Abstract
The use of visual expression in education has expanded significantly since the emergence of printing and photography technologies towards the end of the 19th century. Education and research in the 21st century will not be limited to the now-traditional combination of text and figures. E-books can now incorporate a wide variety of visual content and supplementary web services for printed textbooks are becoming standard. Science education research in particular cannot ignore the increasing academic use of visual content.
This article provides a qualitative examination of the visual communication of science (focusing on educational material and research publications) in foreign institutions that have experimented with these new forms of education earlier than Japan. It shows that examples of visual communication can be grouped into organization-driven and researcher-driven types. The former brings the benefit of organization-wide visual unification, while the latter ensures that the researcher brings his/her professional expertise to the project. With increasing expectations for visual communication in education and research both in Japan and overseas, including the spread of Massive Open Online Course (MOOC), there is a need of further consideration of institutional understanding of and support for visual communication in science.
