Education-Oriented Research Activities Conducted in Second Life - Teaching through Multi-User Virtual Environments - page 336

Solution and Recommendation (copyright infringement), spamming, multiple

identities, identity deception, and illicit materi-
als (Kerbs, 2005). Other inappropriate activities
in the virtual world include breach of privacy,
eavesdropping, exploitation, and the violation of
professional ethics, confidentiality and proprietary
information. The possible negative influences in
SL for students are gambling, pornography and
wild acts and misbehaving of the Avatars because
of the anonymity in virtual world.
As in many digital mediums, while teaching
in SL, educators will confront copyrights issue.
Conn (2002) points out that the federal Copy r ight
Act of 1976 applies regardless of publication
medium, and copyright protection automatically
applies whenever the work is fixed in a tangible
medium, including print, internet, and on a web-
site (Conn, 2002; Johnson & Groneman, 2003;
Lipinski, 2000). Besides the Copyright Act, the
policy in SL educational sites also conforms to
the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (“DMCA”).
Copyright-infringing materials found within
the world of Second Life can be identified and
removed via Linden Lab's DMCA compliance
process listed at http://secondlife.com/corporate/
dmca.php, and all users must agree to comply with
such process and with copyright laws.
In our study, the art instructor asked students
to hang their digital form of their art work in LS.
The art works and other works hung in the art
galleries in virtual campus in SL are copyrighted.
Other residents cannot use, make derivatives, or
change these works. In our study, the majority
architecture except for the large buildings in its
SL campus was built by the students in that uni-
versity. In this case, the creator of the content, the
students or the instructors, in the virtual campus in
SL retains copyright and other intellectual property
rights, to the extent that it has such rights under
applicable law (Second life Education, 2009).

The social factors are the major reason that makes
SL different from other educational technologies.
Educators need to be sensitive and be aware of
those factors and try to utilize them in teach-
ing. Educators need to pay attention to a few
important aspects. First, get a general picture of
the complexity of SL as a social phenomenon.
There are all kinds of social activities in SL,
such as marriage, shopping, dating and selling
and buying real estates. The knowledge of the
social factors and activities can help educators
have more and clearer ideas to start or improve
their teaching in SL. Second, try to minimize the
negative factors in SL. For example, due to the
anonymity of the residents in SL, some of them
sometimes do things beyond the boundaries. It
is necessary for educators to know what is going
on in SL. Third, be aware of the copy rights and
intellectual property issues. Since SL is a new
digital medium, the regulations of copy rights
issues are more subtle. Many teachers have heard
the term “Fair Use” and take that to mean they can
use items for educational purpose. However, it is
a much more complicated matter and it is very
important for educators to know about copyright
laws while teaching in SL.

FUTURe ReSeARCH DIReCTIONS

The above analysis points out avenues for future
research in design and development of SL usage
in education. SL, with its unique characteristics
such as interactivity, active engagement, and
intrinsic motivation, can be an effective learn-
ing environment for various learning activities.
However, little research has been conducted to
generate effective instructional models in SL.
First, there is a great need for more research on