Preservation of Client Credentials Within Online Multi-user Virtual Environments Used as Learning Spaces

Online Multi-User Virtual Environments such as Second Life have become a popular educational resource when creating learning spaces for the net-enabled generation of students. High expectations within these environments for breadth of functionality and high speed of content delivery, place a heavy demand on systems integration between the MUVE and web based learning tools. The Sloodle project attempts to combines the Second Life MUVE and the Moodle LMS. This paper highlights the considerations for successful client accreditation from Sloodle to another MUVE called OpenSimulator and more generally shows an architecture for cross-authentication between numerous of MUVEs. This blend of proprietary and open source systems and their integration will highlight the current limitations and future development of cross authentication of clients (students and educators) between traditional LMS, virtual classroom tools and MUVEs.