1. THE BASICS

What is a Starlight region?

A region is virtual land within the Starlight Education Space grid, where educators, educational institutions, non-profit institutions and NGOs can create content to be experienced in a 3-D world. Each region takes the form of a simulated island with the dimensions 256m x 256m.

How much does it cost to lease a Starlight region?

A standard region of "land" in Starlight grid is $60/mo. with a one-time setup payment of US$60. This fee gives the user exclusive use of the island region for as long as they lease the region.

What is included with lease of a Starlight region?

Included in the basic package is hosting of the region on our servers for access over the internet, maintenance and updates of the servers hosting your region, email support and telephone support*. It also includes: access to the overall grid; common grid facilities Starlight will be installing and updating (such as centralized venues); a library of standard scripts and objects. *Certain restrictions to included support time apply.

What is the capacity of my Starlight regions?

A standard Starlight region can handle 15,000 prims (primitive objects -- the building blocks of the virtual environment) and approximately 40-50 concurrent avatars (visual representations of your visitors). High-performance regions are also available that feature both support for more prims and more avatars on the island.

Is the performance of a Starlight region comparable to other virtual world grids?

The performance of a standard Starlight region is equivalent to that of a region in the Second Life® platform (supporting the equivalent prims and avatars). Starlight regions receive dedicated CPU and RAM allocations. Although no specific metrics are available, our regions feature noticeably higher performance than most other popular OpenSim-platform based virtual world grids. In addition, Starlight offers high-performance region options and upgrades for those users whose needs are more demanding. These high-performance regions exceed the specifications of both most OpenSim based virtual worlds and standard Second Life® islands.

What if I don't need a whole 256x256 Island?

Starlight has options for leasing half, one-third, or quarter regions at prices that scale with the amount of island that you rent. This is subject to availability. However, Starlight will also help match you with regions in which the other institutions sharing the space are compatible with your mission and sensibilities.

What are the requirements to lease a Starlight region?

You must be one of the following to lease a region: an individual educator (proof of status required), an educational institution, a museum or other educationally-based non-profit institution, an NGO or non-profit advocacy group. Also, if you have a current account with Starlight Education Space or FireSabre Consulting LLC, these accounts must be in good standing (not in arrears).

What is the maturity rating of your grid? Who may access Starlight?

Starlight grid allows for users as young as 11-years-old, although minors must be part of a program administered by an institution present on the grid. Overall content will be G to PG. Access controls will allow educators to limit younger students' access to the University areas containing curricula geared toward older students. Educators will also have the ability to turn on or off access control to areas designated as museum and advocacy "zones". Starlight's philosophy is to provide the educators with tools -- such as avatar creation, account management and access control -- to allow them to determine what is appropriate (or not) for their students and visitors.

Who owns the content in a Starlight region?

Neither Starlight Education Space, nor its parent FireSabre Consulting LLC, make any claim to the the intellectual property or content created by users either uploaded to the system, nor created using our in world tools. Starlight does reserve the right to show/display content hosted on the grid for promotional purposes unless otherwise requested and reviewed. Your content is yours (or that of your users/students) and is subject to the same intellectual property protections and conditions that would be appropriate in any medium.

Do you protect Intellectual Property?

Starlight Education Grid's content transfer service, of course, requires extensive verification of ownership of intellectual property before importing into our system. We will also respond to DMCA requests and actively respond to the misappropriation of intellectual property. However, we are also aware that education usage contains certain exceptions and protections for "fair use" and this will be taken into account when responding to claims. While we will be as proactive as possible (and all of our content creation and transfer services will do active IP checks), it is understood that in a large system of user-created content, not all violations can be necessarily filtered or caught without notification.

Does Starlight Education Space require that I use FireSabre to develop my content?

No. The content you create is yours, and the way you choose to develop it is your choice -- whether you wish to do it yourself, you are creating a student project, or choose another vendor. However, FireSabre Consulting does offer package rates and discount fees for Starlight users that we hope will make us your choice.

Is the content created in Starlight Education Space restricted to your system?

No. In fact, Starlight offers you more control and portability of your content than the most popular closed system. Virtual World viewers compatible with Starlight have back-up functions that generates an xml file of your content, usable in most Open-Sim compatible grids.

How do I get my students (visitors) into Starlight?

As part of a Starlight region hosting package, you are provided with access to the grid's web registration portal (which you may customize) and the ability to create accounts linked to a master account; this allows teachers and administrators to create student and visitor accounts. The administrator may also set access controls to the rest of the grid, set options (and restrictions) on avatar types available to sub accounts, ability to cancel and reset accounts, etc. Our account system is specifically designed with the needs of educators in mind.

Who is FireSabre Consulting? What is their relationship to Starlight Education Space?

FireSabre Consulting LLC is the creator and administrator of the education grid. FireSabre began as an Second Life Developer (Gold Solution Provider) specializing in virtual world projects for education and non-profits. In the five years since founding, we have consistently kept our focus on the needs of these clients. We are continuing this focus by offering a professionally designed, hosted and tuned OpenSim grid for education.

2. TECHNICAL DETAILS

What platform is Starlight Education Space?

Starlight grid is based on the OpenSimulator platform. OpenSim is an "open source multi-platform, multi-user 3D application server... used to create a virtual environment." OpenSim supports the core of the Second Life Messaging Protocol (Linden Lab), but is an independent platform. To find out more about OpenSim, click here.

What Virtual World viewers are compatible with Starlight Education Space?

A variety of OpenSim compatible viewer software will work with Starlight. We recommend a viewer called Imprudence. You can click here to download it. It is available in Windows, Mac and Linux.

If OpenSim is open source, why use Starlight Grid?

The core server software is only a small part of the cost and effort of running a virtual world. We at Starlight believe that the benefit to educators is creating a turn-key solution that allows educators to develop their learning content without worrying about the underlying technology (or creating their own grid). In addition, Starlight offers the opportunity for students and educators to access a wide variety of content created and maintained by fellow educators, educational institutions, museums and the like. In addition, Starlight's hosting plans offer support, infrastructure maintenance and upgrades, bandwidth, web portal registration support, the ability to create account-linked student avatars, and access to common facilities.

What version of OpenSim are you running, and why? Do you upgrade your servers regularly?

Starlight currently runs 0.7.0.2 of the OpenSim server software. We have also modified this software and configurations for our servers to optimize the experience for educators, increase compatibility with SecondLife® in certain areas, and enhance both stability and performance for both standard and high-performance regions.

The most current version of the standard OpenSim software is 0.7.1. However we have found that this version adds no significant features, and introduces some unwanted security vulnerabilities. However, we are constantly re-evaluating the software and upgrades as situations change.

Will education users be able to download and/or upload OAR and IAR files?

At this stage, OAR files will be uploaded and downloaded by our technicians as required, rather than directly by users/educators. Our policies are driven both by the need to preserve copyright of content creators and allow educators to back-up their content.

Is Hypergrid enabled on Starlight Education Space?

Hypergrid — the extension to OpenSim that allows you to link a grid to other OpenSim grids on the internet — is not currently supported. This is a specific decision because there are certain security concerns regarding this connection. In addition, we are allowing younger users (students) to be part of Starlight. Therefore, it is important that we maintain focus on the educational mission and provide for student security.

3. CONTENT TRANSFER SERVICE

What is the content transfer service?

FireSabre Consulting offers a service assisting educational users in migrating their content from other virtual worlds to the Starlight Education Space. This includes both other OpenSim platforms and the Second Life platform.

Who qualifies for this service?

The content transfer service is open to any user qualified to lease a Starlight region. This includes individual educators, educational institutions, museums and non-profits (including NGOs). However, previous clients of FireSabre Consulting are eligible for discount pricing on the content transfer service and setup fees.

How does the content transfer service work with Intellectual Property protection?

A key goal for Starlight Education is to be proactive in making our world one of the most intellectual property violation-free grids available while still allowing educators fair-use rights on educational materials. This means for anything we back-up/transfer, the client must either be the creator of origin (as per the DMCA) or have physical, written documentation granting them the necessary license/permission from the copyright holder.

How much does the transfer service cost?

Price for simulator content transfer begin at US$100. This covers a basic simulator content transfer and import into the Starlight grid. It also covers basic validation of basic function, primitive object and texture integrity. Given simple functionality found in many educational builds, we anticipate that this will cover a good percentage of users. For builds with more sophisticated functionality requiring validation and/or updating, high-prim/multi-sim builds, or content adaptation as part of the transfer — FireSabre Consulting will provide an up-front quote.

What are the conditions and limitations of the US$100 Content Transfer offer?

The content transfer offer assumes:

• Cost is per sim (1 simulator per $100 fee)

• Access to the content owners' avatar (if the avatar has full-rights to the build and scripts)

• Inworld permissions from source grid to the scripting, prims and textures being moved

• Must have copies of the content.

• Only parent build will be copied, not the content in the case of items with inventory embedded within them.

• Scripts do not contain advanced functionality

• Limited or no use of "mega prims" or other object types not supported in the source grid.

• All elements are easily locatable within the simulator

• User ability to download textures from the source viewer

• Copies of the content available

Can I transfer my own content into Starlight Education Space?

Starlight does not claim control of your content, nor restrict content based on method of import or production. The only content restrictions are based on intellectual property ownership and/or appropriateness for a special-purpose educational grid if necessary. Therefore, while you can import content into the system, we hope that the service provided by FireSabre will be attractive if you wish to have hassle-free and clean import of content. Starlight Education Space and FireSabre Consulting, LLC, reserves the right to validate content for technical harm to the grid or malicious code.

How can you transfer content from Second Life without violating their Terms of Service?

Starlight has reviewed the Second Life® Terms of Service, and has determined we can provide this service without violating either its spirit or specifics. The Terms of Service does allow you to copy anyone else’s intellectual property. FireSabre’s safeguards will likewise work to ensure this. In other respects, the Lab’s TOS explicitly positions itself as a service provider and makes no claims to the content uploaded, nor generated by its building tools. The TOS allows third-party viewers to exist that can copy data, provided the system verifies the permissions and creator are those of the user. Several authorized viewers that have a backup function for authorized/full-perm content only. The proof-of-transfer documentation FireSabre requires, and our status as providers for the client, mean that we are acting authorized representatives of the copyright holder. Finally, the Terms of Service allows all content on a simulator to be transferred by the owner, but the sim itself is considered property of Linden Lab. The “virtual land” as defined by the TOS the space created by the software and services running on their systems. The service does not duplicate this and thus not taking the simulator — just its content. Likewise, assuming the user terraformed their island, the mesh they’ve created is not inherent as the sim and is also theirs to take in the form of a RAW file. The official Second Life viewer itself allows downloads of the RAW by the owner. Nor do we claim intellectual property rights upon anything uploaded, created with the in-world tools or imported via the transfer service.

4. SUPPORT AND OTHER SERVICES

What are the three types of support available in Starlight Education Space?

Starlight will offer three (3) basic avenues of support for users of the service.

• Email support. You may submit support tickets through email.

• Phone support. More urgent or higher-level problems may be addressed through telephone based technical support.

• Inworld Helpdesk. Live help will be available in the FireSabre Central help desk during regular office hours. During this time, you will be able to travel to the island and consult with a staff member on duty. Of course, availability also depends on how many people are being helped at any given time and the resulting queue.

Is support part of the basic Starlight region hosting?

Yes. A limited amount of support is included with lease of a Starlight region. Prior to launch of the product and upon launch of the Starlight website, the details of our new FlexSupport system will be announced. Also, watch this space for an expanded FAQ on support.