New Virtual U

Virtual U Manual: Score & More

Score

The final summation of your performance as President or Chancellor is shown in the score area of Virtual U (Figure 19).

Figure 19: Final scores on the President’s performance.

The score is an element meant to give you a cumulative summary of your performance in running your university. It also provides some insight into some of the adjustments that can potentially improve in your university.

The Virtual U scoring system is weighted by how many years you have kept the University solvent and running. While overall performance may not be stellar on a year-to-year basis, you can still improve your score. Virtual U rewards longevity. Score variables are shown in Table 8. For more on scoring issues in Virtual U, see How Virtual U Keeps Score: The End of Another Year and Where You and Your University Stand later in this manual.

Table 8: Score Variables

Button	Variable
Overall	Current value, weight and last trimester change for Current trustee evaluation Last month change Trustee evaluation at the beginning of the game Number of gaming years Total bonus points Game score
Outputs	Current value, weight and last month change for Degrees granted Sponsored research activity
Performance Indicators	Current value, weight and last month change for Prestige Educational quality Scholarship, broadly defined Student diversity Faculty diversity Percent of alumni who have donated during past five years
Rank	Rank among similar universities
Attitude toward the institution	Current value, weight and last month change for Faculty morale Student morale Staff morale
Financial indicators	Current value, weight and last month change for Current surplus (deficit) as a percent of expenditure Smoothed surplus (deficit) as a percent of expenditure Endowment payout rate relative to equilibrium payout rate Deferred maintenance backlog

Additional Virtual U Departments

Not every item in Virtual U is accessible through the top-level menu system. For some management reports and administrative options you need to click directly on a campus building and take action on the resulting screens. These can include such important functions as the library and IT Center, the athletics department, and the Development and Alumni Affairs office.

Old Main

The Old Main building provides you with a key aspect of your University’s financial planning. This is where you plan the investment strategy for the University’s endowment as shown in Figure 20 and outlined in detail in Table 9.

Figure 20: One of the main screens in the Old Main building of your university lets you set the current endowment asset allocation.

Table 9: Investment Strategy

Button	Purpose	What variables can be manipulated?	Notes
Overview 1	See current endowment asset allocation and set endowment investment philosophy.	You can change the asset allocation for the university endowment by changing the mix between large-cap stocks, small-cap stocks, and bonds.	Virtual U follows basic portfolio theory and therefore abnormal investment plans will generally perform poorly, as they would in the real market.
Overview 2	Shows the budget items that relate to endowment spending and graphs the projected minimum, maximum, and average spending.	You can change the endowment smoothing policy and implement a percentage change in the current level of endowment spending.	The endowment spending variable can also be set during the year-end budget planning phase.

Libraries and Information Technology

A key aspect of any university is the fundamental underpinnings that enable access to the information that creates the opportunity to learn. In Virtual U, the decisions relating to information management are found in the Library and Information Technology Center (Figure 21).

Figure 21: The Overview screen of the Library and Information Technology Center shows you just how much of a role information infrastructure affects the University. In addition, you can asses the quality of the ever-important Internet connection, which stands as a surrogate for all your IT activities.

Table 10: Libraries and Information Technology

Button	Purpose	What variables can be manipulated?	Notes
Overview	Assess quality of information infrastructure and makes changes in use policies.	Change faculty incentive for educational development.	Many colleges start up with poor Internet connections – be sure to check the status information screen when starting a new game.
Finance	Shows budget information related to library and IT spending.	You can increase or decrease current budget levels related to expenditures for libraries or IT infrastructure for the university.	Use of information technology is a key component of the educational quality level attribute on a department-by-department basis in Virtual U and thus increased spending here can help directly raise educational quality in the university.

Figure 22: In the Facilities Management Office, you can set the debt rules for new construction. This determines the percentage of new construction that is funded by debt as well as the University’s absolute debt limit.

Facilities Management Office

Keep your buildings from crumbling and your campus roads pothole-free by visiting and setting policy in the University’s Facilities Management Office. Here you will find four screens that let you assess the space needs of the University and the financial instruments devoted toward funding new construction and upkeep for the University (Figure 22).

Table 11: Facilities Management

Button	Purpose	What variables can be manipulated?	Notes
O&M	See status of operations and maintenance work and budget as well as O&M staff morale. Also set budget policies.	You can change the budget line for O&M expenditures.	O&M budget changes can also be set at the end of the year finance phase.
Space in use	Check status of facilities space. Lets you see current use, future needs and the norm needed to realize full use of University space	Nothing can be changed.
Capital reserve	Shows capital reserve budget information including gifts and other income related to capital expenditures.	Lets you change budget line that controls how much money is transferred to the University’s capital reserve.
Debt	Shows report on university’s debt status and lets you change policies relating to debt and new facility construction.	Lets you change percent of new construction that is funded by debt as well as the University’s absolute debt limit.

Development and Alumni Affairs

Your Development and Alumni Affairs Office is where you try to improve your finances by obtaining donations from past students. It is also where you can help direct incoming donations not only to the all-important endowment, but also to two other critical financial areas — the current use budget and the facilities and construction budget. (Figure 23). The department is composed of two screens as outlined in Table 12.

Figure 23: One of the most crucial roles of the Development and Alumni Affairs Office is determining how incoming donations will be directed for use at your University. Funds can be sent to the endowment, used to support the current year’s budget or added to the facilities construction budget.

Table 12: Alumni Affairs

Button	Purpose	What variables can be manipulated?	Notes
Uses of gifts	Shows current status and lets you set use of alumni gift. Also shows number of alumni who gave last year and alumni morale.	Set allocation of incoming donations as it relates to proportion sent to endowment, spent on current use and spent on facilities.	If debt load on facilities is rising too high, use this allocation screen to send more money from alumni donations to relieve debt funding of university construction.
Finance	Shows budget information related to alumni gifts and fund-raising.	You can raise or lower the current level of spending allocated to fund-raising activities.	Fund-raising budget can also be resolved during end-of-year budget phase.

Admissions and Financial Aid Office

The Admissions and Financial Aid Office lets you define many aspects of the admissions process, including how exclusive your admissions policies are and what talents incoming students must possess. You can also focus the University on affirmative action issues and issues dealing with athletic recruitment.

Figure 24: The Overview screen of the Admissions office provides a colorful assessment of the actual admissions the University made in its previous year.

The Admissions and Financial Aid Office contains four screens, many of them with items that can be set as outlined in Table 13. Figure 24 shows the Overview screen of the Admissions and Financial Aid Office, which lets you set the basic admission goals for number of students accepted for the upcoming year.

Table 13: Admissions Office

Button	Purpose	What variables can be manipulated?	Notes
Overview	Provides statistics of admissions by student type and lets you set target admission population for the coming year.	There are five student types shown. For each, except Doctoral students, which are derived from the various departments’ need for teaching and research assistants, you can drag the brown bar to increase or decrease the admission goal for the coming student year.	Note the structure of the information provided, which shows you the number of applicants, admissions and matriculated students plus your admit and yield rate. Admitting more students if class sizes, space and other variables will cover it can help raise money for your institution.
Trends	Shows a series of history graphs which detail the recent life-span of your admissions process and what talents each degree type population possesses	None	Worth checking in on from time to time to ensure that priorities about student population outlined as problems by the board are trending in the right direction.
Priorities	Allows you to set the priorities for admission by skillset for incoming students as well as set special admissions policies for athletes and minorities.	Priorities for Academic performance, extracurricular performance and athletic performance on a scale of 0 – 10. Special admission for underrepresented minorities for all students levels (None-High) Special admission for athletes (None-High)	Special admission for athletes is also available as a setting in the Athletics Department. If you intend to give priorities to any of the three skill types, make sure they aren’t set at the same level otherwise no real priorities will be given emphasis.
Financial Aid	Lets you set all policies relevant to financial aid to incoming students as well as special aid to certain types of incoming students.	Percentage of traditional undergraduates financial need the University agrees to pay (the percentage of) Traditional undergraduates to be offered merit aid (the percentage of) Nontraditional students to be offered financial aid Do you give special financial aid to treatment to minorities for all student levels? (None-High) Do you give special financial aid to athletes for all traditional undergraduates? (None-High)	Raising financial aid requirements will result in larger budget outlays and reduce income from tuition. It will also raise the number of and type of matriculating students in some cases.

Tip:
The Admissions and Financial Aid Office will automatically adjust its target for entering traditional undergraduate student to take account of the previous year’s graduation and dropout rates. For example, if dropouts have been greater than expected the office will increase the target intake in an effort to maintain your desired total student numbers. Of course, random variations in the percentage of admitted students who actually show up (the “yield rate”) will cause actual student numbers to deviate from the target.

Tip:
One of the first things to do when beginning a new tenure as president of Virtual U is to set incoming student attributes and priorities so your incoming population of students begins to trend in the desired direction. Remember also that it will take several years for a series of incoming classes to fully populate the school with students admitted under your priority settings, so plan ahead or be aggressive about incoming student population sizes.

Athletics Department

Every university has some level of commitment to athletics as well as academics. Some compete in Division I, a level of competition at the peak of the national level. Success on this level can bring in millions to the university and raise applications. It also can be a budget drain if the teams don’t win and alumni are disheartened. Virtual U tries to simulate issues concerning athletics by giving you control over some basic budget and policy issues regarding athletics. The University also features two teams that are representative of the overall range of athletic programs a typical university offers. In the fall, your men’s football team takes to the field and compiles a win-loss record you hope to be proud of. In the spring semester, the women’s basketball team competes and tries to make it into the season-ending tournament.

As president you can check in on the status of your teams, and set policies as outlined in Table 14 You may click on either the football or basketball stadiums to reach the department screens.

Table 14: Athletics Variables

Button	Purpose	What variables can be manipulated?	Notes
Overview	Shows current status of teams and University policy toward athletics and lets you set those basic policies.	Current intercollegiate level of competition Special admissions treatment for top athletes Special financial aid treatment for top athletes	At the top of this screen the number of current top athletes admitted to university is displayed. You must click on the buttons to the side of the graph to switch the view between win-loss records for each team. The special admissions and financial aid variables can also be found in the admissions department screens.
Finance	Shows budget statistics and gaps for the athletic program.	Change in athletic expenditure budget.	The change in athletic expenditure can be taken care of during the budgeting phase but you may lock it in or note a change for next year here. A winning team won’t necessarily turn your athletics program into a money-maker. It will take a sustained program to begin making money. However, donations may rise, and applications may rise, which will have other positive effects on your finances.

Tower

The top of the tower is a place to reflect and thus is another route in Virtual U to pull up your Game Score screen and assess your tenure as president.

Figure 25: Virtual U’s parking report shows if there is enough space on campus for all its drivers.

Parking lots

Clicking on any of the campus parking lots will display the parking report (Figure 25). There is no ability to directly affect the tumultuous issue that is campus parking. However, if the report indicates a need for more parking you may want to increase your facilities budget.

Police Station

As with the parking lots, the campus Police Station only displays a report — the crime report. You cannot directly focus on campus crime problems at Virtual U. But if crime continues to rise, it may be indicative of the need to spend more money on administration and nonfaculty personnel salaries so more and better police and security officers are hired.

President’s Mansion

Clicking on the President’s Mansion is not the way to retire to the comfort of a warm fire and today’s newspaper. Instead, it allows you to check on your yearly board memo and reacquaint yourself with the goals and problems the board cites for you.

Chapel

Clicking on this may bring hopes of divine intervention for help in your job, but most likely you’ll be left to your own devices.