The University of Iowa’s Tippie College of Business has expanded its presence to the metaverse in a partnership with Davenport-based VictoryXR.
During a ribbon-cutting ceremony last week, University of Iowa and Tippie College leaders celebrated the launch of a new virtual space designed to prepare the college for the future of education and research.
“Technology is rapidly changing both business and education, so we need to offer the kind of educational and research resources that prepare our graduates to thrive in a business world where technology changes seemingly by the minute, and our scholars work at the cutting edge,” Amy Kristof-Brown, dean of the Tippie College, said in a news release. “Augmented and virtual reality are two of those technologies, and our digital world will help prepare our students to succeed using those disruptors.”
The virtual world, built by VictoryXR, features interiors and exteriors of the university’s Pappajohn Business Building and exteriors of many of its campus neighbors, including the Pomerantz Career Center, Iowa Memorial Union, the Main Library, the Pentacrest and the T. Anne Cleary Walkway.
The virtual campus was celebrated during a ribbon cutting on Thursday, April 6, attended by Iowa State Senate Minority Leader Zach Wahls and State Rep. Carter Nordman, as well as Steve Grubbs, CEO of VictoryXR, the Davenport-based company that partnered with the college to build the virtual space. All attended the event via avatar.
Jim Chaffee, Tippie’s chief operations officer, said people using virtual reality headsets will be able to get a full three-dimensional experience of the building and nearby parts of campus.
“They can come in and walk the halls, maybe sit in on a class, as if they’re right here with us,” he said.
Mr. Chaffee said the digital twin is already being used in one of Iowa’s MBA classes about business technology and an undergraduate business analytics course about visualizing and communicating data. More classes will be added as faculty develop new ways to take advantage of the virtual space, he said.
VictoryXR’s partnership with Tippie College comes on the heels of a new virtual and augmented reality pilot program in the Quad Cities with St. Ambrose University. In February, the Davenport university announced it is the first school in the world to test VictoryXR’s full augmented reality (AR) campus within the physical campus.
VictoryXR has grown so rapidly that it recently celebrated a major milestone: 100 colleges and universities are now part of its “metaversity ecosystem,” Mr. Grubbs said.
Like the University of Iowa, St. Ambrose faculty are exploring the best methods to apply the Virtual Reality (VR) and AR technologies in the classroom. Faculty in St. Ambrose’s history, theology, philosophy, business, engineering, biology, nursing and engineering departments are in different phases of implementation.
Tippie College’s virtual campus can also be used as a recruiting tool, as university admissions staff can host virtual visits for interested students from around the world.
“The digital world will allow us to expand those offerings in new and innovative ways so we can offer students the kind of educational experiences they can’t get anywhere else,” Mr. Chaffee added.
Barrett Thomas, senior associate dean, said the virtual college is another example of Tippie embracing new technologies such as virtual reality and artificial intelligence for its teaching and research. He said the college has used those types of advanced tools for research to build an accident prediction model with the Iowa Department of Transportation, create an optimization model for food delivery businesses, and designed a machine learning algorithm to develop individualized dosing protocols for medication.
“We never know what the next groundbreaking technology will be, and this gives us the chance to experiment with virtual reality and develop new ways to use it most effectively,” he added. “It shows the Tippie College and the University of Iowa are forward thinking and embracing future technologies.”
