Recently, the Educational Technology and Resource Development Center of the Ministry of Education (National Center for Educational Technology) announced the second batch of selected projects for the "Higher Education Institutions Virtual Simulation Teaching Innovation Laboratory Project." The "Civil Engineering AI + Virtual Simulation Teaching Innovation Laboratory" applied for by the School of Civil Engineering at Southeast University was successfully approved.

The "Higher Education Institutions Virtual Simulation Teaching Innovation Laboratory Project" is a special project established by the Ministry of Education to implement the national education digitalization strategic action and promote the deep integration of virtual simulation technology with education and teaching. The project focuses on key and difficult issues in education and teaching, aiming to promote the iterative upgrading of virtual simulation teaching environments by building a batch of high-level, sustainable virtual simulation teaching laboratories, and to explore new models for empowering education with next-generation information technology.

The "Civil Engineering AI + Virtual Simulation Teaching Innovation Laboratory" approved for construction by our school is grounded in the disciplinary characteristics of civil engineering and makes full use of cutting-edge technologies such as artificial intelligence, big data, digital twins, and extended reality. It focuses on building core modules including an "immersive offline space service platform," a "metaverse experimental teaching intelligent assistance system," and an "intelligent experimental teaching management system and digital textbooks," constructing a multi-level experimental teaching system that combines "virtual + physical." The laboratory will promote a new blended teaching model integrating online and offline, virtual and physical instruction, and, relying on major scientific research achievements and typical engineering practices, develop a high-level virtual simulation experimental course cluster to provide students with immersive, interactive, and intelligent experimental teaching experiences.

In recent years, our school has continued to advance the reform of virtual simulation teaching, leading the construction of a national first-class course in virtual simulation experimental teaching and multiple provincial and ministerial-level projects, actively exploring a new experimental teaching model of "virtual-physical complementarity, integration and sharing," and forming a relatively complete teaching resource system and management mechanism. The successful selection of this laboratory is both a high affirmation of our school's achievements in exploring virtual simulation teaching and a strong opportunity to further deepen education and teaching reform and promote the digital transformation of education.

The school will take this opportunity to coordinate the advancement of laboratory construction, strengthen the co-construction and sharing of resources, improve the quality of talent cultivation in civil engineering, actively play a demonstrative and radiating role, help drive the innovative development of China's civil engineering education and the construction of new engineering disciplines, and serve major national needs and the transformation and upgrading of the industry.