New Virtual U

Virtual U Manual: Basics

The In Game Menu

Much of what takes place in Virtual U takes place within the In Game menu.

The top part of the screen shown in Figure 8, shows a list of the following menus: Campus, Faculty, Students, Courses, Performance, Finance, and Score. Each of these individual buttons reveals extensive information about the status of your university, its policies, and the mechanisms you can use to change such policies. Some other items are not accessible through this menu but are pulled up by clicking on the associated buildings in the game. First we will move through the major menus represented at the top of the screen, then describe the additional departments you access by clicking on the appropriate building on the game screen.

For the most part, these individual menus do one of two things - they allow you to:

access information so you know the value of a certain variable (such as the number of beds occupied in on-campus housing), and
set certain values as part of your administrative duties for both departments (of your choice) or for the institution as a whole and in effect, make policy decisions.

Each of the separate In Game menus shows you a variety of choices at the department level or at the institutional level. For each of the options on the In Game menu, you will see be able to see the current status of a particular variable and also see what can be done to affect that status. Both of these are shown for each in the table that accompanies the description of each In Game menu option in the following sections.

Campus

The Main Campus screen (which you see when you click the Campus button) shows you a particular section of your campus. Each one of the buildings on campus is “live” in that it can be double-clicked to learn more about that building and to work with the various variables that are represented. For example, if you double-click on the building titled Residence Hall (on the campus map), you will be shown information about Student Housing (Figure 8), including available and occupied beds.

Figure 8: Clicking on a particular building in Virtual U results in information about that campus unit.

To find out what a particular building is used for, place the cursor over that building. The name of the campus unit department housed in that building will be displayed immediately above the black board at the bottom of the screen. Many of the buildings on the Virtual U Campus screen will remain the same no matter which version, scenario, or custom game you launch. However, depending on the mix of departments you choose (and the number of departments), the South East section of the Campus screen, which contains the cluster of department buildings, may appear different from previous Virtual U games to reflect the different mix of departments you may now be using. Only the map will change to reflect your mix of departments. Items like the Old Main building, Student Union, and the Admissions and Financial Aid Office will remain the same.

Tip:
Many of the screens in Virtual U can be arrived at through multiple methods. For example, when you double-click on a department’s building on the main map, you will bring up the performance statistics for that aspect of the university or academic department. You can also reach the Faculty screens by clicking on the Faculty button and then scrolling through the list of departments, or by hitting the appropriate hotkey. See your reference card for more help in moving to and through various sections of Virtual U.

Faculty

Figure 9: Information about the faculty and its distribution by rank.

Clicking on the Faculty button (F2) provides you with the information you need to assess the status of the faculty (titled Faculty Activities) along an extensive number of dimensions. Once you are inside the Faculty area, as you see in Figure 9 (which shows the distribution of faculty by rank), you can then cycle through the different departments of your university by clicking on the up or down arrow buttons located just to the right of the department name. To do this, the Profile button for Department at the bottom of the Faculty screen must be selected.

Table 3 is a summary of what each button at the bottom on the main Faculty screen produces when clicked for any department or for the entire institution.

As the table documents, there is a lot of information available in these various sections of the faculty area. In fact, you will spend a large percentage of your Virtual U time adjusting the various policies for faculty in each department.

Table 3: Faculty Screen Buttons

Button	Purpose	Department Level	Institutional Level	What variables can be manipulated?
Ranks	Shows faculty distribution by rank.	Assistant Professor (number and %) Associate Professor (number and %) Full Professor (number and %) Long-term adjunct (number and %) Short-term adjunct (number and %) Total (number and %)	Same as department level, but for institution as a whole.	None
Profiles	Shows faculty distribution by gender and ethnicity.	Male nonminority (number and %) Female nonminority (number and %) Male minority (number and %) Female minority (number and %) Total (number and %)	Same as department level, but for institution as a whole.	None
Activities	Lets you observe and set faculty activities on department level.	Talent and performance in the areas of teaching, scholarship and research Faculty morale Normal teaching load Course preparation Out-of-class student contact Educational development Research Scholarship Institutional and public service	Same as department level, but for institution as a whole	On a department-by-department basis you can set priorities for the following activities: Teaching Load Course preparation Out-of-class student contact Educational development Research Scholarship Institutional and public service
Research	Sponsored Research	$ proposal outstanding, $ rejected, and $ accepted monthly or annually Total sponsored research expenditures for the current month Total direct sponsored research expenditures for the current month % of regular faculty with sponsored research	Same as department level, but for institution as a whole.	None
Directory	Faculty Directory	Name Gender/ethnicity Age Rank Salary Time in rank Off-duty trimester Satisfaction index	Not applicable	None
Directory	Faculty Directory (detail view)	All of those listed above, plus Normal teaching load Course preparation Out-of-class student contact Educational development Research Scholarship Institutional and public service Total Talent: Teaching Talent: Scholarship Talent: Research Performance: Teaching Performance: Scholarship Performance: Research Satisfaction index Sponsored research project, status and months to status change Total projects Total monthly expenditures	Not applicable	None
Hiring	Faculty hiring priorities	New blood Leadership Coast containment Long-term adjunct Short-term adjunct Minority Female Teaching talent Scholarship talent Research talent	Not applicable	Every variable can be manipulated. You may set priorities for the hiring – and should do so early in the game in order to begin building a faculty population that reflects your values.
Salary	Faculty salaries	Not applicable	Departmental salary increase by department Departmental salary increase by rank and experience Teaching performance Scholarship performance Research performance Gender and ethnic equity	This section lets you set how salary raises should be determined. You can manipulate all the variables to design a policy that affects all raises.
Promotion	Promotion and tenure	Not applicable	Importance of salary as reflected in promotion Difficulty of promotion to tenure	In order to solidify a faculty with the traits you want, you need to set promotion and tenure policies. These variables let you determine how often a member will be given long-term status for a given department, and how their status will be reflected in salary and thus the cost for faculty at your University.

If you want to know about any one faculty member in greater detail, click the Directory button in the Faculty screen, then click on the faculty member of interest. Clicking the Detail button will allow you to learn everything from the amount of money received for research activities to the number of hours the faculty member meets with students outside of class. You can see an example of this for Fred Tilchin in Figure 10.

Figure 10: A detailed view of a faculty member.

You may initially wonder why looking at the various faculty detail charts serves any purpose in Virtual U. However, by looking at the details of a given department’s faculty, you can more accurately determine the strengths and weaknesses of that department. You might then adjust any number of faculty policies for that department in order to improve it. In the early stages of your experience with Virtual U, this level of play will be difficult. As you master other areas of the simulation, you may want to begin to drill down to the faculty detail screens in order to get that extra level of insight that might make you a better president.

Students

Students are the reason for the institution’s existence and the variables located within this general area describe the associated demographics, student talent and performance, and tuition and housing status.

The last two screens don’t pertain to students, per se, but rather to things relating to students outside the academic areas. “Finance” provides information on total tuition revenue and on expenditures on student life. “Residence hall” provides information about the number of students that can be and are housed on campus, and also about the University’s tuition rate. Table 4 is a general summary of profiles and other general characteristics.

Table 4: Student Profiles

Button	Purpose	Department Level	Institutional Level	What Variables can be manipulated?
Levels	Shows student distribution by student level.	Undergraduate traditional (number and %) Undergraduate nontraditional (number and %) Master’s students (number and %) Doctoral students (number and %) Distance learners (number and %) Total (number and %)	Same as department, but for the institution as a whole.	None
Profiles	Shows student distribution by gender and ethnicity group	Nonminority male (number and %) Nonminority female (number and %) Minority male (number and %) Minority female (number and %) Total (number and %)	Same as department, but for the institution as a whole.	None
Activities	Shows student performance and activities	For undergraduates, master’s and doctoral students, the following information Academic talent Academic performance Number of degrees awarded Time in years to degree Number of dropouts	Same as department, but for the institution as a whole.	None
Undergraduates	Shows satisfaction level and attributes for undergraduates	Not applicable	Undergraduate talent in the academic, extracurricular and athletic areas Undergraduate satisfaction in the academic, student life, and athletics General overall satisfaction	None
Finance	Shows tuition and student life related statistics.	Not applicable	Gross tuition income Student life spending Student life satisfaction Change in tuition rate Change in student life	change in tuition rate change budget spent on student life Note also that these variables can be changed during end of the year budget planning as well.
Residence hall	Shows and lets you set student housing attributes.	Not applicable	Available beds Occupied beds Tuition rate Room & board rate Ratio of occupied beds to available beds Percentage of traditional undergraduate students in residence halls	Sets percentage of traditional undergraduate students in residence halls

Courses

An essential part of managing any institution of higher education is being aware of what types of courses (Courses on the In Game menu) are offered and their respective enrollments. The goal of this section of Virtual U is to allow you to design the course mix of each department to ensure a strong teacher-to-student ratio while not breaking your budget or overworking the faculty. See Table 5.

Figure 11: The options available under the Courses item on the In Game menu.

The following set of options (shown in Figure 11) reflects variables related to such outcomes.

Table 5: Courses Options

Button	Purpose	Department Level	Institutional Level	What Variables can be manipulated?
Overview	Lets you see the basic statistics concerning class mix, size, enrollment, and performance.	Class Type Number of sections Enrollment Average class size Class size deviation from norm Students denied entrance to course % of Students failing courses Overall average class size	Same as departmental, but for the institution as a whole.	None
Class types	Lets you set the percentage distribution among three basic styles (and sizes) of class type on a department-by-department basis.	Current and target fractions for seminars, general classes and classes with breakout sessions	Not applicable	Target fractions for seminars, general class and classes with breakout sessions
Summer teaching and technology	Lets you set institutional policies concerning technology use for classes and summer enrollment.	Not applicable	Percent of courses using information technology. Emphasis on summer course taking.	Set the level of emphasis on summer course taking.

Performance

Figure 12: Looking at institutional performance.

This screen (Figure 12) allows you to quickly access how the institution is performing on a variety of different variables. More detail can be gleaned for some indicators, though not all of them by clicking the Detail button associated with certain departmental performance charts. This will show individual performance statistics broken down by academic department. The information provided is the same for both departments and the institution as a whole. The performance breakdown shows each department’s rank for the six variables noted below. None of these variables can be adjusted — they are only performance indicators. However, they can help you pinpoint areas that need improvement. By noting which departments are the laggards in any performance area, you can focus on improving them in your attempt to improve the University’s overall performance. Table 6 shows the performance variables you can track and the details provided.

Table 6: Institutional Variables

Variable	Detail
Educational quality	Current value, weight and last trimester change for Faculty teaching performance rating Faculty educational development time Faculty scholarship performance Faculty research performance Technology utilization in teaching Deviation of class size from its norm (%) Deviation of teaching method mix from this target (%)
Prestige	Current value, weight, last trimester year change and trend for Faculty research performance Sponsored research Quality rating for doctoral students Number of doctoral students per regular faculty members
Student morale	No further details available
Faculty research performance	No further details available
Faculty morale	No further details available
Faculty diversity index	No further details available

Tip:
Many faculty performance graphs are also shown on the department Faculty screens as well. In the case of Prestige, the institutional value starts with the average of the departmental values and then adds information about the undergraduate application and yield rates, and the performance of the athletics teams.