Training virtual border guards

By Eric Reuters

Even as some panic about the possibility of terrorist exploitation of Second Life, a program in Canada is using the virtual world to catch people at the border.

Loyalist College in Ontario has created a virtual simulation of a US-Canada border crossing, enabling students to practice quizzing travelers about their backgrounds. The program is one of several at the school that uses virtual worlds technology, including sims that teach prison guards and journalists. Almost ten percent of the student body has used Second Life in the course of their schoolwork.

One big draw for Loyalist is the low cost of building in a virtual world — no consultants were hired to build the simulations. “We figured out early the way to make it efficient is to do everything ourselves,” said Ken Hudson of the school’s Virtual World Design Centre. Hudson works with five part-time designers to build and maintain the simulations, all of whom are graduates of the school’s animation program.