Community Engagement in Second Life

This paper records my contribution to a panel presentation titled \u27Virtual Ability: Support, Collaboration, Research, Community\u27 at the Virtual Worlds Best Practices in Education Conference 2015. I provide a brief outline of the class I teach, \u27Virtual Environments: Is once life enough?\u27 and a field trip we made to Virtual Ability Island, a community established specifically to enable people with a wide range of disabilities by providing a supporting environment for them to enter and thrive in online virtual worlds like Second Life

Taking TRIPS to the Eleventh Amendment: The Aftermath of the College Savings Cases

This note examines the conflict between Eleventh Amendmentbased state sovereign immunity and Fourteenth Amendment-based congressional power to abrogate that immunity. In 1999, the Supreme Court handed down two opinions that dramatically redefined the relationship between federal government and the states. In the companion intellectual property cases, College Savings Bank v. Florida Prepaid Postsecondary Education Expense Board and Florida Prepaid Postsecondary Education Expense Board v. College Savings Bank, the Supreme Court held that Congress had improperly attempted to abrogate the states\u27 sovereign immunity, overruling aspects of the Trademark Remedy Act and Patent Remedy Acts respectively. As a result of these cases, any governmental entity otherwise immune to suit under the Eleventh Amendment can now infringe on a patent, a trademark, and perhaps even copyrighted material, with little fear of being haled into federal court on statutory causes of action. The author discusses takings, declaratory relief, and procedural due process claims as possible avenues of action that will protect intellectual property from infringement by states and state entities within the confines of the Supreme Court\u27s new rules for sovereign immunity. Legislative alternatives, such as proceeding under Section Five of the Fourteenth Amendment, the spending power, and the treaty power, as well as judicial approaches are discussed. The author then considers an alternative perspective on legislative remedies that Congress could implement

Virtual Teaching

The potential of online virtual environments, such as Second Life for delivering remote learning continues to be debated by academics. It would appear to offer particular opportunities to support remote learning in art & design, where there is a particular requirement for live visual interaction. The School of Art, Design & Printing at the Technological University Dublin (DIT) received funding to develop a module for undergraduate students to test this theory. A five-credit module (under the European Credit Transfer System) received formal approval from the Institute in 2008 and was delivered as a pilot to academic staff interested in exploring virtual environments for the purposes of learning and teaching. This was followed by the first delivery of the module to undergraduates in art & design as an elective module in the first semester of the 2009/10 academic year. A thorough knowledge of virtual environments and social networking communities is increasingly essential for those working in what could be described broadly as the content creation sector. The module encourages participants to explore this area and exploit the opportunity to create and manage their online presence and begin the process of building and maintaining an online personal brand. The paper describes the delivery of the module, the challenges encountered and reports on feedback from participants. It also suggests a framework for lecturing in Second Life based on what was successful in this instance and what was not

The Designer Who Started a Print Revolution. Remembering Steve Jobs.

Article commissioned by Irish Printer to commemorate Steve Jobs

Sherkin Island Art Degree Project

In 1998 Technological University Dublin formed a partnership with the Sherkin Island Development Society to deliver a pilot programme in Art and Culture on an offshore island in the Atlantic. Developed around the needs of the local community the programme utilised a combination of live and remote teaching methods built around a series of intense workshops. The paper traces the genesis of the project and addresses three main questions: what it cost; what resources were required; and how it might be sustained. The pilot ran from October 2000 to May 2001and was so successful that a second offering has commenced and the team has embarked on the process of seeking validation for a full bachelors degree

Foolish Consistencies and the Appellate Review Of Courts-Martial

The thesis of this Article is that most of the vices infesting the military appellate system could be corrected, or at least moderated, by reforming the rules governing when, and how, a servicemember can waive his right to appellate review...Part II of this Article examines the “costs” associated with the appeal of a court-martial conviction, that is, the resources that are required to bring a case through its appellate review. When a courtmartial appeal presents colorable issues that the accused has a moral right to raise (not having waived them at trial), these are “costs” that are well worth expending. But where an appeal presents no colorable issues, or where the accused by his conduct has waived any legitimate right to pursue his arguments on appeal, these costs become an unnecessary and unwise burden to impose on the military justice system. Part III of this Article explores the arguments in favor of reforming the military appellate review framework. An analysis of the military appellate review system demonstrates that it disserves the military’s interest in finality of criminal proceedings, and gives accuseds perverse incentives to take inconsistent positions at trial and on appeal, something that never would be permitted in the civilian context. Most troublesome, the military appellate review system fails to differentiate between cases that present substantial issues raised and preserved at trial and the fairly common case where the accused pleads guilty and raises no issues whatsoever at trial. By subjecting both types of cases to the same appellate review, the military appellate system harms accuseds seeking to raise contested issues on appeal because their appeals are delayed while largely frivolous cases wind their way ahead of them in the appellate pipeline. Part IV of this Article examines potential ways to address the inefficiencies of the military appellate system. Ultimately, the most effective reform is one that is market based, that essentially allows accuseds to self-select as to whether they will pursue an appeal of their court-martial

Valley for Caesar, a pageant play

A fictionalized drama set in the conflict in Western Montana over the refusal of Chief Charlot and his band to leave the Bitterroot Valley for the Jocko Reservation during the 1870\u27s and 1880\u27s

John J. O\u27Connor Scrapbook #1

Pages from scrapbook containing newspaper articles and other documents related to the political career of John J. O\u27Connor. John Joseph O\u27Connor (November 23, 1885 – January 26, 1960) was a Democratic member of the United States House of Representatives from New York.https://digitalcommons.chapman.edu/oconnor_collection/1000/thumbnail.jp