Partnerships in the metaverse

Many European universities have explored different online formats to support collaboration between students. Ideally, group interactions should support the forming of partnerships between students and positively impact the learning process. We explored the nature of such partnerships when students’ online interactions take place in a metaverse, where individuals are represented by avatars and interact in a three-dimensional virtual space. We wondered whether this environment might help students to build on each other’s abilities to cooperate and collaborate. This article presents a study on student learning involving students working in groups with other students, university teachers and IT experts from different European universities. We set out to explore the opportunities and the risks when project work takes place in a virtual world. We highlight how the different group members responded to each other, when they worked together in partnership. Utilising digital ethnography as our methodology we explored the experiences of participants during their group work and how the metaverse shaped their online identity. In our analysis we used the concept of ethics of care to focus how interpersonal relationships transfer to the virtual space. Selected examples illustrate our analysis.