Will your next poster session be in Second Life? June 3, 2008
Posted by Bertalan Meskó in Medicine, Medicine 2.0, Second Life, Web 2.0.trackback
Stephen T Huang, Maged N Kamel Boulos and Robert P Dellavalle published an article in EMBO Reports about Second Life, the virtual world under the title, Scientific discourse 2.0. Will your next poster session be in Second Life? Some excerpts:
Second Life provides a space in which scientists interested in the freedom of discourse have held meetings to discuss the use of the Internet for medical education and the exchange of ideas. Following on their heels, scientific publishers such as Nature Publishing Group have used their virtual ‘real estate’ in Second Life® to offer scientists access to the literature, databases, discussion forums and other applications. The Wiley publication group (Hoboken, NJ, USA) has opened a virtual bookstore on Second Life® and has published many online guides to becoming an entrepreneur within the online universe.
The question is whether there is sufficient interest within the scientific and medical communities to use online universes to apply a Web 2.0 approach to discuss scientific issues or, more generally, to enhance communication among researchers.
Some of my posts dedicated to the educational opportunities of Second Life:
- Nature’s role in e-Science: Second Life conference LIVE
- Famous Scientific Bloggers in Second Life: LIVE
- Live Coverage: SciFoo lives on session about videos in science
- Live Coverage Now: SciFoo lives on session about the definition of Open Science
- SciFoo lives on in Second Life: Web 2.0 and Medicine
- SciFoo lives on: in Second Life
- Live Blogging Today: First Medical Simulation in Second Life!
- Everything about Second Life and Medical Education
- Genetics in Second Life
- Virtual Medical Center: the Future of Medical Education
- NHS London in Second Life
- Interview about the genetic revolution of Second Life
- Electronic Medical Records in a Virtual Hospital: Interview!
- Scientific Research and Medicine in Second Life
I think it’s a great idea, and it shouldn’t work much differently than online class chat rooms do. But they are going to have problems. The main problem that comes to mind is access. I’m on dial-up as are a significant number of people living outside cities and in other countries. That will definitely impact the ability of some to take part in such discourse. It could possibly create a ruling elite (not that there isn’t already one) that really limits the ability of those people without access to be heard.