UT Metaverse: Beyond Universitas Terbuka Governance Transformation and Open Challenges

The Open and Distance Learning (ODL) system as we know is among the field that will be altered by Metaverse technology due to the benefits it offers. Various initiatives for embracing the Metaverse for distance learning are now underway. Universitas Terbuka (UT), the earliest government-mandated university for managing ODL in Indonesia, is also now at the first stage of preparing to harness the benefit of the Metaverse. This initiative is called Universitas Terbuka Metaverse (UT Verse), a Metaverse framework architecture developed by UT encompassing all its business processes. Towards this purpose, UT Verse Audit Centre (UTVAC), an instantiation as a sub-UT Verse, is proposed. This paper presents the complete architecture of the UT Verse as the foundation of the UT governance transformation to be a cyber university and the initiative for the VAC. As both initiatives are still in their infancy, we aim to share our lessons learnt and highlight the challenges to obtain feedback for mitigating their ongoing developments as earlier as possible which might be costly otherwise.