OKAPI Island News

Over the past two years, OKAPI Island in Second Life has supported the research, teaching, and learning of dozens of scholars. OKAPI Island has also hosted numerous public programs and outreach activities. This post highlights key accomplishments and updates.

Awards
2007 Open Archaeology Prize
2008 NMC Virtual Learning Award

Public Programs
Burning Catalhoyuk Day. December 10, 2008
Presidio Teacher Night. October 1, 2008
iSummit Keynote Webcasts. July 30-31, 2008
Cal Day. April 8, 2008
Remixing Catalhoyuk Day. November 28, 2007

Second Life DeCal Courses
http://www.decal.org/784 (Fall 2008)
http://www.decal.org/930 (Spring 2009)

Anthropology 39B: Serious Games for Archaeology and Imagining the Past (Fall 2009)
http://anthropology.berkeley.edu/programs/courses/course_details.php?id=313

Undergraduate Research Apprentice Program (offered for the fourth consecutive semester)
Sharing a Sense of Place: Constructing a Neolithic Village in Second Life
http://research.berkeley.edu/urap/projects/detail.lasso?-Search=Action&-Table=pub_details&-Database=urap_web&-KeyValue=508

Interview: “Second Life as an Archaeological Tool”
An Interview with Berkeley Archaeology Professor Ruth Tringham
National Center for Preservation Technology and Training. June 18, 2009.
http://www.ncptt.nps.gov/second-life-as-an-archaeological-tool/

Journal Article
Morgan, Colleen. “(Re)Building Çatalhöyük: Changing Virtual Reality in Archaeology” Archaeologies. July 2009.
http://www.springerlink.com/content/k254u1q4tt357918

More Info
http://okapi.wordpress.com/projects/okapi-island-in-second-life/

Machinima
“Basket Weaving at Catalhoyuk” by Colleen Morgan
more:  http://middlesavagery.wordpress.com/2009/04/15/basket-weaving-at-catalhoyuk/

Burning Çatalhöyük

Burning Çatalhöyük: A Virtual Public Archaeology Event hosted by UC Berkeley Students and Faculty
2PM-4:30PM Pacific Standard Time (10PM-12:30AM GMT or Universal Time)
December 10, 2008
Location: Okapi Island
http://slurl.com/secondlife/Okapi/128/128/0
(You must have the free Second Life browser)

Join us for Burning Çatalhöyük, a project developed by OKAPI, the Berkeley Archaeologists at Çatalhöyük, and the UC Berkeley DeCal program. Çatalhöyük on OKAPI Island, in development since 2006, is an exploration of the past and present of a 9,000 year old site located in present-day Turkey.  In this demonstration we intend to burn the existing models down in order to better understand the use of fire in Neolithic settlements.  In consultation with fire experts Karl Harrison and Ruth Tringham, and architecture expert Burcu Tung, a team of undergraduate apprentices have replicated the burning sequence of Building 77, a structure excavated in the summer of 2008.  OKAPI island also hosts reproductions of modern developments present at the site, including a water tower, Sadrettin’s café, the Chicken Shed and the nightly bonfire.

Remixing Activities:

(2-2:15)
Guided Tour of OKAPI Island by Ruth Tringham, (Professor of Anthropology, UC Berkeley, and Principal Investigator of Berkeley Archaeologists at Çatalhöyük) and the Remixing Çatalhöyük team.
(2:15-2:30)
Niema Razavian will introduce the work that the Fall 2008 Decal class has done on the island, and how this fits in with a broader UC Berkeley education.
(2:30-2:45)
Roland Saekow will demonstrate his teleportation system, to guide new visitors around the island.
(2:45-3:00)
Kira O’Connor will show the site datum she has constructed, and talk about how datums are used at archaeological sites in general.
(3:00-3:15)
Clark-Rossi Flores-Beyer will demonstrate the skeleton model he has managed to manipulate into a crouch position, in accordance with how people were buried at Çatalhöyük.  He will briefly discuss burial practices in the settlement.
(3:15-3:45)
Garrett Wagner and Raechal Perez will discuss their own reproductions of the interiors at Çatalhöyük, and how they decided to configure the space on their own.
(3:45-4:00)
Colleen Morgan (UC Berkeley PhD Candidate, excavator at Çatalhöyük) will wrap-up the program with a discussion of why virtual reconstructions of archaeological sites are important, and what Second Life can do to increase our understanding of the past.

What is Second Life?
Second Life is a 3-D virtual world created entirely by its residents. Okapi Island is owned and build by the OKAPI team (that’s us below!) and the Berkeley Archaeologists at Catalhoyuk.

Getting Started
To visit Okapi Island, you will need to create a user account and download the client software–both free.

To create an account, visit www.secondlife.com, click on Join (in the upper right corner) and follow the instructions. Note: You do not need a premium account to use Second Life or visit Okapi Island.

Next, download and install the Second Life client for your computer:
http://secondlife.com/community/downloads.php

Launch the Second Life client and enter your password. You will likely begin in Orientation Island. To visit Okapi Island, click Map, enter “Okapi” in search field and click Search. Alternatively, you can click on the following slurl (second life url) in your browser, and you will be transported there:

SLURL:
http://slurl.com/secondlife/Okapi/128/128/0

Student Course Wins Virtual Learning Prize from New Media Consortium

The New Media Consortium recently selected a UC Berkeley student-run class for the 2008 Virtual Learning Prize (US$5000). Designed and run by undergraduate students as part of the Program for Democratic Education at Cal (DeCal), this Fall 2008 course will explore the use of 3d virtual environments  for representing ongoing archaeological investigations. Students will examine questions about real, virtual and imaginary worlds as they learn about Catalhoyuk, a 9000-year-old Neolithic site, located in present-day Turkey. The class will have access to archaeological research data and an international team of scholars led by Berkeley Anthropology professor Ruth Tringham. 
 

This class builds upon several semesters of work by students, faculty, and staff to construct virtual models and public archaeology programs on Okapi Island in Second Life.  Co-managed by Open Knowledge and the Public Interest (OKAPI) and the Berkeley Department of Anthropology, Okapi Island offers 65,000 square meters of virtual real estate for exploring new forms of research, education and public outreach.   
 

DeCal Course Information:

http://www.decal.org/784

Visit Okapi Island:

http://slurl.com/secondlife/Okapi/128/128/0

About Okapi Island:

http://okapi.wordpress.com/projects/okapi-island-in-second-life/    

Student Lead: Niema Razavian, nrazavian[at]berkeley.edu
Faculty Sponsor: Ruth Tringham, Department of Anthropology, tringham[at]berkeley.edu
Technical Advisor: Noah Wittman, Open Knowledge and the Public Interest, wittman[at]berkeley.edu

OKAPI Island to Host iSummit Keynote Webcasts

OKAPI Island in Second Life will Webcast the live keynotes from the global iCommons Summit, which will take place in Kyoto, Japan, from July 30 (July 29 PST) to August 1 (July 31 PST), 2008. The iSummit brings together free culture communities from around the world. Visit OKAPI Island at times indicated below to participate in live events. Please note time zones!

Location of Okapi Island in Second Life:
http://slurl.com/secondlife/Okapi/128/128/0

More about iSummit ‘08:
http://www.icommonssummit.org

Schedule Day 1 (July 30)

July 29 at 5pm Pacific Standard Time (July 30, 9 am Japan Standard Time): The Future of the Global Commons
An introduction to the commons, the iSummit and how you can help by Heather Ford

5:20 pm Pacific Standard Time  (9:20 am Japan Standard Time): The Future of Open Search by Jimmy Wales
Watch Jimmy broadcasting from Second Life

5: 40 pm Pacific Standard Time  (9:40 am Japan Standard Time): The Status of the Commons by Joi Ito

6:00 pm Pacific Standard Time  (10:00 am Japan Standard Time): The Commons in the Corporation: The challenge of raising awareness within media corporations by Mohamed Nanabhay

6:20 pm Pacific Standard Time (10:20 am Japan Standard Time): Housekeeping by James Cairns

7 pm Pacific Standard Time (11 am Japan Standard Time): Fun and engaging: Labs promote their sessions to participants by Lanon Prigge

July 30 at 2am Pacific Standard Time (Jul 30, 6pm Japan Standard Time): Ready to Share: Fashion and the Commons by Johanna Blakley

2: 20 am Pacific Standard Time ( 6:20 pm Japan Standard Time): Expanding Boundaries Of Fair Use Protection Under U.S. Copyright Law by Anthony Falzone

2: 40 am Pacific Standard Time (6:40 pm Japan Standard Time): Language as a Commons by Erin McKean

3 am Pacific Standard Time (7:00 am Japan Standard Time): Housekeeping by James Cairns

Schedule Day 2 (July 31)
July 30 at 6 pm Pacific Standard Time (July 31, 10 am Japan Standard Time): No License for these territories by Jamie King

6:20 pm Pacific Standard Time (10:20 am Japan Standard Time): Social Movements on the Commons by David Bollier

6:40 pm Pacific Standard Time (10:40 am Japan Standard Time): Collaborative Creativity -How innovation together has stood the test of time by Rishab Ghosh

July 31 at 3 am Pacific Standard Time  (July 31, 7pm Japan Standard Time): Free Culture and Free Speech- Why strong and vibrant free culture communities are important for freedom of expression by Rebecca MacKinnon

3:20 am Pacific Standard Time (7:20 pm Japan Standard Time): Enclosing the commons – for dummies- Creativity, Citizenship and Media Ownership by Adam Haupt

3:40 am Pacific Standard Time (7:40 pm Japan Standard Time): The Literacy Project- Encouraging Best-Practice Sharing in the Non-Profit Community by Jessica Powell

Schedule Day 3 (August 1)

July 31 at 6 pm Pacific Standard Time (August 1, 10 am Japan Standard Time): Keynote by Hiroaki Kitano by James Cairns

6:20 pm Pacific Standard Time (10:20 am Japan Standard Time): Collecting Societies- Mars Landing by Paul Keller

6:40 pm Pacific Standard Time (10:40 am Japan Standard Time): Open Content: The first decade by David Wiley

10:40 pm Pacific Standard Time (2:40 pm Japan Standard Time): Closing event- Farewell remarks and group photograph, with light refreshments by Kerryn McKay

More Keynote Information
http://icommonssummit.org/programme/keynote.html

OKAPI Mashups

Below are some of the mashups (hybrid web applications) we’ve been working on as part of Raymond Yee and Rick Jaffe’s Next Generation Campus Information Services workshop.

Research Dashboards–Bringing Together Widgets for Research and Teaching

by Noah Wittman and Townsend Lab Team
http://www2.netvibes.com/townsend/

This Netvibes Portal contains a library of widgets of interest to arts and humanities scholars. Many of them were pre-existing. Some we configured ourselves using HTML and RSS feeds. The Townsend Lab team will be working with research groups on campus to better understand how such a resource might be useful.

Slickr–Importing Flickr Photos into Second Life

by Shawna Hein and Aylin Selcukoglu (iSchool Students) in collaboration with Noah Wittman, Ruth Tringham and the OKAPI Island Gang

The 3d virtual environment of Second Life is a fantastic venue for educational programming. Unfortunately, Linden Labs makes residents pay a small fee for each image uploaded to their server. This workaround allows free use of Flickr photos–Fantastic!
http://slurl.com/secondlife/Okapi/128/128/0

Don’t Tread On (or Eat Me): The ‘Invasion’ of the Burmese Python
By Lizzy Ha
http://lizzyh.nextgencampus.net/python.html

We cannot completely blame Florida for this. Although irresponsible Burmese Python owners have been releasing their giant, non-native, ‘pets’ into the Florida Everglades for years now, Floridians will not be entirely responsible for this coast-to-coast invasion of these giant pythons. The US Geological Survey recently released two ‘climate maps’ which highlight areas where Burmese Pythons will be able to live and thrive in the United States; the Bay Area is included. USGS and various newspapers have led us to believe that these pythons are moving out of Florida, northward and westward, slowly taking over this country. However, extensive research shows that one need not worry about these Floridian Burmese Pythons; one should be more worried about the Burmese Pythons that are already in one’s backyard. Burmese Pythons are already living all over the country, posing as ‘pets’ elsewhere. This project examines the areas outside of Florida in which Burmese Pythons currently exist. Hopefully these python owners are more responsible than those in Florida.

Cal Day (April 12): Bridging Real, Imaginary and Virtual Worlds

A Public Archaeology Program produced by OKAPI and the Berkeley Archaeologists at Catalhoyuk
12-3pm Pacific Time (8-11 pm GMT)

April 12, 2007

Locations

Archaeological Research Facility: http://arf.berkeley.edu/
Okapi Island in Second Life: http://slurl.com/secondlife/Okapi/

Program
12pm – 12:45 Lecture: “Bridging the gap between Real, Imagined and Virtual at the 9000-year old archaeological site of Çatalhöyük, Turkey” by Ruth Tringham, Professor of Anthropology, UC Berkeley, and Principal Investigator of the Berkeley Archaeologists at Catalhoyuk
Room 108, Archaeological Research Facility (Webcast live in Okapi Island)
1pm – 3pm “Immersive 3D Visit to Catalhoyuk”
Visitors to the Archaeology Research Facillity will be guided by life-sized avatars (Cal faculty, students & staff) on a virtual tour of Catalhoyuk. Virtual visitors can join the tour as well.

Article in California Magazine notes the importance of “events” in Second Life

There’s an interesting article by Hubert Dreyfus in this month’s California magazine about Second Life. They never mention the educational aspects of Second Life – strange since it’s in a university magazine. But they do make one point about the role of Second Life in bringing together people and creating community for specific events. This resonates with what we are thinking for Okapi island. I’m not overly thrilled with the article, but I need to read it again more carefully

Okapi Island Spring 2008. Thoughts to start off with

What is our ultimate purpose?
Education (K-Grey)?
Sensual experience
Platform for showing remixes
Platform for communication?
Immersion in an archaeological site?
Immersion in the archaeological process?
Communication?

To Plan
Events, talks, movie shows, audio shows – not just the big event.
Building and other Competitions
Regular tours (eg every Friday when we are “in residence”
This includes events in Second Life that are around real-world happenings and performances (eg Catal team symposium at Sociaety For American Archaeology in March)
It also includes real worl events where we can bring Second Life to the Real World (eg Cal Day)
We need to do more serious advertising of these events

Signs
Update signs, esp about join us on Okapi Day
Results of Okapi Day

Museum etc.
Have Okapi island harvest media from database rather than upload them

Embedding/Mash-up of Remixing Catalhoyuk data in Okapi Island

Prehistoric Houses:
Clues to what is down below
Build some furniture in one

Playpen-Sandbox
Tidy up ie get rid of extraneous and irrelevant exercises
Commentary on the good one (revolving picture cube)

Graffiti Board
Change pictures?

BACH tent
Put active stuff on the floor that links to the pictures on the wall

New areas (invite Catal people from list)
Create 4040 area with new pics
Polish area
West Mound (SUNY Buffalo and Cambridge

Sounds
Incorporate Steve Mills Catalhoyuk sounds

VideoWalk
Add walks from BACH tent to South/Mellaart area

Some things for people to buy or win:
Avatar gestures such as
archaeological gestures (trowelling)
Turkish dancing
Keepsakes: images of artifacts, movies of digging
T-shirts for avatars

Okapi Island in Second Life – opportunities for students (and others) Spring 2008

Remixing Catalhoyuk Day on Okapi Island, 28 November, 2007

After our wildly successful Remixing Catalhoyuk Day at Okapi Island on November 28, 2007, we (Ruth Tringham and Noah Wittman) are looking for a renewed, enthusiastic team to join us in further developments and preparation for another big open day event during the Spring semester 2008. Our island is now beginning to gain public visibility.

Many of our team have participated through the sponsorship of the Undergraduate Research Apprentice Program. If you will continue with us, please let me (Ruth Tringham tringham@berkeley.edu) know as soon as possible. If you are interested in applying to the project through URAP (where you can receive credit), go to the URAP portal at http://research.berkeley.edu/urap/.

You don’t have to be an undergraduate apprentice to collaborate with us. We have graduate students, staff members and other undergraduates working with us, and joyously welcome anyone with interest and/or skills to help us. These are the qualities we are looking for

• Knowledge of and/or strong desire to learn about archaeology
• Strong oral and written communications skills, including event organization
• Any special skills and/or interest in the senses of place: visual, soundscapes, haptic…
• Facility with digital media and multimedia production tools (Photoshop, Illustrator, Final Cut, etc.)
• Experience with 3d modeling desirable for apprentices seeking to do modeling work
• Knowledge of Linden Script Language or experience in scripting/coding desirable for apprentices seeking to do in-world scripting
• Ability to work in a team

If you are interested in participating, please write to Noah Wittman (wittman@berkeley.edu) and Ruth Tringham (tringham@berkeley.edu). We also welcome skilled collaborators who are not on – or even near – Berkeley campus.

How do we share and communicate a sense of place to another person or a larger audience, who may be academics, professionals, different grades of K-16 learning, lifelong learners, or journalists–all of whom will re-contextualize our archaeological interpretations in one way or another? How do we express the senses of a place that in the past was alive with people, events and meaning, and now seems dead and empty (but perhaps it is not)? How do we convey to our different audiences the changing meaning and meaningfulness that a place may have for diverse actors through its life-history to its current life perhaps as a heritage site? This project comprises the development of one of the very very few archaeological sites in the on-line “world” of Second Life. We started this project in Spring 2006 because we believe that there is great potential of this platform for interactive educational and research projects about archaeological places. We are beginning to have many visitors and a public presence, and there is much room for student input and creativity.

Apprentices and other participants will work with Ruth Tringham, Noah Wittman. and other project team members to design and develop 3D model of Çatalhöyük, a 9000 year-old Neolithic village located in modern-day Turkey that has already been brought into Second Life on Okapi Island. Çatalhöyük is the focus of extensive archaeological investigation by Ruth Tringham and other scholars. This Second Life project grew out of a Web-based project to disseminate the media database of Çatalhöyük called Remixing Çatalhöyük. Depending on interests and skill sets, participants will be responsible for building 3D models, scripting interactive features, implementing virtual tours, designing museum exhibits or planning events (a Neolithic faire?) and other educational activities. We welcome your participation in this exciting, innovative project!

Remixing Çatalhöyük (the parent project)
http://okapi.berkeley.edu/remixing

Okapi Island, location of Çatalhöyük in Second Life (a work in progress _needs your help!)
http://slurl.com/secondlife/Okapi/128/128/0
More Okapi Island info: at this website: http://okapi.wordpress.com/category/second-life/
and in this movie: http://okapi.dreamhosters.com/video/sl_short.mov

More on Çatalhöyük
http://www.catalhoyuk.com/
http://www.smm.org/catal/

OKAPI Wins Open Archaeology Prize

Alexandria Archive Institute Press Release, November 30, 2007:

Scholars from UC Berkeley swept the Open Archaeology Prize competition, held at the 2007 meeting of the American Schools of Oriental Research (ASOR). One of a series of awards around “open archaeology” funded primarily by the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation, this particular Open Archaeology Prize targeted members of ASOR, a long-standing organization of archaeologists conducting research in the Near East. The winners, who were selected based on their project’s scholarly merit, potential for reuse in research or teaching and availability on the web in a free and reusable format, were announced last week at ASOR’s annual meeting in San Diego.

First Prize, Senior Scholar
First prize for a Senior Scholar was awarded to the team led by Ruth Tringham (Professor, Department of Anthropology) and Noah Wittman (Program Manager, Open Knowledge and the Public Interest) for their website “Remixing Çatalhöyük” (http://okapi.berkeley.edu/remixing). Remixing Çatalhöyük has been variously described as a database narrative and as a multimedia exhibition and research archive. Launched in October 2007, it features the investigations and data of the Berkeley Archaeologists at Çatalhöyük (BACH) and their colleagues at the Neolithic tell settlement of Çatalhöyük, Turkey. The aim of the website, accessible in English or Turkish, is to engage the public of all ages in the exploration of primary research data through four themed collections that are selected from the research database. One theme on the Life-History of People, Places, and Things – also includes a K-12 activity module. The public are invited to download media items that are licensed with a Creative Commons 3.0 license, create original projects and contribute their own “remixes” about Çatalhöyük. Tringham and Wittman write that the developers of this resource “hope that this project will inspire other researchers to openly share their research data and engage broad public audiences.” Remixing Çatalhöyük represents a groundbreaking effort toward sharing and elucidating the past, and we certainly hope other projects will follow their lead.

First Prize, Junior Scholar
First prize for a Junior Scholar was awarded to Catherine Foster (PhD student, Department of Near Eastern Studies) for her project “Household Archaeology and the Uruk Phenomenon: A Case Study from Kenan Tepe, Turkey” (http://nes.berkeley.edu/~cpfoster/). Catherine is awarded first place for developing a website on her research involving household studies of a Late Chalcolithic community in the Upper Tigris region of southeast Anatolia. Foster explains that the ultimate goal of this project is to create an open access micro-artifact database that can be used as a reference resource for other scholars wishing to embark on this type of analysis. Because it will be open access, other scholars will be able to add to the database with high-resolution scans and descriptions or alter categories as developments are made. She states, “To my knowledge, no such database is freely available over the Internet and will be a valuable resource as the inclusion of microarchaeological techniques in Near Eastern excavation projects becomes more and more commonplace.” Foster’s project demonstrates a solid foundation in open access and a visionary approach for future sharing of research in archaeology.

Runner Up
A second prize of $200 in books, co-sponsored by the David Brown Book Company, was awarded to Justin Lev-Tov (Statistical Research, Inc.) for his project “Hazor: Zooarchaeology” (http://www.opencontext.org/database/project.php?item=HazorZooPRJ0000000010). This project presents zooarchaeological identification and analysis of nearly 10,000 animal bones from Late Bronze Age and Iron Age contexts at Hazor, research Justin conducted as part of the Hazor Excavations in memory of Yigael Yadin. By sharing this dataset in Open Context with a flexible license for reuse, Justin is improving access to high-quality research and original data that accompany published syntheses. This dataset has been accessed over 11,000 times since it was uploaded to Open Context in Fall 2006. We hope to see more related content from this time period available in open access formats so that Justin’s dataset becomes even more valuable through comparison with other sites.

The ASOR Open Archaeology Prize competition is sponsored by the Alexandria Archive Institute, promoting the development and use of open educational resources in archaeology and related disciplines. The competition aims to enhance community recognition of open scholarly communication and receives generous support from the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation, the David Brown Book Company and the American Schools of Oriental Research.