X marks the spot as treasure hunt hits the spot

A prize treasure hunt held across the Open Life regions last weekend has proved a big hit with students and staff alike.

The hunt opened at 10am on Saturday, with the first correct finishers submitting their solutions in the early hours of Sunday morning.

Lots of people attempted the treasure hunt, and feedback on the OUSA SL forum was positive. There is a general feeling that it should become a regular event.

The prize and trophy were awarded to Strangie Vaher at the T175 party that night.

The treasure hunt will remain available in-world for a few days, so please feel free to try it. The starting point is here: http://slurl.com/secondlife/Open%20Life%20Village/85/56/30

The experience of designing and running the treasure hunt will doubtless prove useful when we create an in-world scavenger hunt as part of the orientation programme.

Party!

Last weekend's in-world party in Second Life was a roaring success. Attendance peaked at thirty avatars on Open Life Village green, as avatars calebrated The Open University's 40th birthday.

40th Anniversary Celebrations In-world

By popular request, we're staging an event in Second Life to mark the 40th anniversary of The Open University.

There will be a free funfair on the Open Life Village green and a disco hosted by our regular DJ Quentin Calvert.

Everybody is welcome. To teleport to the party, click here. (Opens SLURL in a new window.)

LOL! again

At 14.00hrs BST the first issue of "Living Open Life" magazine was published. At the moment it is a PDF document on the Moodle server, so is only available to OU students and staff. This may change when the planned public web pages are created over the next couple of weeks.
Editor Eshala Tabacznyk (Real Life: Teresa Flannery) in the Open Minds exhibition building, where the magazine was launched.

LOL!

This weekend will see the launch of LOL (Living Open Life) - a magazine run by for for the residents and users of the Open Life regions.

It will be available at the village shop Open All Hours, probably in the form of a link to a PDF document hosted on the Open Life website.

Open Shutters

OLiVe residents' first exhibition in the dedicated Open Minds building starts today. It is a small collection of snapshots taken by the residents during their first weeks on the island.

Also planned for the summer is a live music performance at the amphitheatre by resident Elsbeth Biedermann, who will be playing the clarinet and/or violin. Watch the Events Wiki for details when they are confirmed.

Home improvement

Since moving onto Open Life Village, community members have been enthusiastically organising and creating.

Having developed a way of installing curtains for every window of her house using only one prim in total, one resident (Jadis Mai) packaged the item and then ran an in-world tutorial to share her technique.

Similarly, another resident (Eshala Tabacznyk) shared her expertise in constructing an in-world television at zero cost.

More recently, discussion on the OUSA forum prompted another resident (Hennamono Morpork) to create his own map of the island. When finished it will joing the curtains and television in the village shop.

Another resident (Elsbeth Biedermann), who is a keen photographer in Real Life, has taken it upon herself to organise the first exhibition to be hosted at the Open Minds exhibition space.

Finally, Eshala - not content to rest on her TV laurels -has agreed to be guest editor for the first edition of "LOL" - a magazine for and by Open Life users and residents.