Virtual U Manual: Playing

Once Virtual U has started, the specific welcoming scenario (see Figure 4) letter appears. These welcoming letters are shown in Appendix A.

Once your institution is well established and a Virtual U game generated, you’re in business. Read the opening letter carefully so you know exactly what is expected of you. Be sure to use the Prev. page and Next page buttons so you can read the entire letter.

Figure 4: Each scenario has its own welcome letter.

Tip:
Just as a real university administrator might get a call in the middle of the night regarding the fifth time this year that laundry soap has been placed in the Chi Omega fountain, there will be other surprises throughout Virtual U. These are presented to you at random and can be everything from a certificate of appreciation to the suspicion that a crime has been committed on campus.

Once you’ve read through the opening letter, you can click the Proceed button on your Scenario Welcome Letter screen. You will see the Virtual U Campus screen as shown in Figure 5.

The Campus Screen

The focus of this guide is to familiarize you with all of the major in-game menus for Virtual U and the pre-designed scenarios.

This should start by focusing on the main elements found on the Campus screen you see in Figure 5.

Figure 5: The Virtual U Campus screen.

The first thing you may notice on the Campus screen is a set of six graphs, each of which reflects some important parameter in the administration of an institution of higher learning. These are “Quick Takes” on your institution’s current health and you will learn later on in this manual and in the Virtual U: The Strategy and Technical Guide how to work with these. If you do not want to have these on the Campus screen, just click the small close box above the Institutional prestige graph.

The In Game menu consists of a series of buttons along the upper left corner of the Campus screen. It allows you to monitor the status of important variables as well as to set some new values as you create your own policies. The areas in which you can check the status of the University and also set different policies are:

Campus
Faculty
Students
Courses
Performance
Finance
Score

The Monetary Balance Board shows the total amount of money that your university has available. When the total is written in green, it means that your balance is positive. If it appears in red, it shows that you are operating in a deficit. The Monetary Balance Board shows the total amount of money that your university has available. When the total is written in green, it means that your balance is positive. If it appears in red, it shows that you are operating in a deficit. A red balance at the end of the year subtracts from the operating reserve (on the balance sheet). If the operating reserve becomes negative, you can still play until the university’s line of credit is exhausted and you go bankrupt.

The Trustee Evaluation Value is the number to the right of the thumb icon. The thumb icon, shown in either an up or down position, shows the direction of change in the number over the past year. This score will fluctuate between 0-100, although it’s hard to imagine you’ll be around long enough to see it hit rock bottom. The ultimate score is shown to the right of the trophy cup icon. This ultimate score is based in part upon the trustee evaluation. Your score can reach into the thousands if you’re able to last a long time. Longevity is a key aspect of your overall score. Note that due to the available screen space, if your score goes over 1,000 the on-screen score will turn over and start again. However, the Score screen (see later) will show your complete score.

The large arrows directly below the ultimate score will cycle you through all of the departments in your university. The small arrows, when clicked, will take you to a list of departments from which you can select. To return to the Campus screen when viewing a list of departments, click on the small campus map in the lower right corner of the Department List screen.

Tip:
You can get to any department on campus by clicking on the building that houses that department on the main campus map. You can see the title of the building by placing the cursor over the building on the campus map and then reading the building name at the bottom of the map.

The Calendar shows the month, day, semester and year. You will notice the calendar moves day-by-day, as would any calendar. The faster it moves (game speed), the faster the everyday functioning of the university takes place. Also, as the calendar changes dates, Virtual U can slow down as the simulation completes its calculations so it can provide a final analysis and score.

The Menu button in the upper right hand corner of the screen allows you to adjust the aspects of the Virtual U experience you see in Figure 6.

Figure 6: Setting particular simulation characteristics on the Menu.

Sound Effects Volume, Music Volume, and Game Speed - To set the desired levels of Sound Effects and Game Speed, click your cursor on the bar next to each area and then slide it left or right until the desired level is set. To turn Music Volume on or off, click the appropriate button.

Tip:
Many of the changes in Virtual U settings are done by using the mouse and dragging the slide (such as the one for Sound Effects in Figure 6) to the left or the right.
With Annual Report set to On, your game will automatically pause at the end of every academic year. You will then be presented with the Year-End Report. With the Annual Report set to Off, your game will not automatically pause at the end of the academic year. It is recommended that you keep it on to give yourself a break and reset yourself for the coming fiscal and academic years.

Tip:
In Virtual U, a dimmed button means a selected button. If the button is not dimmed, it means that whatever operation that button performs is not in force.
To save a game, click on the Save Game button. You may then enter the name under which you wish to save the game, or you may click on the name of one of the previously saved games and overwrite it with your present game. Be careful of doing the latter, since the latest game you created and are trying to save will replace what you have done before. If you wish to delete a previously saved game, click on its name and then on the Delete button. That game will then be erased from the memory.
To load a game that you have already started and want to resume, click the Load Game button on the Game Menu screen and click on the name of the file that represents the game you want to load. You will be asked to make a department active and can then begin the simulation.
You can retire any time by clicking the Retire button on the Game Menu. You’ll get your final score, maybe a gold watch, and your last game will be placed in the Hall of Fame. Whereas retiring in real life means lots of time to do what you want, retiring in Virtual U is akin to surrender and the admission of defeat.
The Quit to Main Menu button will take you back to the Virtual U Game Setup screen.
The Quit to Windows button will return you to Windows. The game will not be automatically saved, so if you wish to save make sure that you do so before quitting. Virtual U will not warn you that the current Virtual U session has not been saved.
To continue the current game, click Continue Game, which returns you to the game.

As we continue to move around the opening screen, there’s a Small Campus Map in the lower right corner of the opening screen which allows you to move quickly and navigate the entire campus. Clicking on the target area in the small map will center the Main screen on that spot. You may also navigate the main map by simply holding your cursor at the far edges of the Main screen. The large map will scroll in the direction of your cursor. And when you want to visit a specific building, just double-click on the large or small campus map.
Underneath the Menu button on the campus map is a ?, which represents Virtual U Help. Click this icon to get help on any aspect of the simulation.
To the left of the small campus map is the Blackboard, where there are three areas where text can appear as follows.

M = Messages
O = Objective
Log = See old messages
Zooming can be done through the use of the magnifying glass shown at the bottom of the opening screen.
The printer icon directly below the magnifying glass icon and to the left of the Blackboard allows you to print the contents of the Virtual U screen, depending upon what is on the screen. For example, if you are looking at a report, Virtual U can print the current screen, a departmental report by department, or an institutional report.
Game Speed can also be set by clicking the ventilation grate icon, which is located to the left of the magnifying glass and printer icons. You may then slide your cursor left and right on this grate. The game will run fastest when the color indicators completely fill the grate. The game will be paused when you slide your cursor all the way to the left and no colors are visible. You can also pause the same by pressing the P key, which acts as a toggle switch to Pause and Continue the game.

Tip:
If you want to set the speed of the game using the keyboard, press 0 to pause the game and press 1 through 9 to set the speed, with 9 being fastest. In fact, the best way to play Virtual U is to pause and think through changes. Put the changes into effect then turn the game clock back on to let the changes run for a while. Then stop it to make additional changes or run through to the end of the year.
Finally, the envelope icon represents the Trustees’ year-end report. Otherwise, the contents of the envelope contain the scenario describing the situation you are trying to accommodate. Any time that it appears, you can open it and read the contents.

Hotkey commands

Instead of clicking away with your mouse, try the various available hotkey commands as shown in Table 1. Here are the hotkey commands with the corresponding actions. Some Virtual U users find these hotkeys very fast and prefer to use them rather than the mouse. Your quick-reference card also contains these and other shortcut actions for Virtual U.

Table 1: Virtual U Hotkeys

Function (and other) key(s)	What it does
F1	Campus map
F2	Faculty
F3	Student
F4	Courses
F5	Performance
F6	Finance
F7	Score
F8	Print Menu
F9	Administration and Help Topics
F10	Game Menu
Z	Toggle zoom mode

Then there are the set of keys that correspond to the reports that you can generate about the University’s status. Table 2 lists the corresponding function keys and the reports they produce.

Table 2: Virtual U Function Keys

Key	Report it produces
A	Student Admissions Statistics and Targets
T	Athletics Programs
D	Development and Alumni Affairs
F	Operations and Maintenance Expenditure
L	Libraries and Information Technology
I	Asset Allocation
C	Crime Report
K	Parking Report
W	Scenario Acievements
P	Pause/unpause the game

Getting Help

Figure 7: Getting Virtual U help from a list of topics.

Virtual U provides extensive help, which is indicated by the presence of a question mark in certain screens and through the F9 hotkey. To get to the Help index, follow these steps.

Press the F9 function key or click the question mark icon that appears on a variety of screens.
Click the Help Topics button. You’ll see an extensive list of help topic as shown in Figure 7.
Double click on the topic on which you want assistance such as Administration (G&A).
Click the Close button when you are ready to return to the simulation.

Tip:
You can see Virtual U term definitions by placing the cursor on top of a screen term and leaving it there until a definition appears.

Virtual U: Playing the Simulation

The purpose of Virtual U is to familiarize the user with the complexity of how a university works and how changes in one variable can have an impact on many others. During a Custom game, the player explores the consequences of the choices he or she makes in real time. For example,

if the percentage of on-campus students is raised, the demand for facilities and the need for more money is increased as well,
selecting high intensity for sponsored research creates more activity and also more associated expenses,
selecting Public rather than Private for Institutional Control means the institution will receive a state appropriation, incurring other obligations and consequences, and
selecting Urban for Campus environment affects the applications and admission of students.

Approaching Management within Virtual U

As designed, Virtual U gives you two routes toward improving the university and any specific goal within your institution. You can improve an institutional attribute that will have trickle-down effects. For example, expanding the budget for plant and facilities will help several areas of your university including research performance, educational quality, and student and faculty morale. The second approach is a “bottom-up” approach that involves improving individual departments in order to improve the university as a whole. For example, to improve your university’s overall research performance, you must improve each individual department’s research performance. One of the most critical aspects of managing Virtual U is understanding which problems are best solved with a “top-down” approach and which are improved by a “bottom-up” approach.

In many cases it will take a combination of approaches to reach your goal. For example, a university that is sagging in academic performance may need to add professors (a top-down approach that starts with allocating more money for new faculty) and tweak several departments’ hiring targets to balance teacher-student ratios. Together these should help increase key teacher-student ratios and, therefore, academic performance.

You shouldn’t expect immediate or dramatic returns on investments. It may take several years of gradually increased budgets and adjusted department variables to bring about a sustained positive trend. This is one of the many ways in which Virtual U operates just like a real institution of higher learning.