries where it was helpful. This was done by Austin. Vue News -------- 8-Oct-2008 - Seventh meeting of "Vue Regional Planning Authority" to review progress on Virtual Worlds use in University of Edinburgh . 30-Sep-2008 - Display at "Beacons for Public Engagement" event at Dynamic Earth, Edinburgh where Vue was represented by Fiona Littleton, Ian Graham, Naomi Nunn and David Richardson. 3-Sep-2008 - Virtual Informatics Forum opened by Alex Salmond, First Minister for Scotland, simultaneously with the opening of the Informatics Forum at Crichton Street, Edinburgh. 14-Aug-2008 - Vue Space established on Lively by Google. 12-Aug-2008 - Vue Balloon Tour Machinima shown at Edinburgh Interactive Festival and for the Duke of Edinburgh's visit to the Informatics Forum. 12-Aug-2008 - Austin Tate Talk on Vue to Edinburgh Interactive Festival - Digital Interactive Symposium: Edinburgh (DIS:E). Current Status -------------- There are 106 members on the vue@lists.ed.ac.uk (alias vue@ed.ac.uk) mailing list at present. Austin Tate should be contacted to add names to the list. Annual renewals for Linden Labs region maintenance costs have continued to be done. These will be handled by each island owner who will reclaim from the approved funding group as previously agreed. All regions are to be maintained for 3 years in the first instance. Vue Orientation for New Users ----------------------------- Rose Dewar led a discussion of the many excellent and varied opportunities to create a helpful tailored experience for new staff and students first entering Second Life or other virtual worlds. It was agreed that Rose Dewar, working with the support of Fiona Littleton and David Richardson, will create a web presence and in-world facility to act as the Vue Orientation Region. The Vue Development group will be used to manage the plots required on Vue in Second Life. It is hoped that the team will be helped by the Vue community and the broader international educational and university communities, and that resource sharing could help improve such an orientation facility. VATAR and Vue Community ----------------------- It was agreed that VATAR is an important tool to maintain a sense of community amongst the Vue group, and to potentially act as a way to anchor support to new users and various training and informative events. Naomi Nunn will continue to anchor the VATAR programme with support from other Vue and VRPA members. It is proposed that it be run on a monthly basis at present. It was agreed that the "Vuer" group would be put into active use by Naomi Nunn to help the Vue community and for VATAR communication purposes. Democratisation Process ----------------------- It was agreed to begin a regular (perhaps monthly) series of VRPA meetings in Second Life, and to which any Vue participant would be invited to observe and ask questions. David Richardson will initiate this and coordinate it for the VRPA. Other Virtual Worlds -------------------- As mentioned at the April 2008 VRPA meeting, AIAI in Informatics have been running Opensim and making it available for Vue experiments. See http://vue.ed.ac.uk/openvue/ Metaversum Twinity and Lively by Google experiental areas have also been established for Vue and are accessible via Vue Wiki links. Plans for the Vue Region ------------------------ All outstanding plot requests have been handled. Further requests should be made to Austin Tate initially. No outstanding island/region purchases are pending. Next Vue Group Meeting ---------------------- The last whole Vue group meeting was on 10th December 2007. Another is to be arranged in 2009, perhaps around May or June. A suggestion of including an invited keynote speaker was met with approval. Fiona Littleton will be the principal organiser with help from other VRPA members. Fiona Littleton also indicated she would be interested in anchoring a proposal for a "Virtual Worlds Edinburgh" open to all conference some time in the next 2 years. Date of Next VRPA Meeting ------------------------- To be arranged by e-mail. An in-world meeting series is also to be started by David Richardson, perhaps on a monthly basis, as noted above.