At a recent HeLF (Heads of e-Learning) meeting at the University of Wolverhampton, there were presentations and discussions on Virtual Worlds and Second Life (SL) in particular.

Here's a link to the site where you can see the programme and download the slides:

http://asp.wlv.ac.uk/Level5.asp?UserType=11&Level5=5781#12

You may also want to look at some of the work at Edinburgh University.  The link includes many disciplines: http://vue.ed.ac.uk/