United America's Arizona State University is considering lectures in the Metaverse
United America's Arizona State University is considering lectures in the Metaverse
One of the nation's largest public universities by enrolment may be considering offering virtual classes in the Metaverse in the future.
According to records filed with the USPTO on June 7 and 8, the Arizona Board of Regents filed seven applications on behalf of Arizona State University for varieties of its name — ASU, Arizona State, Arizona State University — as well as the name of its football team, the Sun Devils, to be used in a virtual world. According to the records, the university's name, as well as the Sun Devils' pitchfork insignia and logo, have been trademarked for use in virtual worlds where users can interact for recreational, leisure, or amusement purposes, as well as educational objectives.
ASU reported 77,881 students registered at physical campuses in the United States for the fall semester of 2021, while 57,848 students attended via "digital immersion." It's unclear whether the university's probable entrance into the Metaverse was spurred by the fact that more than 42% of its students are enrolled in online courses. Casey Evans, ASU's senior director of strategic learner and program mobilization, said digital immersion coursework was the "greatest instrument to enable students to continue learning during this period of physical separation," presumably alluding to the current epidemic.
According to the trademark registrations, ASU may be looking into using nonfungible tokens, to validate a variety of documents, including degrees and tickets to campus events. ASU has used blockchain technology in the past for a variety of purposes, including tracking the spread of COVID-19 in November 2020 and sharing data from its students' academic records in 2019.
Other colleges have announced plans to "go meta" in 2022 as well. As CoinGabbar earlier reported, the University of Sao Paulo wants to conduct research on the usefulness of virtual and augmented reality technologies, as well as how their use may alter human behavior.
