Software Requirements in the Context of Educational Metaverses: A Non-Functional Requirements-Centered Approach
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.5753/reviews.2026.6608Keywords:
Educational Metaverse, Software Requirements, Education, Software EngineeringAbstract
The customization of products and services has become an increasing demand in the 21st century; however, it remains underexplored in the educational context. The metaverse emerges as an alternative to enable mass customization in teaching and learning processes, although it requires a systematic analysis of software requirements, particularly non-functional requirements. This study presents the results of a systematic mapping of the literature aimed at identifying and analyzing requirements applied to the development of educational metaverses. Searches were conducted in the ACM Digital Library, IEEE Xplore, Scopus, and Engineering Village databases, resulting in 1,013 identified studies, of which 22 articles published between 2019 and 2024 were selected after the application of inclusion and exclusion criteria. The analysis was structured into four dimensions — Pedagogical, Technical, Social, and Ethical-Legal — defined based on guiding documents and the researchers’ practical experience. The results demonstrate that non-functional requirements play a fundamental role in software quality within immersive educational environments, although they are still insufficiently systematized in this context. Significant gaps were also identified in the social and ethical-legal dimensions, particularly regarding interactivity and security. Furthermore, the findings revealed the limited participation of teachers and students in the structuring of these environments, as well as the tendency of many solutions to merely virtualize existing processes, thereby underutilizing the interaction and customization potential of metaverse technologies. The proposed dimensions contributed to a systematic analysis of requirements, highlighting opportunities for advancing Requirements Engineering in immersive educational solutions and supporting the future development of a taxonomy for educational metaverses.
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