This may not be to the taste of those who don't think much of academics flexing their intelligence muscles through games, but for those who are curious about what the Academy thinks of Massively Multiplayer Online Role Playing Games this link may be of interest to you.
It's a selection of weblogs and reports from students at Trinity University in the States who've been charged by their prof, Aaron Delwiche (a good friend to virtual worlds weblog Terra Nova), to conduct ethnographies of the hugely successful World of Warcraft as part of their credit requirements for their "Games for the Web: Ethnography of Massively Multiplayer On-line Games" course. The 15 term papers and the associated documentation are great first steps for the students in examining the social character of online social spaces, and a very good insight for people who've never had the chance to dive into one of these virtual worlds.
While there have been some problems with posting this kind of MMOG-ethnographic research in public form in the past (the community of Second Life are particularly sensitive to this, as covered by Clickable Culture), the process of this data collection has been extremely transparent, so when you're reading through, don't be worried that you're spying on an orc's deepest darkest hidden secret.
via Boing Boing
