Ed Lamoureux, Ph. D., an associate professor of the Multimedia Program and Department of Communication, is also known as Professor Beliveau in the online community of Second Life (SL). A 3-D virtual world entirely built and owned by its residents since opening to the public in 2003, it has grown explosively and today is inhabited by more than a million people from around the globe.

The New Media Consortium (NMC), of which Bradley is an active member, is an international consortium of nearly 200 leading colleges, universities, museums, corporations, and other learning-focused organizations dedicated to the exploration and use of new media and new technologies. As part of the NMC, Bradley developed a campus in SL as a way to study teaching and learning in online virtual environments.

Dr. Lamoureux is developing an online course to be taught in SL on the NMC campus During Bradley's January Interim 2007. Supported in part by both the NMC and by an online course development grant from the Bradley University Division of Continuing Education, the course will teach field research/ethnographic methods to eight undergraduate Multimedia majors.

Read more in Bradley University's feature story, a Peoria Journal Star article, or Professor Lamoureux's Second Life page.