Audrey Ng | audrey_a@nus.edu.sg
The Ridge News
A NUSSU Publication
Oct. 8, 2007
The National University of Singapore will soon be getting a new lease of life in cyberspace.
The Computer Centre and Information Technology Unit (ITU) are working to establish a new student online community in Second Life, the 3-D virtual world.
Just like how Second Life is entirely built and owned by its residents, this community will be “designed by students, for students” said ITU Media Producer, Mr. John Yap, who is in charge of the project.
“Students can express ideas in the virtual world, design their own hangout areas, build what they want and their ideas may just get translated into reality,” said Yap.
He added that it is a novel and interesting method of communication between students and the school.
First-year undergraduate Tan Kian Boon said that “it is a great idea.”
“Students can express our creative ideas and thoughts in a virtual setting, literally giving NUS life a whole new dimension,” Tan said.
According to the Computer Centre, the community will have regular interviews with students to allow for student feedback, discussions and social studies conducted based on student needs and wants.”
“It would be a cool new experience for us to give feedback on Second Life but there may be problems because Second Life lags quite a lot,” said Alexandra Ng, second year communications and new media major.
Yap said Second Life would be a good platform for the testing of new ideas. He plans to “buy an island” and establish an official NUS presence on it.
Also, the island would be made exclusive to NUS students to prevent the proliferation of any vices that are rife in Second Life.
Yap hopes the community would be launched by January 2008.
(Images from Guardian.co.uk)
Sidenote:
Students interested in helping in this community, and can work in the holidays, please send your resume to hangout@groups.nus.edu.sg. You will be paid.
[...] Check it out! While looking through the blogosphere we stumbled on an interesting post today.Here’s a quick excerptAudrey Ng | audrey_a@nus.edu.sg The Ridge News A NUSSU Publication Oct. 8, 2007 The National University of Singapore will soon be getting a new lease of life in cyberspace. The Computer Centre and Information Technology Unit (ITU) are working to establish a new student online community in Second Life, the 3-D virtual world. Just like how Second Life is entirely built… giving NUS life a whole new dimension,” Tan said. According to the Computer Centre [...]
So what exactly does this new cyber community do in terms of student-based activities? What is its role?
I suppose it’s only going to be limited to people with Windows PCs (I hear second life isn’t exactly bug-proof on other OS-es) and a lot of time to sit in front of the screen?
On another note, I think NUS should revamp its online site, though. It’s not dynamic enough. The FASS site is a bit too dynamic– there’s problems with the frames sometimes and some links are hard to discern.
I’ve seen Second Life run much more smoothly on Macs as compared to ANY Windows based computer. But the lag is there because the Internet sucks so much. Especially if you use LAN in residences – it keeps getting disconnected.
Hello guys,
Can you please vote at the following links:
http://www.ask500people.com/questions/how-do-you-consider-the-second-life-virtual-world-platform-15750
http://www.ask500people.com/questions/do-you-think-that-you-should-have-any-property-rights-in-the-second-life-virtual-world-platform
I will be using the data for my LL.M. research.
Pl. vote:)