Looking to the Future: Higher Education in the Metaverse

Force yourself to read this one.

It sounds like, and starts like science fiction, but it shines a light on stuff you need to know:The term metaverse was coined by Neal Stephenson, in his 1992 science fiction novel Snow Crash, to describe a persistent, immersive 3D virtual environment in which everything from business to entertainment could be engaged in by any user, anywhere in the world, with access to a terminal. In Stephenson’s novel, the creation of the metaverse allowed much of our day-to-day human interaction to move into the virtual world, and this in turn profoundly changed human societies and culture in the real world. Though the current state of the emerging metaverse is far from the seamlessly integrated world that Stephenson imagined, his novel not only shaped the way the technology has developed but also influenced the imaginations of its users.

In its current context, the metaverse is a complex concept. For the purposes of this article, the definition in the Metaverse Roadmap will suffice: “In recent years, the term has grown beyond Stephenson’s 1992 vision of an immersive 3D virtual world, to include aspects of the physical world objects, actors, interfaces, and networks that construct and interact with virtual environments. . . . The Metaverse is the convergence of 1) virtually-enhanced physical reality and 2) physically persistent virtual space. It is a fusion of both, while allowing users to experience it as either.”2 In short, we can imagine multiple and myriad digital mirrors of the real world existing alongside multiple and myriad digital worlds that do not represent the real world, all used for a variety of purposes, tied into a variety of communication methods, and populated by any user with Internet access, as well as a steady stream of data originating from objects and devices in the real world.

If we accept as a given that, over time, the barriers to adoption and the technical impediments will be addressed and that, at some point, broad adoption of virtual worlds will become commonplace, then a number of possibilities open up, not only for education but for other sectors as well.