Teaching Project Management in a Changing, Virtual, World. How Real is This?

• Abstract: The Project Management Institute defines ten knowledge areas of Project Management, namely: Scope, Time, Cost, Quality, Human Resources, Communication, Risk, Procurement, Stakeholders and Integration. In the last seven years, since 2008, at the University of Bedfordshire, Virtual Worlds have been used to teach Project Management (focussing on these knowledge areas) to hundreds of students, both undergraduate and postgraduate: first within Second Life (until 2010), later (2010-2011) with Reaction Grid, a different virtual world provider. Currently an institutionally hosted virtual world based on the OpenSim architecture is used. The nature of the virtual environment impacts on the student perception and experience. For instance – in Second Life – Linden Lab is a ‘stakeholder’ while for an institutional hosted world all stakeholders are directly related to the host institution. There are similar implications considering ‘Procurement’, ‘Risk’ or ‘Cost’. We argue that the direct experience with Second Life provides a richer experience to facilitate a situated learning approach. More practical considerations, such as cost, provide arguments to host the virtual world ‘in-house’: what remedial actions would sustain an adequate student experience? In addressing this question, we critically reflect upon the notion of the ‘virtual world’ itself. In how much can a ‘virtual’ world provide ‘real’ project experience? And if it has to be ‘virtual’, how much ‘world’ is needed? In our presentation, in addition to discussing the questions above, we will give a historic overview and analysis of how we use virtual worlds at the University of Bedfordshire, illustrated with screenshots. We will further provide practical advice to those who used Second Life in the past, left, and seek now for alternatives. Finally we provide the opportunity to explore our Virtual World, hosted at the University of Bedfordshire in UK, live from the conference venue via guest accounts.
• The paper in pdf (on the conference site) and the paper in html
• A one page summative evaluation of Institutional OpenSim and Second Life for Project Management
• A couple of snapshots of out virtual worlds since 2009
• The assignment brief as presented to students in AY 14/15

© by Marc Conrad, 2015. The material on this page is presented "as is". There is no warranty implied by presenting this stuff. This web page should be referenced as: "Conrad, Marc (2015); Teaching Project Management in a Changing, Virtual, World. How Real is This?; presented at Experiential Learing in Virtual Worlds - ELVW5, 2015 available at: http://perisic.com/elvw5". If you cite or use this paper and wish a link to your paper from this page, please contact me The webspace for this project is kindly provided by the Perisic Guesthouse (www.perisic.eu).