Metaverse 101: What Will the Future of Chinese Education Look Like? - Sixth Tone

As overmuch ink continues to beryllium spilled connected the taxable of the “metaverse,” universities successful China are rolling retired plans to instrumentality their programs into uncharted integer realms this year. Their involvement stems from the imaginable uses of virtual spaces successful education, an application that has go progressively important during the COVID-19 pandemic erstwhile schools were forced to clasp classes online for extended periods of time.

On Oct. 17, Nankai University successful Tianjin launched the country’s archetypal metaverse exemplary of its School of Journalism and Communications. To this end, they created a elaborate virtual exemplary of 1 of the campus’ teaching buildings that students tin freely navigate arsenic avatars.

Prior to that, connected Sept. 23, Nanjing University of Information Science and Technology became the archetypal assemblage successful the state to boast a section bearing the connection “metaverse” successful its name. The School of Artificial Intelligence (which besides went by the sanction “School of Future Technologies”) announced that its Department of Information Science had officially changed its sanction to the Department of Metaverse Engineering.

As of clip of writing, 17 universities successful China person already dipped their toes into this burgeoning field.

University initiatives

Currently, universities are mostly exploring the metaverse done the constitution of labs and probe centers. For example, Beijing University of Posts and Telecommunications, Tsinghua University, and Renmin University of China person each founded their ain metaverse laboratories.

Tsinghua University opened the Metaverse Culture Laboratory successful April this year. Its manager Professor Shen Yang told The Paper that, anterior to its opening, the schoolhouse had already begun conducting studies into virtual communities and “virtual humans”. He believes that metaverse studies is an umbrella word encompassing a fig of fields specified arsenic expanded realities (XR) and artificial intelligence.

Shen’s squad has developed a metaverse elective people for undergraduates, for which immoderate of the classes are held successful a virtual world (VR) situation connected a metaverse platform. He explains that the largest quality betwixt holding classes successful the metaverse and successful existent beingness is that the erstwhile is little restricted by clip and space. For example, the people tin instrumentality spot successful virtual worlds similar Mars oregon a abstraction station. In the future, Shen says, helium whitethorn bring much virtual humans into the classroom, specified arsenic Confucius, to interact with students.

Half of the students enrolled successful this people judge that VR exertion successfully produces an immersive and interactive learning acquisition for them, but lone 28% deliberation that it lives up to their expectations successful its existent state. Shen predicts that successful astir a decade, XR volition beryllium a necessity successful people’s regular lives successful the aforesaid mode that smartphones are today.

Meanwhile, Nanjing University of Information Science and Technology inactive offers the archetypal Information Science large successful its Department of Metaverse Engineering. The program has incorporated respective metaverse-related electives, specified arsenic Human-Computer Interaction, Virtual Reality Technology, Blockchain Technology, and Brain-Computer Interfaces. Professor Pan Zhigeng, dean of the department, explains that the section has already submitted a connection for a large successful Intelligent Medical Engineering and plans to suggest a Virtual Reality large successful the adjacent future.

For now, nary metaverse-related majors person been fixed the greenish airy by the Ministry of Education. However, the Department of Computing of The Hong Kong Polytechnic University announced a caller one-year Master of Science successful Metaverse Technology programme successful October, for which enrollment volition unfastened successful 2023. By the extremity of 2024, the programme volition spot its archetypal cohort of graduates.

Some universities person acceptable up metaverse treatment platforms oregon begun to make metaverse-related products. The Communication University of China, Southeast University, and Northwest University person each opened “virtual campuses” connected antithetic metaverse platforms. Users tin entree these platforms and roam the virtual campuses utilizing VR equipment, mobile devices, oregon idiosyncratic computers.

Regional support

Following the question of involvement successful metaverses implicit the past mates of years, not lone person Chinese tech tycoons specified arsenic Tencent and ByteDance launched their ain metaverse divisions, immoderate section governments person besides jumped connected the bandwagon this year.

Over 30 prefectural and municipal governments person drafted policies to enactment metaverse improvement and are present soliciting input from the public. Close to 20 argumentation documents see “metaverse” successful their titles. This goes to amusement the enactment of galore section governments for universities to make metaverse services and elective courses.

Predecessors

Will the accomplishment of the metaverse set off a inclination of caller metaverse majors? The Paper reviewed the caller majors emerging since 2002 to spot however technological innovation has brought changes to education.

In 2002, eBay purchased a 33% involvement successful Eachnet.com for $30 million, marking the opening of the epoch of online shopping. The pursuing year, Taobao — China’s reply to eBay — went online, and 56 schools successful China introduced e-commerce grade programs

Today, online buying has go much fashionable than ever, but e-commerce grade programs person often travel nether fire. “They hyped the programme up, saying it’d marque america ‘all-round experts’ erstwhile we hardly touched the aboveground of each subject,” 1 postgraduate complained online.

Zhejiang University and Shantou University closed their e-commerce grade programs successful 2018. Prior to that, Zhejiang University had not opened enrollment for its e-commerce programme for respective years.

Meanwhile, the fig of different caller grade programs that person emerged and risen successful popularity since 2010 has soared.

The property of “big data” has spawned a plethora of blistery caller majors, including Internet and New Media, Data Science and Big Data Technology, arsenic good arsenic Big Data Management and Application. Of these, Data Science and Big Data Technology was the astir often added large for universities’ undergraduate programs successful the past 20 years. In the abstraction of 7 years, a whopping 715 colleges and universities added the large to their enactment of programs.

New majors with “intelligent” oregon “smart” successful their names besides came with the emergence of artificial intelligence. The tech inclination gave emergence to 36 caller majors implicit the past 2 decades, including Smart Agriculture, Smart Hydropower, and Intelligent Manufacturing Engineering. A full of 1,397 programs successful these majors are offered astatine colleges and universities crossed China. Since the Ministry of Education approved majors successful artificial quality successful 2018, 440 colleges and universities person opened a program.

It remains to beryllium seen if the caller inclination of offering metaverse programs volition genuinely revolutionize acquisition and research, oregon whether it volition conscionable beryllium different flash successful the pan.

Reporters: Li Haohao and Wang Yasai

A mentation of this nonfiction primitively appeared in The Paper. It has been translated and edited for brevity and clarity, and is published present with permission.

Translators: Lewis Wright and Xue Yongle; editors: Xue Yongle, Luo Yahan, and Elise Mak.

(Header image: Shijue/VCG)

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