Hi Nick,
My planned research is a virtual community of practice (VCoP)/doctoral support group. The doctoral students are at various phases in the dissertation process. My methodology is netnography (online ethnography) just in case you are not familiar with it. The premise of the study is to analyze why these doctoral students seek peer-to-peer help in a VCoP outside of ther home institution. I will be a participant-observer and the community has about 950 active members. I would have loved to conduct this in Second Life but I found it a bit hard to navigate (user issues :-) and need to take more time to become more involved. Thanks for asking!
Ila