Graduates virtually guaranteed a day to remember

Students who have completed an online degree course will be part of a graduation ceremony with a difference this week – a celebration in cyberspace.

Students graduating from the MSc in E-learning at the University of Edinburgh are thought to be among the first in the UK to be able to attend a virtual degree ceremony.

They can not only graduate in the magnificence of the University’s McEwan Hall, but can also attend a second ceremony in Second Life – the world’s largest user created 3D virtual community.

The graduation ceremony which takes place tomorrow (Thursday, 26 November) will be streamed live into the University of Edinburgh’s Second Life island.

Students who are not attending the ceremony in Edinburgh can gather in Second Life to celebrate, and after the ceremony there will be combined on and offline reception – including a virtual bar.

The masters programme – aimed mainly at professionals working in higher and further education – has broken new ground with Twitter tutorials, online learning and exciting new forms of digitally-enabled assessment.

Course leaders say that the new idea for a graduation ceremony is a model that could work well for other distance learning programmes.

Associate Lecturer, Fiona Littleton said: “This is the first time this has been attempted at the University. Students will be able to download robes and University of Edinburgh hoods for their avatars to wear during the graduation event, and everyone will have free access to a celebratory reception.”

Student Youenn Leborgne, who will be awarded his degree at the virtual graduation, said: “Holding the ceremony in Second Life is a great idea, especially on a distance learning course: this kind of innovation is what I’ve loved about studying at Edinburgh.”

The Second Life graduation events will be held at the Venue@Vue from 3:00pm on Thursday 26 November: http://slurl.com/secondlife/Vue/209/35/28
(requires Second Life viewer, downloadable from the following URL:
http://secondlife.com/support/downloads.php)

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