The "F" Word(s) and Second Life

Funding.

After a week or two of exploring Second Life, educators will either drift away from “the grid” to become just another avatar that hasn’t returned in the last 30, 60 or 90 days. Or, the “F” word likely becomes an issue.

So, how does one go about getting funding for a project in an environment that is not a proven instructional tool, comes with arguably more hype than the internet did more than a decade ago, and has a terrible reputation in the media for being full of sex-starved avatars looking for throw-away virtual sex?

It’s certainly an issue, and I know there’s any number of projects that have been funded. However, to give our Budget Managers a break for a moment and setting aside the Funding question, I’m curious how many institutions have considered another “F” word regarding Second Life.

Fiscal Policy.

Maybe I’m missing the boat on this one? Is this not an issue? Or, has everyone else simply been avoiding their institution’s Director of Purchasing? Or, are we just not talking about the issues that potentially make our CFO’s collective heads spin faster than Linda Blair’s?

Sure, when there’s only one or two faculty members or specialized departments engaging Second Life, it’s perhaps not an issue. Is it just me, or is Second Life not potentially the purchasing department’s tempest in a teapot when talking about broader, institution-wide implementations of Second Life?

If faculty are going to make instructionally-related purchases in Second Life, do they just use institutional purchasing/credit cards? Did I miss the “We accept Purchase Orders” sign at Second Life? Do I mail my institutional check directly to Rosedale?

What about Budget Control? Don’t we need to verify what we purchased with our institution’s $200US? Will indicating the purchased item to be “Lindens” – quantity “6000″ – be enough for the auditors? Granted Lindens are virtual and arguably part of a software acquisition, but is purchasing Lindens all that different from purchasing a Euro? or a Peso? If I need to verify the commodities I purchased with the 6000L provided to me by my institution, do I really need to list 600 different file uploads at 10L each? Is my “Dress Shirt with Flexi-Tie by Blaze Fashions” a valid purchase; I mean, after all is said and done, shouldn’t my institution help me establish my virtual presence necessary to teach my students? Ah… and then there’s the custom laptops for my student avatars to have for my class at $1000L each. Can I buy materials for my students in my class? Is that a lab fee or rolled into tuition?

Even if I list everything out – piece by piece, file by file – who’s going to verify it? What really constitutes misuse of virtual funds in a virtual world? And, if I purchase something with institutional funds, it belongs to the institution, right? What if the privileges are no transfer, no modify? To use it, my avatar has to own it, but how do I give it back to my institution? What if I use institutional funds to support my building of a project – say uploading textures etc using school funds – but I own that project. What if I decide to keep it? How will my institution recover that virtual product they funded if it’s in my virtual pocket? Oh… wait… that’s more along copyright and IPR policies, but that’s virtually a different ball of wax all its own.