Аннотация
The active digitalization of higher education and changing patterns of student interaction have contributed to the development of new forms of digital university environments, including the concept of Metauniversity. Thus, this paper presents Metauniversity, an immersive virtual representation of International Information Technology University (Almaty, Kazakhstan) incorporating the university building and selected educational spaces. The study proposes an implementation approach that integrates multi-user VR interaction, spatial communication, visual representation, and AI-supported interaction within a single educational environment. The platform is implemented using a client-server architecture that combines Meta Quest 3 (Reality Labs, Menlo Park, CA, USA) VR headsets and PurrNet v1.20.0 for real-time multi-user synchronization with a centralized AI services layer based on Whisper, Ollama Llama 3.1 8B, and Piper TTS for speech and natural-language interaction. The novelty of the study lies in the integration of these components into a single multi-user immersive higher-education environment and in the exploratory evaluation of their joint operation in an educational scenario. A pilot study involving 12 undergraduate students demonstrated the feasibility of synchronous interaction among up to four concurrent VR users and illustrated the integration of AI-based speech and language interaction within the Metauniversity environment. Participants also reported increased discomfort during longer continuous VR sessions and identified visual brightness and contrast as aspects that could be improved. These observations are descriptive and do not establish a causal relationship between visual realism and cybersickness. The AI assessment component was evaluated as a functional prototype rather than as a validated measure of language proficiency. The findings provide implementation-oriented evidence and practical considerations for the further development and evaluation of AI-supported multi-user immersive environments in higher education.