Collective Intelligence in Second Life

Collective intelligence results when members of a knowledge community work together, leveraging their knowledge, combining skills, and pooling resources to become active participants in acquiring additional knowledge (Jenkins, 2006). A key element of collective intelligence is participation. In Second Life, collective intelligence extends past world building to community building. One notable Second Life community is the Virtual Ability Island. Virtual Ability Island belongs to Virtual Ability, Inc. a non-profit whose vision is to be the leading provider of services and information for people with disabilities in online virtual worlds (virtualability.org). Virtual Ability Island offers an online, virtual community for those with disabilities, and chronic illnesses. Virtual Ability Island incorporates collective intelligence by bringing together a number of resources to help community members integrate into the online virtual world. Virtual Ability Island members are provided with new resident orientation, and training, acclimating them to Second Life.

Virtual Ability Island is an excellent example of real world to virtual world skill transference, and although the community is not actively involved in the art of spoiling, its residents having to learn how to navigate Second Life using adaptive hardware touches on a primary tenet of collective intelligence-the process of acquiring knowledge. Jenkins (2006) elaborates on this point:

What holds a collective intelligence together is not the possession of knowledge-which is relatively static, but the social process of acquiring knowledge-which is dynamic and participatory, continually testing and reaffirming the group’s social ties (p. 54).

Second Life’s Virtual Ability Island reaffirms group social ties by creating an environment where residents join book clubs, celebrate Birthdays, and take virtual field trips together. Virtual Ability Island's administrators combine the knowledge, and expertise of its members to create a virtual community haven for those whose disabilities and illnesses limit them from experiencing this in person.

An image of Second Life's Virtual Ability Island from VirtualAbility.org


References

Jenkins, H. (2006). Convergence culture: Where old and new media collide. New York, NY:

New York University Press.

Virtual Ability, Inc. (2019). Mission and vision [Data file]. Retrieved from


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