The purposes of the project - inclusion of Saint Petersburg in global scientific and educational cyberspace due to presentation of higher educational establishments of Saint-Petersburg, and its educational and scientific resources with using of the technology of virtual worlds and delivery to various categories of users by means of compact discs and Internet.

Realisation of the project is arranged for the celebration of the Saint Petersburg’s 300th anniversary.

The first stage - April-December, 2002. Foundation of the Higher school in Saint-Petersburg, is executed by State University of Aerospace Instrumentation jointly with a number of leading Universities of Saint Petersburg, with participation of Council of Rectors and of Committee on Science and Higher Education of St.Petersburg. Financial support - Committee on the Preparation and Organization of St. Petersburg's 300th Anniversary Celebration.

The second stage - Advanced technologies of the Higher school of Saint-Petersburg, January of 2003. Increasing of the number of participants, support and development of the society will be provided by expenses of participants and joint projects in the frame of different programs and grants.

Special features of the execution
     The project has an open and non-commercial character. It is an experimental base for the exploration and applying of the virtual environment for science and education. This approach allows interested universities with a minimal qualification to participate in the project, to be trained and to create their representation with the assistance of the qualified participants in one time.

Current results
· Interactive map of Saint Petersburg which points on location of Universities-participants of the project and provides access to the Universities' recourses.
· General historical information about higher school formation in Saint-Petersburg.
· Virtual presentations of Universities:
    - Buildings with environmental territory;
    - Interior;
    - Historical information about university, buildings, rooms, rectors;
    - Historical-thematic applications;
    - Examples of electronic resources (the completed fragments of electron text-books, manuals, practical works, simulators and etc.);
    - Examples of students' works.

Presentation of results of the 1-st stage
Web-site (Russian-English version) to the address http://virtual.aanet.ru.
Master-discs (Russian and English versions).


Prospects
· Increase of virtual presentations of universities in the created environment due to expansion of structure of participants.
· Virtual university represented as a multi-user thematic virtual worlds with characters (autonomous or representing users), interaction between which is carried out on the basis of the text, gestures, a mimicry, a voice, video, provides scientific and educational electronic resources for individual and group work.
· Virtual representation of society in the international virtual worlds (scientific, educational and technique).

 
Financial support - Committee on the Preparation and Organization of St.Petersburg's 300th Anniversary Celebration
© 2002 SPbSUAI in cooperation with RSHU, SPbSIFMO, SPbSPU, SPbSU, SPbSUTD, SPbSETU