Real Life Government/Examples

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The purpose of this page is to share examples and best practices of what your agencies or others are publicly doing in Second Life. Please add what you are doing using a similar format as others.

Digital Ontario Island

Overview: Digital Ontario Island is part of the Ontario Ministry of Government Services' research investigating the challenges and opportunities of broadband as a driver of social and economic change.This Second Life destination features six pavilions which showcase how communities, businesses and governments are using broadband and encourages visitors to participate in it's research by providing feedback via surveys throughout the island tour path. Entrance and Exit surveys help reveal how the island's content alters perceptions and shares knowledge.

SLURLsL: Digital Ontario Island

Produced by: Moderne Interactive - Formerly TheSLAgency

The Ontario Public Service in Second Life

Overview: This interactive career experience is built to showcase the range of jobs available in Canada’s provincial Ontario Public Service, allowing users to fight virtual fires, analyze traffic patterns using live video feeds from throughout Ontario, and virtually test water samples among other career simulations. The goal? To create a better awareness for the breadth of jobs in one of Canada’s most exciting provinces.

Website: http://www.gojobs.gov.on.ca/

SLURLsL:

• OPS Careers in Second Life - http://slurl.com/secondlife/OPS%20Careers/122/129/27/

Press Releases

• Recent Press - IT Business.ca - http://www.itbusiness.ca/it/client/en/home/News.asp?id=50198
• Launch - http://www.prweb.com/releases/ontario-public-service/second-life/prweb883454.htm
• Open House - http://www.prweb.com/releases/ontario-public-service/second-life/prweb1039504.htm
• Ontario Government Diamond Award for Innovation - http://www.prweb.com/releases/2008/09/prweb1332294.htm

Produced by: Moderne Interactive - Formerly TheSLAgency

International Space Station in Second Life

Note: The International Space Flight museum was developed independently from NASA.

Overview: A classroom-course facilitated virtual build of the International Space Station in Second Life held at the International Space Flight Museum, complete with all current components, rendered to scale with accurate physical specifications, and the ability to lock in place when assembled correctly. This project will catalyze the volunteer community, involve them in creating something substantial, and teach them about the ISS, space sciences, and technical skills (programming and 3-dimensional building).

Website: http://slispaceflightmuseum.org

SLURLsL:

• Spaceport Alpha - http://slurl.com/secondlife/Spaceport%20Alpha/115/145/22/
• Spaceport Bravo - http://slurl.com/secondlife/Spaceport%20Bravo/12/80/23

Military Lands and Coalition Island

Coalition Island is a nexus of United States armed forces activity and collaboration taking place in Second Life (collectively called "Military Lands"). It is geographically located at the center of a rapidly growing continent that includes the Air Force-MyBase, the Navy-NUWC, and the Army - two groups Tradoc & Defense Web. The continent currently contains 20 Islands with 10 more islands planned for the near future. For more details, see the Military Lands wiki page.

NASA JPL: Explorer Island

Overview: Explorer Island is founded and maintained by NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL). The island houses many interactive mission exhibits, JPL building representations from 1st life, and several meeting places. Take a stroll into the "Up is Up" interactive planetarium to see a real-time model of the constellations in the sky.  Fly up to the Victorian Crater Exhibit where real NASA terrain data was used to model the surface of Mars. Most of the spacecraft models on explorer island are life-size (relative to your avatar) so feel free to walk up to one and compare. Don't be surprised if you happen to run across a NASA JPL engineer or scientist strolling around on the island.

SLURL: http://slurl.com/secondlife/explorer%20island/182/151/23/

NASA: Virtual CoLab

Overview: The virtual CoLab is a dedicated “island” in the “Second Life” online virtual world, and will later be complemented by a traditional Web-based community website. NASA CoLab is a member of the SciLands "continent." By putting a wide range of educational content in close virtual proximity, the goal is to foster conversations and ideas that might not have occured had each region been separate. Other goals include increasing visitor traffic and making it easier to find useful educational content within Second Life.

Website: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SciLands

Website: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:SciLands

You may visit CoLab in the virtual world Second Life at any time. Regular weekly CoLab community organizing meetings are held on "Space CoLab" island every Tuesday at 1pm Pacific Daylight Time. These online communities will complement and extend the offline physical CoLab in order to:

• Engage stakeholders in designing and building the CoLab: consistent with the values of the CoLab project
• Prototype the physical CoLab in Second Life virtual space as a test bed before investing resources in building the actual physical CoLab
• Enable technology entrepreneurs outside the San Francisco Bay Area to participate in and benefit

from CoLab

• Help ARC communicate the value of CoLab to other NASA facilities and external institutions
• Create expertise within ARC in the important new online technology realm of “social software,” in order to help ARC more effectively contribute to NASA’s public exploration efforts

NASA "Real Estate" in Second Life: Space CoLab, Explorer Island

NASA Groups in Second Life: Space CoLab, Welcome to NASA

Website: http://colab.arc.nasa.gov/virtual

Website: http://spacecolab.org/

Website: http://nasacolab.org/

SLURL: http://slurl.com/secondlife/NASA%20CoLab/244/110/23

04/24-25/08: Federal Consortium for Virtual Worlds

Website: http://www.ndu.edu/irmc/fedconsortium.html

Website: http://slurl.com/secondlife/IRMC%20Info%20Leader/124/133/23

Website: https://fedsl.brainkeeper.net//index.php?

04/21/08: Professor Stephen Hawking Streamed into SL

Website: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OyQpQVpY5dU

04/12/08: Yuri's Night

Website: http://www.yurisnight.net/2008/news/news-page.php?p=http://www.yurisnight.net/2008/news/2008/04/party-profile-nasa-goddard-washington.xml

Website: http://www.virtuallifemedia.com/

Website: http://www.yurisnighthouston.net/audio/stationcall.3gp

Website: http://zones.extropiacore.net/yurisnight/schedule.php

Website: http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=16088&id=592234406&ref=share

Website: http://spacecolab.wordpress.com/yuris-night-2008/

04/01/08: Online Virtual Worlds: Applications and Avatars in a User-Generated Medium Subcommittee on Telecommunications and the Internet Hearing

Website: http://energycommerce.house.gov/cmte_mtgs/110-ti-hrg.040108.VirtualWorlds.shtml

Website: http://www.cqpolitics.com/wmspage.cfm?parm1=5&docID=news-000002694429

Website: http://blog.washingtonpost.com/posttech/2008/04/congress_goes_virtual_in_onlin.html

Website: http://spindriftisland.wordpress.com/2008/03/31/congressman-markeys-sl-hearing-today-tuesday-april-1st-930-am-630slt/

Website: http://www.thedailyshow.com/video/index.jhtml?videoId=165604&title=avatar-heroes

Website: http://www.silverandgoldie.com/linden_congress.htm

03/31/08: NASA CoLab "Co-Working" Visual Examples

Website: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XIHVhs-r06Q

03/10/08: Lunar Planetary Science Institute Presentations

Website: http://nasacolab.org/files/1167.pdf

Website: http://nasacolab.org/files/LPSC08poster.pdf

03/25/08: Virtual Outer Space

Website: http://www.nasacolab.org/files/CoLabBBCFocus.pdf

03/20/08: Second Life on Mars - On CBC Radio's show 'Search Engine'

Website: http://www.cbc.ca/searchengine/blog/2008/03/this_weeks_show_march_1308.html

03/10/08: Generation Y Urges NASA to Give New Exploration Missions More Interactivity

Website: http://www.space.com/businesstechnology/080310-busmon-generation-y.html

02/25/08: Spice up your next meeting: Wear wings

Website: http://www.federaltimes.com/index.php?S=3387086

02/12-15/08: Next Generation Explorer Conference (NGEC-2)

Website: http://ngec.arc.nasa.gov/NGEC-2

Website: http://www.nasacolab.org/files/NGEC%20Broadcast%20Event%20Paper.pdf

02/01/08: Doing Physics in Second Life

Website: http://physicsworld.com/cws/article/print/32673

01/28/08: It's All How You Play the Game

Website: http://www.federaltimes.com/index.php?S=3333068

Website: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/7195718.stm

01/21/08: Metanomics: Federal Agencies in Second Life

Website: http://metanomics.net/federal-agencies

Website: http://www.slcn.tv/metanomics-federal-agencies-sl

01/16/08: NASA History through Second Life

Website: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fu2hvrMjgu0

01/16/08: Development of a NASA-Based Massive Multiplayer Online Learning Game

Website: http://procurement.nasa.gov/cgi-bin/eps/synopsis.cgi?acqid=128415

Website: http://blog.wired.com/wiredscience/2008/01/nasa-seeks-inpu.html

01/03/08: NASA Dreams of an Interplanetary ‘Second Life’ for Mars Crew

Website: http://www.wired.com/science/discoveries/news/2008/01/nasa_virtual_worlds

Website: http://abcnews.go.com/Technology/story?id=4080591&page=1

01/02/08: Space Talk (Teen Grid)

Website: http://www.libraryloft.org/secondlife.asp

11/08/07: NASA Plays Games

Website: http://radar.oreilly.com/archives/2007/11/nasas_mmog.html

10/15/07: NASA Colab's Second Life Mission

Website: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kr3vXuxEPB8

09/10/08: Feds Lead a Second Life

Website: http://www.govexec.com/story_page.cfm?articleid=37966&dcn=todaysnews

06/25/07: Virtual Reality and Exploratory Participation

Website: http://www.thespacereview.com/article/896/1

Website: http://www.secondlifeinsider.com/2007/06/26/nasa-and-collaborative-environments/

06/27/07: NASA Harnesses Power of Virtual Worlds for Exploration, Outreach

Website: http://www.america.gov/st/washfile-english/2007/June/20070627163101lcnirellep0.5420343.html

05/26/07: NASA Ames’ Second Life Blends Cyberspace with Outer Space

Website: http://www.space.com/adastra/070526_isdc_second_life.html

Website: http://www.brightcove.tv/title.jsp?title=935458846&channel=37137167

03/30/07: Virtual Space Gurus Build Final Frontier

Website: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/17841125/

NOAA Virtual World

Overview: Soar through a hurricane on the wing of a research aircraft, rise gently through the atmosphere atop a weather balloon or search for a hidden underwater cave on a side trip from a NOAA submersible. These and other virtual adventures are attracting large numbers of "avatars," or virtual selves, to one of the first government-sponsored, Earth-science "islands" in the rapidly growing online world of Second Life. The NOAA Earth System Research Lab developed the site for users to have the experiences in the virtual world they may not have in the physical world, and learn about the cutting-edge science that NOAA conducts regularly. See press release for more information about.

SLURLs:

• Meteora: http://slurl.com/secondlife/Meteora/177/161/27/
• Okeanos: http://slurl.com/secondlife/Okeanos/64/217/30/

Website: http://www.esrl.noaa.gov/outreach/#sl

Photos: http://www.flickr.com/photos/hackshaven/sets/72157594500016565/

SciLands Virtual Continent

Overview: The SciLands is a mini-continent and user community in the virtual world platform Second Life devoted exclusively to science and technology. There are over 20 science and technology related organizations in the SciLands, including government agencies, universities and museums. Click here for the current list of organizations. SciLands members have regular meetings in Second Life where they share ideas, help each other, and plan future projects. Members also share resources like meeting spaces on their islands. Careful planning, organization, and technical features ensure that SciLands continues to grow.

SLURL: http://slurl.com/secondlife/Scilands/128/128/30/

Website: http://www.scilands.org/

Photos: http://www.flickr.com/groups/scilands/pool/

State of Missouri - Information Technology Recruiting

Overview: A site for providing information on the careers available at the State of Missouri and links to web sites of communities in the surrounding area. We will provide occasional job fairs to help attract potential candidates.

Website: http://IT-Careers.mo.gov

SLURL:

• IT Recruiting - http://slurl.com/secondlife/Eduisland%203/137/92/23/

Jefferson City (Missouri, USA) Information Technology Coalition (JCITC)

Overview: This is provides information on Jefferson City, Missouri USA and surrounding communities. JCITC organization is made up of public and private enterprise (including the State of Missouri) and local K-12 and higher education institutions for the purpose of promoting information technology jobs in the area. We also do outreach to K-12 schools in order to get students interested in the information technology career field.

Website: http://jcitc.org

SLURL:

• JC Coalition - http://slurl.com/secondlife/Eduisland/174/93/23/

Alameda County (California, USA) Virtual Polling Location, Alameda County Island

Overview: Alameda County’s Registrar of Voters (ROV) office continually strives to find new and innovative ways to both reach out to new voters and to effectively train the staff of 831 polling locations for each county wide election. With the abundance of elections, 4 in Alameda County in 2008 and at least 4 more in 2009, the Registrar of Voters challenge is twofold:

1) ROV needs to reach out to the citizens of Alameda County, especially the voters with the lowest turnout rate which are ages 18 – 24, to encourage them to participate in the voting process. The 2006 US Census Bureau indicates that of US Citizens ages 18 -24, 47.5% are registered to vote and of those, only 23.2% voted in the November 2006 election. ROV does regular outreach events at local high schools and colleges to try to encourage students to register to vote, to educate students on the voting process and to encourage a higher registration and voter turnout rate among our youth.

2) ROV needs to train over 4000 poll workers who staff the 831 polling locations that service these voters in each county wide election. For each county wide election, ROV must recruit and train a minimum of 5 poll workers per polling location, resulting in approximately 4150 polling location hires. Each of these poll workers must attend training resulting in many classes being held to accommodate a variety of locations and schedules.

Alameda County Registrar of Voters office decided to leverage Second Life and has created a virtual polling location to address both of these challenges.

On Alameda County Island in Second Life, a virtual courthouse has been created that is modeled after the Renee C. Davidson Courthouse located in Oakland, CA in real life. Within the courthouse is a virtual polling location complete with election materials, rosters, ballots, voting booths, ballot scanner, and touch screen voting system.

Alameda County ROV envisions holding outreach events, by inviting high school and college students to come to the Second Life polling location to practice first time voting in Second Life. For these events, the polling location will be staffed with avatars that are controlled by ROV staff to provide a very interactive experience where all questions can be answered. The student’s avatar will be instructed how to vote and will also be given information on how to register to vote and how to find their sample ballot and polling location. When an outreach event is not in progress, the polling location will be staffed with automated poll worker avatars that follow scripts so that anyone in Second Life can go through a typical voting process at any time.

Eventually, ROV would like to conduct poll worker training in second life, for those poll workers who are unable to attend traditional training or would prefer to attend the class online. This virtual polling location is the perfect venue for teaching a poll worker their role online.

Website: http://www.acgov.org/rov

SLURL: http://slurl.com/secondlife/Alameda%20County/175/153/32