Metaverse: How will virtual campuses revolutionise business school teaching?

As technology and teaching become increasingly interconnected,  universities and business schools are choosing to move some of their teaching to a virtual space online.  

Dubbed by some as ‘the future of the internet,’ the metaverse is a virtual reality (VR) world where individuals can interact through avatars. The metaverse gives business schools the opportunity to create an online experience which connects and unite students, offering them an immersive campus experience at home.  

Several universities and business schools are already branching out into metaverse technology.  

The University of California, San Diego (UCSD) in the US, Tecnológico de Monterrey in Mexico and Northwest University in China have each opened their own virtual campuses with great success. 

In 2020, France’s NEOMA Business School opened its award-winning digital campus in partnership with Laval Virtual. This 15,000m² online space is Europe’s first fully-virtual campus.  

TopMBA spoke to Alain Goudey, NEOMA Business School’s associate dean for digital and professor of marketing,  to find out more.  

Developing a virtual campus to connect students  

While the term ‘metaverse’ has gained more media attention in the past couple of years because of companies like Facebook and Microsoft investing in virtual spaces, VR technology has been around for decades.  

The concept of the metaverse was created by author Neal Stephenson in 1992, and has been used in gaming since the early noughties, with virtual world Second Life and the online role-playing game, World of Warcraft. 

NEOMA Business School was already using VR technology back in 2016 when professors used it to create business case studies for their courses. This technology-forward approach meant that NEOMA was included in the wider immersive technology community in France.  

The business school then tried to create a way for students to work, socialise, and connect with professors remotely. They wanted to invent a way to connect students across their three campuses so trialled video conferencing and benchmarked the metaverse campus. 

“During the [COVID-19] pandemic we identified what people are now calling Zoom fatigue due to video conferencing. We thought metaverse technology might be the answer,” said Professor Goudey.

“In September 2020, we opened our fourth campus [virtually] and put our entire community into this metaverse technology.”  

A year later, NEOMA’s Virtual Campus was awarded the ‘Coup de Coeur’ (Jury’s Favourite) prize at the Trophée du Digital Learning 2021 (Digital Learning Awards). These awards acknowledge the best digital learning projects and strategies developed by French companies.  

The school has now launched an updated version of the campus. 

How do students use the virtual campus? 

Virtual concert for NEOMA Business School students  

The metaverse will help to create a more inclusive and diverse learning environment, with the opportunity to attend classes and collaborate with peers from anywhere in the world. 

NEOMA’s virtual campus is available to its 10,000 users 24 hours a day, seven days a week. “Just this morning I was in the metaverse talking to students for a couple of hours,” said Professor Goudey. 

He explains a few ways the virtual campus is being used by NEOMA students:  

• Getting help from professors: Students can attend classes in the metaverse and ask professors with help on projects and assignments.  
• Socialising: Concerts, photo exhibitions and events from associations are all hosted on the virtual campuses.  
• Competitions: NEOMA hosts International Case Competition on the virtual campus, connecting more than 450 students from different programmes with international partners.  
• Conferences and events: There are frequent opportunities for students to attend events and talks hosted by the university. 

“Using VR technology is much more feasible and removes the constraints of travel,” said Professor Goudey.  

NEOMA has used its virtual campus to host the VIP International Day. In this event, students looking to take part in international exchanges are invited to meet NEOMA’s international partners. The metaverse allows hundreds of people to easily gather for these events. 

Balance of online teaching and in person teaching 

 Group work for master's in management first year students at NEOMA Business School 

However, the virtual campus is not used in every class. Professors at NEOMA generally use a balance of digital teaching and in-person teaching, although this varies from class to class.  

“This tool is just another way of operating remote learning. We choose the kind of technology which is the best to achieve our pedagogical goals,” said Professor Goudey.

“This depends on the aims of the professor, what we want the students to achieve and how they like to learn.”