Korea University: Psychological counseling in metaverse space anytime, anywhere, instead of in-person sessions!
Korea University has launched a metaverse psychological counseling service for international students.
In Korea, some schools have psychological counseling services for foreigners, but Korea University is the first to bring such a service into the metaverse space.
Korea University College of Education has a metaverse psychological counseling platform called ‘Metaforest’ which is available to its students. Since the College of Education does not accept international students, who were thus not eligible for this service, Professor Lee Sang-min of the Department of Education wanted to make the platform available to them.
Level of satisfaction of students who have used the Metaforest counseling service, the scope of its psychological counseling has expanded to cover international students on campus, who can now receive help in dealing with the psychological hardships they may experience while studying in Korea.
Expanding the metaverse-based counseling program is meaningful as it paves the way for a new counseling paradigm.
Students can select an avatar when they log in and use the counseling service anonymously with an AI facial recognition system and a voice conversion function, which helps to reduce the psychological resistance of clients, regardless of their nationality. Another advantage is that students access the service with a webcam, with no need for a VR device, so there is no financial burden involved.
Korea University informed 100 government-invited scholarship students studying at Korea University about the pilot program, and 15 of them applied for counseling on the first day, showing that the demand for counseling is also high among international students. As a result, Korea University plans to expand the service to cover all international students.
Metaforest is a psychological counseling program developed by YATAVENT, a firm specializing in metaverse platforms and content construction, which has partnered with KU College of Education’s program for counseling majors since September last year. Effective counseling on the platform takes place on various issues such as careers, studies, interpersonal relationships, and mental health, which is possible by maintaining a distance between the client and the psychologist using the AI facial recognition system.
Professor Lee Sang-min, who is in charge of the project, said, “As virtual interactions have become prevalent since the COVID-19 pandemic, we have considered various means of overcoming the challenges involved in the educational setting. The metaverse platform has been selected based on the interests of Korean students and the issues they are dealing with, resulting in a high level of satisfaction among them over the past year. With this in mind, we have expanded the program so that international students can benefit from it.”