Life Cycle of Role-Playing:
Pre-play

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Jump directly to any 'Pre-play' subsection, or review them in sequence:

Preliminary Observations
The Trust Relationship
Technical Anxieties
Role Selection
Game Rules
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Preliminary Observations

The duration of this stage is dependent on whether participants have used online role-play before and the time available for the online role-play moderator to build a trust relationship with the students, remove their technical anxieties, facilitate role selection and explain game rules.

  : How much time?

Explain total approximate time that the learning activity should take, including research as well as connection and interaction.
Mark Freeman, UTS

EXAMPLE from Mekong e-Sim RP (...description>>)

• Background Information Is Not All Boring
• Get Into The e-Sim ASAP
• Bumble Your Way Through – Keep Working
• Development Of The Roles And Responsibilities Of Your Persona
• Be Aware Of Information You Need For Later Tasks
• Participation
• Be Professional – Act In Your Role
• Communication Within Your Group
• Use Any Available Information – Both Issued And Researched Material
• Modelling Professional Conduct
• Length of the Submissions – Emails, Discussion Submissions And Public Inquiry Submissions
• Make Use Of The Time You Are Given
• Make Your Name Known
• Don’t Take Things Personally
• Keeping Up With News Event

EXAMPLE from Securities Markets Regulation RP (...description>>)

LISE:
Advice for students, I guess I could say, expect to be stressed. Expect to not understand, to have no idea but it does go away, like you soon learn what you are supposed to do, how you are supposed to do it.

TERRENCE:
My advice to students is I could sum up in one word – preparation – be prepared in lots of ways, be prepared to be taken out of your comfort zone, not just for the role-play but for the subject itself. I was personally able to participate in the role-play better because of our active participation in our group online discussions, our debates and also our presentations.

LISE:
I am very much a theory rote learn type person - that is the structure you get used to going through uni, same old thing, every subject is the same. This was very different, we had all the theory beforehand but WE had to put it into practice, not you – WE did.

TERRENCE:
I think if I had my time over again I would prepare better for it by making sure that I had all the theories at the tips of my fingers. I liked the idea of it because it wasn’t an exam but I don’t think that that meant that you shouldn’t prepare yourself in the same way that you would for an exam.

Mark Freeman, UTS

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The Trust Relationship

Since role-playing can be an emotionally charged environment, it is important for students to have trust in the online role-play moderator in order to participate effectively in the role-playing. Online role-play moderators should, at this stage, explain to the students that the online role-play moderator will be acting like a guardian angel and will provide help whenever necessary. However, it is equally important to stress that the students need to be responsible for the actions of their roles and that, whilst you hope they will enjoy the experience, the purpose of the role-play is not for dramatic practice but for learning about your particular subject area.

  : What kind of play?

Differentiate between melodrama, acting and role-play!
Marie Jasinski, DMIT

EXAMPLE from Middle East Politics RP (...description>>)

The same character is being played by two different students. In the final videoconference, one tends towards play acting and thus demonstrates a shallow understanding of the character. The other is showing a deeper understanding of the character. However interviews with the students afterwards indicate that they had actually planned to highlight what they perceived as the two sides of the character.

  : Use previous feedback

Show video of student feedback from previous role-plays.
Mark Freeman, UTS

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Technical Anxieties

Students need to overcome technical anxieties such as establishing internet connectivity, accessing the web site and understanding the available features. Another requirement which should be communicated clearly to students is the requirement of "participation obligation".1 For the role-play to run smoothly for all, it is better to have frequent short connections than long but infrequent connections.

Online role-play is 'quasi-asynchronous’. Students can participate at any time of the day (asynchronous). However most role-plays advance in steps towards the resolution with the full agreement of all roles needed and this is what makes role-play quasi-asynchronous. If one role fails to participate, other roles may be affected and hence the need for participation obligation.

EXAMPLE

Maureen Bell, UoW

  : Inducting players

Induct players well. Be clear about purpose, learning outcomes and process. Make sure they can use the technology you have chosen.
Marie Jasinski, DMIT

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Role Selection

Potential players, after agreeing to the participation obligation*, need to submit preferred roles based on minimum role information unless the roles are assigned randomly.

  : Assess student commitment levels

Have participants suggest their realistic capacity for role-play interaction on a scale. Assign the most important interactive roles to those who can commit reliably.
Simon O'Mallon, DMIT

Typically, the role information will only include role names and possibly a job title. At this stage, it is important that the private agenda given to the role be kept secret so that meaningful communication and interaction among roles can occur during the development stage. Moderators provide advice to students about whether to swap gender or race in the selection of their role. This is possible because online role-plays are anonymous.

  : Basis for role allocation?

Base your decision about how to allocate roles (eg self selected by students, allocated by you, randomly) on the your reasons for using a role-play - do you want the participants to go outside their boundaries? stand in someone else's shoes? expand their own expertise?
Denise Kirkpatrick, UNE

  : Anonymity's benefits

Anonymity for the role-players provides a perfect opportunity for participants from socially reserved cultures to become proactive.
Simon O'Mallon, DMIT

  : Polarise participant and role?

When assigning roles to participants polarise the genders, and job descriptions of the players with the characters they will play. (A manager will learn much by being a cleaner.)
Simon O'Mallon, DMIT

Often two or more students play one role by collaborating as a team. Moderators may need to facilitate team building if the students have not worked together before. Sometimes teams are distributed so team building will need to happen totally online.

  : Email game in briefing

In the briefing period, play an email brainstorming game to generate and process issues that students may have about the role-play. It’ll provide you with very good information that you can use in a face-to-face de/briefing session or as a handy reference during the course of the role-play.
Marie Jasinski, DMIT

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Game Rules

Game rules must be explained to students at this stage. For example, if it is a large role-play with a large number of characters, it might be a good idea to establish a maximum number of recipients in each sim-mail sent during role-playing. Just as in the real world, a role cannot broadcast to the whole world. Another rule might be that when a role would like to take a "violent" action that may limit the ability of other roles to participate, the permission of the online role-play moderator is required.

EXAMPLE from First Fleet RP (...description>>)

First Fleet Game Rules In the case of the First Fleet Role-Play, rules of play and information about the role of the moderator are presented together.

Sandra Wills, UoW

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