University e-learning: government support and demographics bode well for virtual classrooms in Japan

Japan, Inc., Summer, 2005 by Jeff Schnack

The university scene in Japan is encountering perhaps its greatest upheaval since the Meiji Era (1868-1912). Institutions of higher learning throughout the country are ramping up their services to maintain enrollment levels as the base of potential students declines, while at the same time government deregulation has allowed new players into the market and freed existing schools to better leverage their competitive advantages in attracting students. One wild card in this freewheeling poker game is the use of e-learning--information technology to enable non-traditional "out of classroom" study, testing, evaluation and reporting--a tool that can increase a university's reach, reduce course delivery costs, and open new avenues for creative and engaging pedagogy.

THE E-JAPAN INITIATIVE

With an eye toward cultivating future workers with the technical skills, business sense, and personal creativity necessary to compete in the "knowledge economy" of the twenty-first century, the Japanese government has eliminated many barriers between business and the ivory towers of academia. Recent reforms have included the elimination of restrictions on university participation in investments and venture businesses, as well as permitting professors at national universities to sit on corporate boards.

E-learning in particular has benefited from being part of the larger, well-publicized e-Japan initiative conceived and announced in January 2001 by the office of Prime Minister Koizumi. The initiative set specific goals for the nation's IT infrastructure, including the tripling of the number of Japanese universities using advanced e-learning technologies by 2005.

In support of the e-Japan initiative, Article 25 of the University Establishments Standards of the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology (MEXT)--the framework governing e-learning in post-secondary education in Japan--has been revised several times over the last few years. Incremental changes have allowed

1) the use of multimedia materials in lieu of traditional textbooks,

2) the introduction of taped lectures in streaming video to supplement or replace physical class attendance,

3) the use of interactive tools to allow remote testing, discussion, and reporting through the Internet,

4) and the increased acceptance of credits earned through e-learning toward degree programs (although some restrictions still apply--for instance, of the 124 credits required for a four-year undergraduate degree, in some instances only a maximum of 60 can currently be earned through e-learning).

Convincingly, some of these regulations have been lifted at what seems like warp speed for the Japanese bureaucracy. For instance, one recent change involved the lifting of previously stringent requirements for universities regarding the size and type of physical campus required as a base of operations--an expensive burden that an e-learning-focused institution could, at least in concept, do fairly well without. The first official submission for government consideration on the subject was made in November 2003. Within three months, an expert panel was formed and a first round of hearings was held. By April the law had been revised, and by December 2004 Nagano City had received MEXT approval of its application for creation of a special structural reform zone in which it planned to host the nation's first truly "virtual" university.

The product of that effort, Asahi Internet University, is now preparing to launch its graduate program in April 2006 and a full undergraduate program two years later--with all university functions offered exclusively over the internet. (See their website at http://www.teragoya.org/.)

AN OVERVIEW

So how far has e-learning in Japan come, and how far does it still have to go? For the big picture, a good starting point is the National Institute of Multimedia Education (NIMA), which recently completed a nationwide survey on the subject with 287 universities (results in Japanese only can be found on their web site at http://www.nime.ac.jp). One perhaps unsurprising finding was that the institutions with the most advanced e-learning development were largely private. Forty-one percent of the private schools surveyed offered e-learning classes in at least three disciplines, and 23 percent offered e-learning in over 14 areas of study. In contrast, only 18 percent of the national universities responding offered e-learning programs in more than three disciplines. Here one can see that the perhaps less famous universities in Japan are scrambling faster to implement the newest methods, and it will be interesting to see if the larger schools move to catch up soon.

As far as the specific tools being used are concerned, the survey shows that most e-learning is still largely text-based. While 67 percent posted static content such as Power Point slides for study purposes, only 34 percent offered streaming video. And while 61 percent allowed professors and students to correspond via email or chat, only 24 percent used any form of two-way video conferencing. As for the comprehensive school management systems (SMS) that universities use to manage content, on-line attendance, quizzes, and reporting for their e-learning courses, 80 percent of the responding schools used some sort of packaged solution rather than creating their own system from scratch. Schools were asked to name their choice of SMS, and there was no clear leader in terms of market share. It can be said that this growing field is wide open.