Problems Related to Nonprofit Research and e−Learning in Universal Higher Education

Abstract

The purpose of this paper is to examine the characteristics of nonprofit research using e−Learning tools in the transition from mass to universal higher education. The development of e−Learning has technically realized the ideal of recurrent education and, therefore, drastically increased the number of adult students. Currently, e−Learning is routinely introduced at top research universities in the US. After the Kobe Hanshin Earthquake in 1995, Japanese universities, too, began to establish the nonprofit research program as one aspect of recurrent education and introduced e−Learning in those educational program.This paper argues that with the above technical development nonprofit research in the university by degrees becomes equipped with e−Learning. The results of this research indicate that nonprofit research program using e−Learning will bring not only the changes on content and method of university education, but create a new learning community in the university.