What is a virtual campus?

Knowing what a virtual campus is will help you know exactly what this digital educational option offers to students and teachers.

In this article, you will learn what it is, what it is for, how it differs from other concepts related to online education, and what advantages distinguish it.

What does virtual campus mean, and what is it for?

A virtual campus is an online digital platform where higher education institutions share their activities, services, and spaces while fostering communication between professors and students or among students.

The virtual campus is often referred to as a web campus. It is also the generic term for LMS platforms or Learning Management Systems (online) when they offer studies provided by universities. 

The virtual campus serves as an educational center and responds to students who study remotely and digitally. 

The virtual campus will collect: 

• The contents of each subject. That is the information for each class, topic, survey, and exam. 
• Other educational resources. Here are all the materials the teacher considers proper as an extra complement to the class material. Educational resources are differentiated from the contents of the subject because the latter are subject to examination. 
• Necessary or helpful digital tools. In holding virtual classes through the virtual campus, you will need to use tools such as Zoom, Microsoft Teams, Meet, etc., which must guarantee compliance with a series of security and privacy premises.
• The calendars and the system control the delivery of assignments. The virtual campus will have a delivery calendar option for the different projects to be presented by the student. It will also facilitate the delivery and downloading of work from the platform, with a bidirectional feedback system between teachers and students. 
• Grades. The students will be able to consult the grade obtained in any of the tests they have attended or the work they have handed in whenever they want. 
• An internal messaging service. In order to facilitate and enhance internal communication, the virtual campus will host its own messaging system to send and receive public and private messages. 
• Other communication spaces. Here we refer to communication forums created for different purposes: reflection forums sponsored by teachers, chats between students from the same center, discussion chats between students from other educational communities, etc…

What are the advantages of a virtual campus?

Most of the advantages of the virtual campus coincide with those of its face-to-face counterpart, i.e., both are intended to be a point of access to knowledge and learning in different subjects. 

However, the virtual campus adds some additional advantages that the face-to-face campus cannot offer. Namely: 

Total flexibility and ubiquitous access

The way of working in a virtual campus is imbued with the online character and thus is able to offer 24/7 access from anywhere you are. Geographical barriers disappear, and both teachers and students can be located anywhere in the world. 

You choose your learning schedule (except in specific cases), and you can study from home, your workplace, or wherever you want. A computer and internet access are the only requirements you will need. 

Usability and ease of use

The platforms associated with the virtual campuses are created so that all users are satisfied with them. 

To achieve this, we have in mind not only the commitment to usability but also the intuitive use and access to the various functions so that there is a saving in execution time of each process and navigation through the virtual campus does not involve a distraction for the student.

Miscellaneous savings

In addition to the savings in travel time and the reduction of transportation and living expenses, there are other types of savings, such as those related to printed materials, which in the virtual campus will be digital and not printed. 

Simultaneous or delayed communication

Most of the communications that take place in a virtual campus can be done at the time you decide. This allows you to ask questions, express doubts, or even respond without time limits or, on the contrary, to participate in forums or live discussions at the same time they take place.

Promotes feedback

Partly in line with the previous point, virtual campuses seek and promote education based on feedback that highlights the benefits of each process or task performed but also detects points of pain and improvement for students.

Enhances self-learning and digital skills

A student who knows how to handle himself digitally in a virtual campus is, in principle, a subject capable of organizing his own educational map, gaining digital knowledge and skills that, for sure, will be useful in his professional future.

Once we have specified what a virtual campus is, what it is for and what advantages it offers, let’s see the main differences between it and other concepts related to digital education.

Difference between virtual campus and virtual classroom

The main difference between a virtual campus and a virtual classroom is that the classroom is one of the many parts that make up the virtual campus.

Specifically, a virtual classroom is an online space at the service of teachers to teach classes and is equivalent to the digital mode of the traditional physical classroom. 

Likewise, the virtual classroom is the digital space where teachers and students interact and communicate online.

Digital educational services demand control and security systems both for the students themselves and for efficiency in terms of school management. 

In this sense, SMOWL solutions are designed to adapt to the different needs of users at competitive prices and respecting privacy and security premises. 

Contact us, and we will see with you which of all our products is the one that best suits your needs.