On-Line Education and The Cyberian Frontier

by Jeff McLaughlin
January 1995.

MUD environments are constantly changing out of necessity and are equally open ended, one MUD might be dedicated to a particular theme say 'Middle Earth' or 'Pern' or '23rd century Asia' while another MUD might consist of a series of interconnected areas that share no thematic connection whatsoever other than a common starting point.

Due to the fact that a person will only be able to see what another person wants them to see via their typing something on the keyboard, one of the greatest benefits of MUDs is the relative egalitarian nature of the exercise. MUDs tend to be Merit-based that is, they have entrenched hierarchies that are based upon rewarding a user's ability and merit. Mastering a skill, solving a difficult challenge etc. results in a user being given more power to control the MUD. We have beginning users (so called 'newbies') who are just learning how to play, active players who's abilities range from the merely 'competent' to the 'expert'. There are 'Wizards' (or 'janitors') which is the term given to the programmers of the MUD, and the 'Gods' (who are the administrators of the MUD), oversee all activities and changes to the MUD. Accordingly, it is traditional to focus on one's abilities and mastery as a means of succeeding as opposed to some other trait. However, the virtualness of the activity and the textual nature in which is it carried out does not discriminate nor does it delineate amongst individuals --it permits those with minimal keyboard skills to interact with others and to succeed as well as others. The MUD does not care who you are, what you are, or where you are, rather it passively and actively reacts to how well you are able to learn and manipulate your environment. And as such other users of the MUD interact with each other purely on the basis of an individual's screen input. That is, if you do not offer any information to the other person, they may never know for sure whether you are of a certain race, female or male, young or old, physically challenged or able-bodied.

Users only interact with another person's words, actions and deeds.

On a game oriented MUD you may find yourself journeying through magical realms slaying dragons and hunting for secret treasures amassing a fortune or a reputation. As it is a 'multi-user' domain, the MUD is geared towards interaction, whether this be idle chitchat or users may sequester themselves off for a private conversation about the meaning of life. Users often will team up (referred to as 'partying') to attempt to solve difficult puzzles or 'quests' or to 'map' out new areas. What is extremely exciting about this is that the person whom you team up with and journey with may be someone who lives on the other side of the world. You can have a 'party' of 2,3,4,or 10 members each one from a different country. These exciting elements are a but few of the reasons why we (meaning myself and others (and by others meaning other academics as well as a few businesses) pursued the use of MUDs as a means of On-line Education. To this extent, my colleagues at Assiniboine College and The University of Alberta have forged a new category of virtual instructional interaction, and in keeping with the "Archies" and "Veronicas" and "Janets" on the Internet we are referring to our new development as a M.A.U.D. --Multiple Academic-User Domain. In our MAUD, students may be involved in electronic seminar discussions, electronic classrooms, electronic lectures, electronic tutorials, and the like all within a Virtual University setting. A bit of history is needed here to explain where we have come from.

The first MUD was developed by Roy Trubshaw and Richard Bartle at Essex University in 1979. In the mid 1980's news of what is now known as MUD1 spread quickly and rapidly as newspapers and magazines reported its existence and thus students at other universities started to access it. Eventually other wiz-kids began to script their own versions of the MUD. These new versions (the first being the adventure oriented AberMUD) have multiplied and divided so many times that now there are literally hundreds of interactive domains around the world --each with their own unique qualities and followers. LPMUDs which get their name after the Swedish programmer Lars Pensjo is the type of MUD that I have been most familiar with having been involved either as a user or a programmer on LPMUDs for three years. Yet there are many other variations: some have become standard favourites; others, although having exciting potentials have risen and died including KMUDs , YAMA, UberMUD, UterMUD, SMUG, TinyMUSE and TinyMage. The more well known direct and indirect descendants of Bartle and Trubshaw's work include: TinyMUDs (called 'tiny' because most of them small in terms of virtual space, MUCKs (taken from the ability of users to 'muck about'), MUSHs (Multiple User Shared Hallunication) and MOOs. The last I shall single out as it has been adopted by many American academics as a means to conduct on-line education.

MOOs were developed by Stephen White (who also developed MUCKs) in 1990. "MOO" stands for "MUD, Object-Oriented" and I think it is safe to say that novices to the Internet have sadly heard more good things about MOOs than about MUDs. MOO's claim to fame has been that it allows players to have more access to the programming of objects. Instead of interacting with the objects created by the administrators and coders, users become instant builders. Noting that first impressions seem to have a significant impact on newcomers to the 'Net I suspect that newcomers are pushed to favour MOOs either because that is what they hear, or because they haven't experienced MUDs. Newcomers are told that "MOOs are good", because (to be blunt about it), "they aren't MUDs". In other words, MOOs are serious, whereas MUDs combative or adventure dominated _games_. MUD's have a bad rap and I wish to strongly defend them on the grounds that most people who I have encountered who praise MOO's from a 'users' standpoint do not fully understand what either MOO's or MUDs are.

Although MOOs seem to be generally favoured because they are somewhat distance from the 'dungeon' aspect of MUDs, this supposed distance is closed by the explicit recognition that MOO stands for MUD, Object Oriented. MOOs are 'chatty' MUDs are not. This claim is simply false, one can chat as long as one wants and with as many people as one wants on a MUD and more often than not that is exactly what people use MUDs for: to discuss issues, some of them extremely inane, others, philosophically complex: just as in real life. MOOs are user-unfriendly in terms of giving user commands, simple activities and in terms of programming. For example, I have taken first year students and fourth year students onto my MAUD, and these individuals whose familiarity with computers let alone the Internet varies greatly, understandably struggle with learning something new. This I constantly am thankful that we're not on a MOO. for when I tell a student that they are to tell the computer what they want, that is, if they want to look at a book, they type 'look at book', I don't, unlike MOO operators have to explain that to look at a book you have to enter in a weird symbol (the 'At' symbol) and then type '@look at book'. Although a student's first experience on a MUD may be challenging, it is far less challenging than an seasoned user trying to use a MOO. In a research report to British Telecom, who have been looking into this technology Dr. Richard Bartle: "(White's MOO) is basically a means of allowing people to share a programming experience, chat a little and do nothing else". That nothing else aspect is a bit of a draw back I would say given that it's a pain to figure out how to chat, and the programming experience is, well, frustrating.

MOO's allow for first time users to program...But this aspect is of limited appeal to most users who are logging in. And to those users familiar with LPMUD and its programming language LPC (a simplified variant of the 'C' language), A MOO is complicated inefficient use of compiling transactions. But people who have never seen a MOO, those newcomers who are rightfully impressed with using the TALK function on their local VAX email accounts think the idea of MOOs is great, and it is, but the reality is that MUDs beat MOOs at their own game. MOOs allow for programming experiences that they can't have on MUDs. This is a common misconception. It is inaccurate to say that 'users' are automatically denied the access to the coding experience on a MUD since there is nothing inherent in the MUD code which restricts its users to non-coding activities. Most players don't code on MUDs not because it isn't possible but simply because those in charge of the MUD have deemed it to be part of their merit system: it is the highest reward offered: once a person has master the environment they are then permitted to add on to it.

The potential of MUDs as a means to get people from all over the world to interact with each other in real time has not gone unnoticed. The first MUD that I am aware of that went beyond the traditional 'gaming' aspect was at Guttenburg, whereby the programmers used the real university campus as their template for their virtual space thereby allowing individuals to sign on and explore the campus without having to be physically present. In 1992, Stephen Downes, Istvan Berkeley, Wes Cooper and I began informal meetings to determine how to both apply this interactive technology to our philosophy classes from the perspective of instructors looking for new ways to impart knowledge, as well as to discuss the philosophical ramifications of these virtual spaces (for example, what happens to the concept of 'community'?). From these meetings three things developed. First, a pilot workshop for the Canadian Philosophical Association meetings was held at the Learneds in Calgary which focused upon Cyberphilosophy, Virtual Reality and Instructional Technology. Here, in a formal setting participants discussed a few of the philosophical, pedagogical, social and ethical issues surrounding MUDs and the Internet in general.

The second development was: VLAB.

VLAB is short for 'Virtual Laboratory', a MUD which was installed by Istvan Berkeley at the Cognitive Science department at the University of Alberta. The VLAB environment was modelled after the U of A campus and provided a means for students and their instructors to have electronic conferences (often out of the necessity of the instructors needing to talk to the students even though they were engaged in scholarly activities out of the region). In VLAB we each had our own offices which were connected by hallways to classrooms and seminars, which in turn were connected to the main student center which housed various things ranging from a virtual book store to bulletin boards for campus groups, from fast food eateries to the required student pub. (Pubs are basic elements of MUDs as they provide an informal relaxed gathering place). We had experimented successfully with electronic-conferences (indeed, some members of the Cyberphil workshop were not physically present in Calgary but instead were interacting with the other participants from their own university computers), next was to actually use the MUD as a means of teaching students. I ran Philosophy small group seminars and self-directed tutorials both on VLAB and on Athabasca MUD (named after the town it was located in). Initially students were apprehensive and struggled a bit but by the end of their first session they got the hang of it and by the end of the term they were generally enthraled. Evaluations of our Vlab pilot project included statements such as "Wow! I never thought you could have fun while learning", "For the first time I felt like part of a course." Students were accessing the MUD at all times of the day, including late Friday nights just to hone their own computer skills, or post notes in my notebook, or just to chat with one of our volunteer programmers. This sort of overwhelming student support has lead us to pursue the development of MAUD.

The third consequence of our informal meetings at the University of Alberta I will simply mention: The founding of the International Society for Instructional Interactive Technology. Established January 3rd 1993 we have more than 400 members representing countries from around the world.

Well, that is a bit of the history, and here we are in the present talking about MUDs. As I mentioned a moment ago, MOOs have received more 'serious' discussion than MUDs and that part of this is due to the negative connotations attached to MUDs (they are notoriously addictive --which by the way is something that we can use to our benefit). However to avoid these connotations, I began to replace the term 'dungeon' with 'domain' a few years ago. Domain is also a far more accurate description. Secondly, given the fact that our multi user domain is aimed at On-line education, we see the application of this 16 year old program as requiring a new category into the world of MUDS, MUCKS, MUSHS and MOOs, namely: MAUDs. Multiple Academic User Domains.

As I have tried to suggest, the underlying motive for the development and use of the MAUD has been the simple want to promote education. MAUD is student driven, technologically driven, professionally driven, pragmatically driven, economically driven and finally but foremost: pedagogically driven.

With MAUD ...
Students and instructors do not have to be in the same location to meet, nor do they have to be interacting with each other at the same time. MAUD is available 7 days a week 24 hours a day and access is simply a modem away. Students who are place-bound, who live in remote communities, who are working during normal class hours, who are handicapped, who are snowbound, who for what ever reason cannot always attend University classes can log on to the MAUD and have their education presented to them in a way that is user-friendly, stimulating, and engaging. Instructors can hold office hours in their virtual offices, students can write them Maudmail or post questions on the Bulletin boards and notebooks that are available. Instructors can leave notices about assignments, give quizzes, tests, develop self-directed tutorials, and attend professional conferences without leaving their office. Instructors can engage in discussions with their students no matter where they are: here in Kamloops, in Merit, or in Australia. Or they can sit back and just 'listen'. Instructors can input whole lectures or summaries to provide student 24 hour access to course content.

With MAUD ...
Students can interact and collaborate with others thus promoting the important concept of 'peer instruction and learning'. And by 'others' we aren't limited to the person next to us. Students studying European history can team up with students in the countries that they are learning about. Students looking at the American Political System can team up with their counterparts from every State. On the MAUD they aren't limited to writing to each other, instead they can _talk_ to each other in real time. Guest speakers can be invited to address your class without leaving their home campus. MAUD can be the equalizer, it can be the facilitator, the bridge-builder. Courses can be team-taught and your partner can be a thousand miles away. In other words: as the millions of Internet users know, and as our MAUD visibly demonstrates, The barriers of distance have fallen.

Nevertheless, I wish to stress that although MAUD tears down the barriers that inexorably accompany face-to-face meetings, MAUD isn't simply about persons interacting with other persons. A person who logs into our Virtual space interacts with the programs developed by the coders of the MAUD. Potentially, students who are studying German can explore the area of the MAUD that is described in German. Students studying the history of science can enter a room where Einstein resides and 'listen' to him, even ask him certain and get responses. Students can use virtual labs to simulate their vocational exercises: cut x; add chemical a to b, connect part 1 with part 2 --all with consequences that can be determined by and monitored by the instructor.

What you can do in the real world, we can emulate; what you can't do, we can create.

MAUD is technologically driven to satisfy a demand. Now we can debate whether or not technology is inherently value free, but, (and I say this with a bit of discomfort), the technology is here. The technology is bridging old gaps while at the same time creating new ones. The new ones are those made by individuals and institutions who do not realize that the world has become a much more accessible, smaller, fast paced place for both student and academic. Currently, students who are struggling with the economic realities of education are searching for the most efficient means to obtain the best degrees. They can, right now, turn to the Internet to find the courses they want. Searching the Databases you will find that Universities are providing complete degrees through the Internet, and students can browse over course outlines and offerings at their leisure and in many instances take them at their leisure.

The Internet is a co-operative adventure, it aims at sharing information with those who want it. Likewise MAUD coders believe in this ideal of public access, and in the possibility of universal access; where Universities and professionals will be linked, where Virtual Libraries will be available for access: their electronic texts hypertexted and non-linear, and where 'distance education' and 'remote communities' become less and less appropriate terms.

And so, I suggest that we move on to explore the wonders of 'Cyberia'.