Contents
I. Brainstorming
Inputs to the Design
- Discussion with Dr.
Reed Riner on his requirements and vision
of a visual SolSys.
- Round of inputs from
attendees on their vision for visual
SolSys
- Creation of
requirements matrix: social/cultural
define the space/interface
- SolSys Dreams
II. Fundamental
Decisions Regarding the Design
- Fundamental decision
on a single interface metaphor
- The Shape of the Sim
- Goals of the Sim
- High Level
Architecture
- Attributes of the
Sim
I. Brainstorming
Inputs to the Design
1. Discussion with Dr.
Reed Riner on his requirements and vision of a
visual SolSys.
a) Social Features of a
Visual SolSys Sim
- Earth team (alumni)
- Socio-cultural lego
set
- Self-expression
surfaces, i.e. graffiti wall
- Social isolation of
programmers is a problem in MOOs
- Social interaction
is fundamental
- Everyone has a home
- Create viable
economy
- '2020 Vision'
economy as model?
- Unemployment?
- Answer 'impact'
questions
- Pros for
'handicapped' students, i.e. deaf
- Must deal with
subculture prejudice against speech
rather than sign language
- Discuss pros and
cons of attempting to involve deaf
culture
b) Technical Features of
a Visual SolSys Sim
- Documents in 'file
cabinets' in special room for
instructors' projects
- Selective
communication by group, i.e. 'page all
instructors'
- Appropriate visual
mailbox cues
- Check out Diversity
University for good MOO mail
- Mail example: mini
pine in the sim
- Group mail
- Standardized
gestures and body language
- Avatar changes color
to show emotion?
- Customized spaces
- All inhabitable
spaces are buildable
- Building: on
students' systems or as a group?
- Portable Objects
- Portable 'hole'
(exit) to carry items
- Robots?
- Stock market
(robotic?)
- On-line-accessible
library with web access
- Method for keeping
'real' data separate from 'sim' data
- Removable 'sim' data
- Personalized Avatars
- System for tagging
permanent vs. transient
- File possible for
good stuff
- Replay scenarios?
- Log programs
- Faster running clock
for sim-time
- Real-time
modification of program code and features
- Must be extremely
user-friendly
- Changeable clock for
CONTACT (adjustable time)
c) Administrative Issues
of a Visual SolSys Sim
- Educator as SolSys
public figurehead
- Establish structure
for how to do projects in the sim (lead,
management, etc.)
- Every team has the
option of completely recreating
everything?
- Old town (historic
site), new suburbs, etc.
- Architectural review
board
- Study of comparative
government structures in MOOs and MUDs
- Hierarchy analysis
- Build working model
of Jim Brown's The Job Market
- Model UN clubs as
Earth/UN teams: potential for funding?
- Need basic
agreements among institutions
- Dragon and MOO codes
available: analyze structures
- Jen Clodius' paper
about DragonMud available on web
- Gaulledet University
for the deaf: funding possible?
- Talk to 'Sid' in
Dragon/SolSys (Josh Knapton)- he's hard
of hearing
- Different worlds
possible
2. Round of inputs from
attendees on their vision for visual SolSys
a) Socio-cultural
- social pressure
- Reminder that the
avatar we see is not the R.L. person, and
that the body language displayed is
conscious, calculated and artificial
- Sim visuals lull us
into a false sense of security around
emotional display: R.L. body language is
mostly subconscious and therefore truer
- SolSys is
Educational but can be a model for future
non-educational sims
- Critical difference
between education that is fun and game
that involves learning (attitude and
expectations)
- Don't let available
technology drive us: vision should drive
tech
- Develop Earth and
history first, then let colonies develop
- Use '2020 Vision'
world?
b) Technical
- Should we allow
future users of similar 'MUDs' to edit
out things that we feel are significant,
i.e. graffiti walls?
- Start simple with
system that works!
- Goal for SolSys Sim:
visuals ('500 Nations' graphics, 'Dancer'
avatar movement, 'WorldsChat' buildings
and move-through) connected to an
educational framework
c) Administrative
- Students can't work
in a vacuum, so enough structure must be
created prior to start of sim for work to
be done effectively
- Must have more than
a skeleton
- Avoid danger of
making projects too big in an industry
that changes rapidly: try mini-projects,
mini-prototyping
- Connecting SolSys
Sim visual goals
- Integrate new
students with previous timeline and world
- Continuity from
semester to semester builds framework:
would allow greater freedom and stability
simultaneously
- Packaged start-up
kit and manual for instructors
- Can't live with,
can't live without admins
3. Creation of
requirements matrix: social/cultural define the
space/interface
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- Avatar
construction kit
- Customizable
rooms, personalized home-building
kit
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- Who am I and
what do I do?
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- Total list
of jobs, bios
- Personal
resources (library, tools, money)
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- What is my
relationship to the community?
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- Unique
characters
- Mechanism to
limit anonymity
- List
matching R.L. to avatar names
- History or
biography that others can access
- Groups and
affiliations
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- Community
rewards and punishments
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- Thank you
notes that all admins know about
- Acknowledgment
for actions (praise or
admonishment)
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- Only one
name and avatar available (no
duplications)
- Password
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- What spaces
and services does my community
provide?
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- Janitors
- Bouncers
- Complaint
and Help desk
- Mail
- Media
- Walls for
public expression
- Meeting
spaces
- Social
spaces
- Private
spaces
- Transportation
- Customizable
people-movers
- Inter-colony
communication
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- Sim clock
- Real time
clock
- Task
oriented "telescope"
clock
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- How do I
perceive my avatar's world?
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- Stay in the
metaphor
- No
abstraction outside the avatar
- See the room
my avatar occupies at all times
- Maps
(scales) "you are here"
- Mirror: see
myself (avatar)
- No
"godlike" views
- No
disappearing: home is the only
teleport
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- Are there
metapeople (gods/wizards)?
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- Two
characters for alums and admins
(one with no power to be in the
sim, and one with power who is
invisible and voiceless)
- Angels?
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4. SolSys Dreams
- A world already
existing but somewhat modifiable
- Dynamic, living
world
- 'Play it again Sam'
mode
- Real-time model,
very sophisticated
- SolSys now:
- Anthropology/Engineering
course
- Utilizes
communication by e-mail and MUD
- Build and
inhabit virtual space
- Explore
communication and cultural
problems
- Use of
networking in education
- Anthro goals for
V-SolSys:
- How does a
community work? (best way to find
out is to build it)
- Multi-disciplinary
learning experience
- Theoretical
aspects of building electronic
community: transition of past to
present to future communities
that no longer depend on physical
presence
- How do new
communities perform positively
for their members?
- How have we
adapted to the telephone/etc. and
how will we adapt to the newest
innovations?
- How can
technology enable communities
previously based on physical
presence to move toward not
relying on physical presence?
- What does it mean to
be a virtual person?
- Laws of physics must
be followed
- Built-in system of
explanation: "You can't do this and
here's why"
- Library of NASA
images, history, legend, mythos,
technical stuff, etc.
- Make it attractive
to all disciplines, including
availability of any subject matter that a
class or instructor may lack.
- Expert system
- Limits on on-line
time (you must sleep!)
- Emphasize distance
learning and Sim as excellent learning
tool
- Sim within a sim for
experimentation and building purposes
- Vehicle for teaching
a variety of things (physics, astronomy,
etc.)
- Keep it charming:
something more or deeper than glitz
- Need for
storytellers
- Visual and auditory
aesthetic
- Make experiences
truer to reality: journey to mars is a
journey and takes time (stuck in ship if
traveling, with notice beforehand)
- A story needs to be
told (2020 Vision?)
- Selectable stories,
history?
- Use rooms for actual
purpose: experiment rooms, labs, etc.
- Jail? Aggression
rooms?
- Media, virtual
security cameras, roving reporters, group
photos, historians
- Stay in character
- Job assignments and
descriptions
- Social pressure to
accomplish these assignments
- Social interaction
(jobs) to maintain things in sim world
- Multiple levels of
contact
- Off-sim room for out
of character interaction, with time limit
- Rooms with clearly
defined purposes: social pressure to keep
people in line (work/play)
- Undersim =
Administration, Oversim = Player
- System of social
approval and social control
- Emphasize that
sociopathic behavior can occur, but is
not normal primate behavior
- SolSys needs a
system of normal social pressures because
it lacks the normal consequences of real
life
- On-line ethics
through storytelling, starter kits, etc.
(elders?)
- People need to know
what others have done (good and bad)
- No switching avatars
or names
- Bouncer gorillas
- Golden rule
- Teach by example
- Emphasize that the
main advantage of a society is
cooperation
- Encourage care for
the community
- Decay cycle?
- Chore chalkboard
- Breakable things
that know who broke them
- Give people means to
do the right thing
- Reward honesty,
volunteer help, etc. with public
acknowledgment/thank-you notes
- Welcome new
neighbors
- Wheelchair with
choice of colors (faster?)
- careful about
people's cynicism with rewards and
punishment
- Emphasis on
internationally oriented outlook
(multicultural)
- Reward people who
are responsible by giving them more
trust/responsibility?
- Computer
screen/window/film/etc. = 2-D: CD-ROM for
higher resolution stuff
- Random generator
- Statistical
information, i.e. how much time do
students spend in the sim
- Brief weekly
overview of events available for
instructors, etc.
Students should spend little
time creating timeline because most of the
timeline is given; then more social stuff can be
added to the timeline like personality of
colonies, rivalries, etc. upon which future
interaction can be based.
- Option of signing
avatars
- Project for creating
software for sign language
- Get help on best
range and type of gesture from sign
language experts
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II. Fundamental Decisions
Regarding the Design
1. Fundamental decision
on a single interface metaphor
Avatar-View of the world
No popping out to menus or use of arcane commands
A long term vision
2. The Shape of the Sim
a) The Off-Sim
time-out for emergencies
a sim within a sim
lab concept
off-sim meeting
b) The Under-Sim:
Artificial Intelligences,
backups, programming, expert knowledge:
libraries
stories
mythos
c) The Over-Sim:
Roles for Admins, Alums,
instructors, gods, Virtual Experts:
Goals for the Sim itself
3. Goals of the Sim
a) Educational Goals
b) Socio-Cultural Goals
- Culture as a basic
human survival system
- Human ecology (how
the environment is used)
- Economics (how the
resources are used)
- Social politics
(law, social control)
- Religion (ethics,
belief systems)
- Communication
(verbal, body, etc.)
- Show link between
biology, culture, and environment
- Address the question
of what the students become
- Give students tools
to operate within all communities, not
just on-line
- Students must write
biography
- To function in the
sim, students will necessarily become
part of an on-line community and will
learn to communicate effectively therein
- Allow students to
build their own ethical structure
(students should learn to be more
flexible)
- Define set of values
which will enable one to appreciate
diversity, multicultural views, etc.
- Set up series of
universal questions to define
sociocultural framework
- Ethics and values:
we do not necessarily have the right to
impose our views on the participants of
the sim
- See problems through
playing the role
- Questions for any
species, alien or otherwise
- Worldview
- Dealing with
aliens/being an alien
- Learn to empathize
better with others
4. High Level
Architecture
- General discussion
of what the system will do
- Educational goals
and logistics are a priority
- Writing is required
of the students
- Set up teaching
modules: a series of universal questions
for a cultural category (ethics, etc.)
- Interactive database
resource: library, on-line tutorials,
etc.
- Major components:
people, information (references and
expert advice), creation process (labs
for testing), actual sim environment
(universe), and actual sim process
(interaction)
- Actual sim process:
Plot line beforehand
Food shortages, etc. should
be at the colony level, not the individual level
Checklist: if specific list
of things is done, then everything is fine; if
not, random things go wrong
There should be certain
challenges to the individual and the colony as a
whole in order to keep people from getting bored
- Avatar construction
set
- Human interface with
machine
- Library: info
backbone which can compensate for lack of
instructor information and participation
- Series of questions
in lab to create personalized model
- Ready-made module
will have questions and answers so that
student will know who he/she is
- All info should be
in the library (but under various
categories, i.e. reference, history,
archives, sim-specific, etc.) flagged for
levels of permanence
- Labs or builders'
school for the creation process: define
and test assumptions
- What is given and
what is built and how the program chooses
to run it (including modifications in the
lab) = context = universe
- The universe obeys
the known laws of physics
5. Attributes of the Sim
- Labs
- Sort of do
job of instructor
- Answer basic
questions
- Use library
information
- Effective
for experimentation in social and
technical fields
- Workspace
- Off-sim and
on-sim?
- Library
- meta-library
vs. sim-library
- Students and
instructors set access according
to need (part of instructors'
manual)
- Universe:
physical, biological,
technological, ecological,
ideological, cultural
- Challenges
built in: see GURPS office for
bibliography
See Requirements Matrix
for additional attributes
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