Virtual lecture

Students go to class on virtual campus

Empty campus but full virtual lecture hall

Campus Shot 2 min. Univers

The campus is empty these days. No students, no lectures and most employees work from home. Still, there are full lecture halls filled with Tilburg students: on the virtual campus!

Since the beginning of the corona crisis Tilburg professor of Information Management and psychologist Anne-Françoise Rutkowski (TiSEM) has been giving lectures through a game similar to a cross between Fortnite and the Sims. In the virtual world of the game Second Life, the lecture hall is still packed with students. If you have any questions afterwards, you can stop by Rutkowski's office overlooking the sea.

Anne Rutkowski

It feels like a real lecture. With Second Life I can see exactly whether students are listening

Anne-Françoise Rutkowski

After the cabinet announced on 12 March that there should no longer be any educational activities at universities and colleges, the creativity of teachers was called upon. What would be the most effective way to keep education going remotely in a particular field?

Professor Rutkowski knew what to do.  In consultation with Tilburg School of Economics & Management, she bought an island in Second Life . On that island she built a lecture hall for lectures, smaller spaces for classes and a private office with sea view.

"I used Second Life as early as 2008, with groups of students from Hong Kong, Florida, Tilburg and Eindhoven, when we were researching different ways to communicate remotely with virtual international teams via the Internet. When the corona virus arrived in the Netherlands in March and lectures were cancelled, I was reminded of the virtual world."

Take a look at the virtual campus

Read the entire article in Univers Online.

Date of publication: 1 May 2020