Yonsei University launched its own Metaverse project, recreating one of its campuses in virtual space along with all the sights, locations, and ample opportunities for academic interaction.
South Korean telecommunications provider LG Uplus, a subsidiary of LG, launched the Meta Yonsei Metaverse, which is the Sinchon campus of Yonsei University recreated in virtual space. All public locations such as classrooms and the library, as well as private meeting places for faculty and students, were brought into virtual reality. This is reported by local media.
Yonsei University is a private research university located in Seoul. This institution is one of the most prestigious universities in the country, being among the three universities designated as SKY. In South Korea, admission to one of the SKY universities is seen as a factor that can determine one’s future career and social status. Many of South Korea’s most influential citizens, working in fields ranging from politics to medicine, graduated from one of the SKY universities.
At the moment, the opportunity to use Meta Yonsei is available only to “verified students,” although in the future, the Korean university plans to allow all students and outside users into the Metaverse. The latter, for example, will be able to walk around the campus, exploring its attractions. However, the possibility of organizing meetings and visiting certain areas of the Metaverse will be limited within the multi-level access system.
Meta Yonsei is designed with an emphasis on practical applications. Thus, students and teachers have access to the functions of group events with extensive opportunities to organize virtual workspaces, video and audio conferencing, the use of automatic annotations and subtitles. All these functions are already implemented directly in the project’s user interface.
Meta Yonsei provides relevant tools for students and faculty that will potentially be in demand throughout their academic careers. One of the project’s goals is to prepare students for the realities of today’s global work environment, where digital communication tools such as Google Meet and Zoom, as well as real-time digital interaction between different employees, already became the norm.
Metaverse technologies in South Korea are developing very actively. At the beginning of 2023, many municipal services of Seoul became available in virtual space — the residents of Seoul were able to use Metaverses to work with official documents, file complaints, and solve some issues related to tax reporting.
