Last year, Ohio University purchased two islands and built several buildings on it, including a student center, learning center, and arts and music center. The cost? A few thousands dollars, plus some software development time creating the virtual buildings.
The islands are in Second Life, the popular three-dimensional virtual world created by Linden Labs. In Second Life, which is open to anyone, users create accounts and take on a name and shape, then move through the online world much as in real life. Participants encounter others, hold conversations, buy and sell things, build structures, and in general act as one might in a completely new world, albeit one in which everyone and everything is a computer creation. Sophisticated graphics give the feel of moving across real terrain, with sky, trees, buildings, paths, water, islands, and more.
Ohio University is the first university in Ohio and one of just a few universities in the United States, including Harvard and Princeton, who have launched functioning campuses in Second Life....