The aim of this paper is 1) examining what private companies and campus type universities have been doing in online education market in the U.S. and 2) considering the impact of online education on higher education system. Both private companies and campus type universities assume online education as a big business chance and they are getting into the market. Private companies establish for profit universities, which do not get accreditations or do not issue degrees. These for-profit universities have not called “universities” before. Conventional universities establish private companies outside independent of those universities, which offer online education programs. These two streams show that the following two notion: 1) developing educational opportunity and 2) making a business in education are now recognized to be compatible, both of which were thought to be incompatible. We have to consider what is a “University” and what should be a “University” in these situations.

View full abstract

Well designed instructional and evaluation program systems are inevitable to attain effective individualized learning via electronic devices. Increasing demand for distance learning in particular requires building advanced course systems as well as good instruction materials. It should include such elements as making instruction modules, achievement evaluation at each learning stage, management of item banking, development of advanced technologies for test scoring and analysis, and navigation systems of learning based on the learner's preceding records. A goal model is proposed for designing an integrated system so as to work each element effectively at every stage of learning.

View full abstract

e-Learning is effective in terms of improvement in the average mark of learning results, shortening of learning time, and the return on investment, and its effect is high compared with a face-to-face learning.On the other hand, the low rank group in a pre-test was understood that the progress degree of learning results is low compare with the higher rank group.The subject which should be solved technically and personally also exists, and in order for e-Learning to spread and develop into marketing from now on, it is thought the steady efforts to the portion of a "shadow" are required.

View full abstract

This paper reports on the development and influence of the online Teaching Tips at Nagoya University. The site has had many visits since its release in March 2000. Though the site was developed primarily for local support, most of the visits have been from outside the University's network. Numerous web-sites, magazines as well as a newspaper have linked and referenced the site. According to the site's access data and feedback, it seems that interest and motivation is high amongst university teachers to improve their teaching activities.

View full abstract

NFUCA(National Federation of University Co-operative Associations) and CIEC (Council for Improvement of Education through Computers) have established a committee to develop electronic teaching material web site. There always exist some teaching material web sites but we believe it to be unique and important to start the project in cooperation wth CIEC. This paper reports the details of the project.

View full abstract

As a result of using a formative evaluation system for basic education in engineering, 1) the percentage of students submitting reports from practical training rose 6 points from 89%, 2) the percentage of students who did sufficient preparation for examinations rose 11 points from 8%, and 3) the acceptance rate of reports on experiments rose 5 points from 88%. These improvements are a result of feedback from the evaluation. The other hand, the percentages of students who replied in the questionnaire that "asking a friend" was the easiest method for solving difficult matters concerning practical training and concerning experiments were 75% and 78%, respectively. Since a way of hearing to deepen contents is expected, a web site that enables "feedback of evaluation" and "a way of hearing to deepen contents" is designed.

View full abstract

In spite of the fact that English has expanded to become the preferred language of international communication in more and more (professional) fields, English teaching in Japan is still notorious for its inefficient attainment at any level of its educational system, for which a variety of barriers have been pointed out.Believing that the crucial barrier especially at university level lies in our students' low motivation for learning English, we have developed an original bilateral computer-aided Web system with materials to accelerate learners' motivation. This extracurricular multimedia device, aiming to develop our students' synthetic working abilities of English, consists of the activities: 1) reading aloud and listening to summarization of short lectures delivered by U.S. professors and 2) dictation and summarization in English and Japanese of ca. 600 articles drawn from TIME.The originality of our device centers on our constructing of the system on which the learners can evaluate for themselves their adequacy and degrees of comprehension and summarization at each stage of their activities. Specifically, we have devised our own computerized self-evaluation system to deal with various synonymous expressions in summarization. Our further devising is under way to build our students' essential fluency in English required in their academic field as well as in their university coursework.

View full abstract