1. I live on one of a series of interfaith islands (Koinonia community on Xenia and Qoheleth) - themed and covenanted, with residents and businesses and cultural builds. I am almost evangelical in declaring that big players should seek to follow this path, rather than going for prestige sims. Both theme and covenant ensures the islands where I live are both attractive and communal in their construction; avatars are very neighbourly; the islands means something to people who live there and are connected to it. Hence we have plenty of visitors, particularly those with similar interests. And it makes financial sense, too!

Posted at 10:40AM on Sep 21st 2007 by Drown Pharaoh

2. Everybody knows Princeton students are just U Penn wannabes! ;-)

Posted at 11:21AM on Sep 21st 2007 by FlipperPA

3. They do have a beautiful set of sims :) However, I too would love to hear what their plan is for the future and how they plan on interacting with SL residents (if at all). The simplest idea would be for them to network with other universities in SL and have education-related events.

Posted at 1:53PM on Sep 21st 2007 by Thea

4. Yes, Flipper you are quite right. Having decided that I'd never be able to achieve my great expectations of attending Penn, I resignedly applied to Princeton instead, and hated it so much I stayed on for a graduate degree! Or, as they say inworld, “/me winks!”

But I would like to respond to the content of this post. I administer the Princeton University sims. The interview I gave to The Daily Princetonian was at the annual Frist Campus Center Open House, which happened about 10 days ago. Our display table was, perhaps, 15 feet from the impressive sound system provided by the live band at the event, and that may have resulted in some "packet loss" in the shouted interview that resulted in an excellent description of our experiments in SL, with perhaps a few factual errors from mishearing.

The quote--that is taken out of context here--refers to the fact that the sim was at that time, empty of Princeton faculty and students. The reason for that was that the interview was conducted before the Fall semester had convened, and the site had not yet been made public. Our foot traffic among the SL community is excellent. There is no cause for concern in terms of numbers, and the moribund argument about “empty sims” has been answered by someone more eloquent than I: (http://nwn.blogs.com/nwn/2007/07/unwired.html). Furthermore, the educational discounts provided by Linden Labs makes the cost of such experimentations trivial compared to other forms of academic software.

Now, to answer the original post:
“What are the potential draws of a RL campus dropped into SL?”
I would say it is to further the main mission of the university in the pursuit of truth, the discovery of knowledge through scholarship and research, and the dissemination of knowledge.
“It's a place for alumni to visit for nostalgic reasons”
Our alumni are not the nostalgic type. Their connections to Princeton are real and vital.
“It's a way to showcase new and in-process RL buildings, including new dorms.”
Yes, that’s a great use for Second Life.
“It can hold 'distance learning' classes.”
No, we don’t do that. You attend Princeton to engage in your course work face to face with your professors and your peers. Second Life may become an important adjunct to that in terms of collaborative work and exploration. It will extend the close community and the vibrant engagement that already occurs on the real campus.
“It can host speeches and events simulcast from RL”
That, it can and will do, as we have a very active series of public lectures.
“Are any of these valuable enough reasons to maintain a chain of 4 servers?”
Yes.
“Has Princeton fallen victim to the 'Everyone else is doing it, so why can't we' thinking that has seen many RL companies come and go?”
I don’t think so. Our motto is “Princeton in the Nation’s Service and the Service of all Nations.” Virtual realities will soon be an important extension of the world we live in. We at Princeton would like to be prepared to make a contribution there.

I am very proud of what the Princeton OIT staff, The Virtual Worlds Team of the New Media Consortium, (particularly, CJ Carnot), and the gifted SL architect, Scope Cleaver, has been able to achieve on the Princeton sims in a few month’s time. Various SL artists have greatly enhanced the virtual campus, and given largely of their talents. The return of the faculty and students to the real Princeton campus on September 17, 2007, has resulted in many good ideas about the future development of the Princeton sims.

Educational institutions interact with the world in the spirit of openness and transparency. I am happy to speak to anyone who wishes to know more. My avatar name is Persis Trilling. I have an account at persis.trilling@gmail.com. I invite questions and all visitors to our sims. Princeton in Second Life’s official opening is on Monday, September 24, 2007. For information and events see: http://etc.princeton.edu/sl.

Posted at 8:19PM on Sep 21st 2007 by Persis Trilling

5. Your informative retort was a wee on the verbose side, Persis. It was something of a grind extracting the meat of it but once done, the meal was satisfying--even good.

I was gonna demonstrate (through example editing) how to have the same say with powerful but missing brevity but that's really a job for your English Composition department.

Posted at 10:38AM on Sep 22nd 2007 by Amras Alder

6. Thanks, Amras, for the helpful criticism (she said concisely). But facts need to be stated when they are absent in the first place.

Posted at 11:15AM on Sep 22nd 2007 by Persis Trilling

7. The pettiness and shortsightedness of this commentary baffles me. Princeton has created a beautiful environment that will surely lure prof and student participation--ONCE IT OPENS NEXT WEEK. The digital creation is all about environment, now (as at any of the over 150 universities in SL) it's up to the faculty and scholars to get used to the interface, process the possibilities, and amaze and astound.

The paradigm shift takes a little getting used to, that's all--but Princeton and other universities have seen the opportunity to imaginatively tweak education is nothing but commendable. And all for far less than a part-time faculty member's one course salary!

Money very well spent, sim beautiful, personnel extremely helpful to interested faculty from other schools. Hooray for Princeton!

Posted at 11:19AM on Sep 22nd 2007 by Kathy Curnow

8. I've now seen the Princeton sims and they're a stunning build-in-progress.

Even better, I enjoyed the good pleasure of meeting Persis Trilling and introducing her to my SL wife Charra.

Persis is pretty, charming, cordial, and will be as great an asset to the Princeton sims when they open as she is now.

Posted at 1:24PM on Sep 22nd 2007 by Amras Alder

9.
I am one of the team of artists who has benefitted from the use of land on the Princeton sims to display my work, in this case a monumental installation called FlowerBall. The piece has a script embedded in it that tracks the number of visitors, and far from the "only sporadic visitors" situation the article above comments on, we find that we are getting a steady stream of folks coming to see it.
Our logs show that the FlowerBall gets more than twenty unique visits from avatars daily - this is far from a deserted isle! And with Juria Yoshikawa's new (and also huge) installation right next door, I imagine that traffic will only increase further.

The FlowerBall (rated one of the top 10 art installations in Second Life by a reviewer in New World Notes, thank you very much!) can be visited at:

http://slurl.com/secondlife/Princeton%20North/75/40/37/

Posted at 4:34PM on Sep 24th 2007 by Douglas Story

10. Princeton is supposed to be a leader in education, and in this day and age, that does not come from passivity but from testing important new technologies.

I am glad to see Princeton on the frontier trying to understand the future, even if that comes with some bumps. Failure is not a bad thing if you are pushing the envelope and learning as you go.

Posted at 3:28AM on Sep 25th 2007 by Forseti Svarog

11. Berkman, the Harvard extension sim, does very well. Their sim is divided into thirds - 2/3 is a campus, and the leftover third (actually more of a quadrant) is a sandbox for everyone to build in. It's a great place to hang out, and all of the Berkman avatars are really great people. :) Maybe that's what Princeton is missing - embracing the community? That's the reason 70% of sims fail within the first few months or year.

Posted at 8:50PM on Sep 26th 2007 by Tenshi

12. Being an artist that just opened two large scale kinetic light installations "Liquid Room" and "Aurora Room" at Princeton, my perspective is that the university and Persis Trilling are breaking new ground for creative expression in an academic setting. While other school sims have artworks up, Princeton is fostering a real spirit of experimentation. Myself and my musical collaborator AldoManutio Abruzzo were encouraged to create public artwork that would never be possible in a real life. This can be seen also in Scope Cleaver's beautiful architecture. As Princeton has officially opened only a few days ago (Sept. 24, 2007), I have high hopes that it will become an exceptional venue for education, research and in my case creative pursuits. My two pieces are close by Douglas Story's wonderfully immersive "Flower Ball" artwork and can be seen at these locations...
Liquid Room: http://slurl.com/secondlife/Princeton%20North/188/117/30/
Aurora Room: http://slurl.com/secondlife/Alexander%20Beach/115/123/25/

Posted at 7:12AM on Sep 27th 2007 by Juria Yoshikawa