Avatars can head into virtual breakout rooms, load up their own slides and have a private conversation. Other rooms for instruction can be arranged in tables for partners or small discussion groups. They can also put students in the auditorium into private groups, where they can only hear each other.
Instructors have the option to adjust the lighting, room size and sometimes seating arrangements. Any computer with a microphone, keyboard and internet access can access the environment.Ī student attending class might pop in to the campus entrance, teleport to the auditorium for a lecture, take a seat and zoom in to the slides while an instructor’s avatar stands on the virtual stage. Though VirBELA describes itself as a virtual reality company, Stanford's virtual campus doesn’t call for any specialized equipment like a headset or glasses. Because the campus can take a little while to traverse, avatars can also teleport from one room to the next.
Participants use their arrow keys to walk or run around campus and their microphones to talk with people in their vicinity. Buttons or commands can make your avatar cry, wave, nod or do a backflip. Participants are invited to create an avatar, pick out some clothes, head to lecture and then mingle at the beach. The program may, if you’re the right age, be reminiscent of massive multiplayer online games, like Second Life or Club Penguin. “It’s really important to us that not only do our participants get the content from our faculty,” said Marineh Lalikian, director of the LEAD online business program, “but also develop a sense of community with their peers and maintain that high-touch relationship building and connections with other people they would otherwise benefit from if they were here on campus.” Because every student who participates in the certificate program does so remotely, the administration decided, in addition to using videoconferencing to run courses, to create an interactive virtual environment in cyberspace where people can meet. The campus is a hallmark of the graduate school’s LEAD program, an online certificate in business taught by Stanford faculty members. If that last phrase didn't give it away, this scene does not take place on Stanford’s campus in Northern California, but on a virtual campus Stanford built with the virtual reality company VirBELA. After a brief discussion - what room they’re headed to, why they came in today - the crowd disperses. On a clear and sunny day, the perfect temperature, a few students and administrators from Stanford University’s Graduate School of Business run into each other on campus.