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METAVERSE 101: WHAT WILL THE FUTURE OF CHINESE EDUCATION LOOK LIKE?

To keep abreast of the times, Chinese universities see the metaverse as an
opportunity to expand their programs.

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THE PAPER

Dec 26, 2022 5-min read

As much ink continues to be spilled on the subject of the “metaverse,”
universities in China are rolling out plans to take their programs into
uncharted digital realms this year. Their interest stems from the potential uses
of virtual spaces in education, an application that has become increasingly
important during the COVID-19 pandemic when schools were forced to hold classes
online for extended periods of time.

On Oct. 17, Nankai University in Tianjin launched the country’s first metaverse
model of its School of Journalism and Communications. To this end, they created
a detailed virtual model of one of the campus’ teaching buildings that students
can freely navigate as avatars.

Prior to that, on Sept. 23, Nanjing University of Information Science and
Technology became the first university in the country to boast a department
bearing the word “metaverse” in its name. The School of Artificial Intelligence
(which also went by the name “School of Future Technologies”) announced that its
Department of Information Science had officially changed its name to the
Department of Metaverse Engineering.

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As of time of writing, 17 universities in China have already dipped their toes
into this burgeoning field.

University initiatives

Currently, universities are mostly exploring the metaverse through the
establishment of labs and research centers. For example, Beijing University of
Posts and Telecommunications, Tsinghua University, and Renmin University of
China have all founded their own metaverse laboratories.





Tsinghua University opened the Metaverse Culture Laboratory in April this year.
Its director Professor Shen Yang told The Paper that, prior to its opening, the
school had already begun conducting studies into virtual communities and
“virtual humans”. He believes that metaverse studies is an umbrella term
encompassing a number of fields such as expanded realities (XR) and artificial
intelligence.

Shen’s team has developed a metaverse elective course for undergraduates, for
which some of the classes are held in a virtual reality (VR) environment on a
metaverse platform. He explains that the largest difference between holding
classes in the metaverse and in real life is that the former is less restricted
by time and space. For example, the class can take place in virtual worlds like
Mars or a space station. In the future, Shen says, he may bring more virtual
humans into the classroom, such as Confucius, to interact with students.

Half of the students enrolled in this course believe that VR technology
successfully produces an immersive and interactive learning experience for them,
but only 28% think that it lives up to their expectations in its current state.
Shen predicts that in about a decade, XR will be a necessity in people’s daily
lives in the same way that smartphones are today.

Meanwhile, Nanjing University of Information Science and Technology still offers
the original Information Science major in its Department of Metaverse
Engineering. The curriculum has incorporated several metaverse-related
electives, such as Human-Computer Interaction, Virtual Reality Technology,
Blockchain Technology, and Brain-Computer Interfaces. Professor Pan Zhigeng,
dean of the department, explains that the department has already submitted a
proposal for a major in Intelligent Medical Engineering and plans to propose a
Virtual Reality major in the near future.

For now, no metaverse-related majors have been given the green light by the
Ministry of Education. However, the Department of Computing of The Hong Kong
Polytechnic University announced a new one-year Master of Science in Metaverse
Technology program in October, for which enrollment will open in 2023. By the
end of 2024, the program will see its first cohort of graduates.

Some universities have set up metaverse discussion platforms or begun to develop
metaverse-related products. The Communication University of China, Southeast
University, and Northwest University have all opened “virtual campuses” on
different metaverse platforms. Users can access these platforms and roam the
virtual campuses using VR equipment, mobile devices, or personal computers.



Regional support

Following the wave of interest in metaverses over the last couple of years, not
only have Chinese tech tycoons such as Tencent and ByteDance launched their own
metaverse divisions, some local governments have also jumped on the bandwagon
this year.





Over 30 prefectural and municipal governments have drafted policies to support
metaverse development and are now soliciting input from the public. Close to 20
policy documents include “metaverse” in their titles. This goes to show the
support of many local governments for universities to develop metaverse services
and elective courses.

Predecessors

Will the arrival of the metaverse set off a trend of new metaverse majors? The
Paper reviewed the new majors emerging since 2002 to see how technological
innovation has brought changes to education.

In 2002, eBay purchased a 33% stake in Eachnet.com for $30 million, marking the
beginning of the era of online shopping. The following year, Taobao — China’s
answer to eBay — went online, and 56 schools in China introduced e-commerce
degree programs

Today, online shopping has become more popular than ever, but e-commerce degree
programs have frequently come under fire. “They hyped the program up, saying
it’d make us ‘all-round experts’ when we hardly touched the surface of each
subject,” one graduate complained online.

Zhejiang University and Shantou University closed their e-commerce degree
programs in 2018. Prior to that, Zhejiang University had not opened enrollment
for its e-commerce program for several years.

Meanwhile, the number of other new degree programs that have emerged and risen
in popularity since 2010 has soared.





The age of “big data” has spawned a plethora of hot new majors, including
Internet and New Media, Data Science and Big Data Technology, as well as Big
Data Management and Application. Of these, Data Science and Big Data Technology
was the most frequently added major for universities’ undergraduate programs in
the last 20 years. In the space of seven years, a whopping 715 colleges and
universities added the major to their selection of programs.

New majors with “intelligent” or “smart” in their names also came with the rise
of artificial intelligence. The tech trend gave rise to 36 new majors over the
last two decades, including Smart Agriculture, Smart Hydropower, and Intelligent
Manufacturing Engineering. A total of 1,397 programs in these majors are offered
at colleges and universities across China. Since the Ministry of Education
approved majors in artificial intelligence in 2018, 440 colleges and
universities have opened a program.

It remains to be seen if the new trend of offering metaverse programs will truly
revolutionize education and research, or whether it will just be another flash
in the pan.



Reporters: Li Haohao and Wang Yasai

A version of this article originally appeared in The Paper. It has been
translated and edited for brevity and clarity, and is published here with
permission.

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

(Header image: Shijue/VCG)

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