Visit to Kogakuin University - Shinjuku Campus

Hosts: Prof Makoto Tsujigado & Prof Katsuji Tsukamoto

My second visit was to the Dept. of Informatics, Kogakuin University [»], which is housed in a very impressive new 30-storey building in a prime location in central Tokyo [map - ss/»]. I had already visited Kogakuin University once before - nine years ago - to present a paper at an international conference, but the building I visited this time didn't exist then.

I was given Prof Tsujigado's name by Prof Mark Josephs (one of my colleagues at SBU) - Prof Tsujigado visited Mark in 1999 during a trip to the UK. When I contacted Prof Tsujigado he told me that he had recently retired (at the age of 67), but that he was very happy to meet me anyway. He suggested that I also meet with Prof Tsukamoto.

Context...

Prof Tsukamoto is one of 11 full professors within the Dept. This figure does not include Prof Tsujigado, who refers to himself now as "part-time instructor" - he told me he currently teaches about six (?) hours per week. In addition there are (only) three associate professors, and one lecturer. I was told that perhaps two-thirds of the current professors are graduates of Kogakuin University. Others have come to Kogakuin after spending time in industry - several of the professors were previously employed by NTT. Prof Tsukamoto added that these ex-NTT professors are not graduates of Kogakuin University.

[I subsequently met up with Prof Tsukamoto again nearly three months later, and quizzed him about the connection between Kogakuin University and NTT. He said that there was no formal connection as such. He said that he himself used to work for NTT, although he then worked for another company before joining Kogakuin University around three years ago.]

Prof Tsukamoto's lab [ss/»] is one of 15 within the Dept., although only 12 were listed on the website at the time of writing [ss]. As is normal in Japanese universities, each professor (and each associate professor) has his own lab with seats for Masters students and final year undergraduate students. In Prof Tsukamoto's lab there are about 10 of each.

The annual student intake is about 130 undergraduate students plus about 30 Masters students. Fewer students continue on to do a Masters compared with most national universities, where in some cases around two-thirds of the students stay on to do a Masters. There are currently around ten PhD students in the Dept., at least some of whom are based in industry. Prof Tsujigado mentioned that companies are often unwilling to employ individuals who have stayed on to do a PhD at university because of their advanced age relative to other new recruits. It seems that someone who stays on to do a PhD at university is destined either to become an academic or to join one of the government-funded research institutions.

While their Masters course is in Informatics, the BSc course is in Computer Science & Communication Engineering, and the literature for undergraduates refers to the "Dept. of Computer Science & Communication Engineering". It wasn't quite clear to me what the relationship was between the Dept. of Informatics and the Dept. of Computer Science & Communication Engineering. In his feedback to me, after reading my draft report, Prof Tsukamoto explained that most of the professors in the (undergraduate) Dept. of Computer Science & Communication Engineering are affiliated with the Dept. of Informatics for Masters courses, but others are affiliated instead with the Dept. of Electrical Engineering & Electronics for Masters courses.

Most of the students study full-time, but there is also a part-time evening BSc programme.

Facilities...

I was shown several teaching rooms which were very impressive. One had 61 new PCs with 1GHz processors, 30GB hard disks, LCD screens and MO drives. (It seems that MO drives are much more popular in Japan than they are in the UK - I also saw evidence of this when I looked around computer retail shops.) One of these 61 machines was set up at the front of the class for the lecturer to use. Another room was full of specialist 3D graphics workstations equipped with dual processors and state-of-the-art graphics cards. From what I saw, it seemed that virtually all the software installed on the machines was from American suppliers such as Microsoft (e.g. Office) and Borland (e.g. JBuilder).

I was shown a 400-seat lecture theatre - used when students from different schools come together for core lectures. I was also shown a much smaller postgraduate teaching room which had the same multimedia facilities as the big lecture theatre - including a camera projector facility for displaying live images of documents or small objects. The equipment was housed in specially made cabinets - it looked similar to what we now have at SBU.

I mentioned that at Waseda University students are expected to bring their own laptops. I was told there were no such expectations at Kogakuin.

Prof Tsukamoto specialises in multimedia, computer networks and security. He is director of the "Laboratory for Initiative in Network Computing & Security", which he took me to see. He told me that they have a research project within the lab concerned with inter-operability of network devices, which is supported by around 16 different companies. These companies bring equipment, and individuals from the companies come to the lab to engage in practical experimentation. Some of the Masters students also utilise the facilities.

Syllabus...

Undergraduates in the Dept. of Computer Science & Communication Engineering study a wide range of subjects in their first two years, including mathematics and physics. The mathematics is not limited to discrete maths (as it is in SBU), but includes calculus etc. Many of the students apparently come in with relatively weak mathematical and English language skills, so some of the first year courses are designed to improve their skills in these areas. Every year a group of students from Kogakuin University spend part of their summer vacation studying English at New York University. This summer a total of 28 first, second and third year students went.

Students learn C programming in their first year, Prolog in their second, and - up until last year - Ada95 in their third year. This year Prof Tsujigado will be teaching the third year students Java instead of Ada95, using JBuilder 5 enterprise edition (which includes CORBA). The textbook he intends to use as the basis for this is "Introduction to JBuilder 4" by Y. Daniel Liang [»], published by Prentice Hall.

One of the units Prof Tsukamoto teaches is Computer Architecture and Organisation. He said that although the students are introduced to assembly language, they are not required to write any assembly language programs.

I asked whether there were any particular constraints as regards syllabi, but it appears that the design of each unit is largely up to the professor leading it. For example, Prof Tsujigado prefers to teach programming using a formal approach based on pre- and post-conditions, whereas someone else teaching the same unit would be free to adopt a different style.

I noticed that in their syllabi and teaching materials there were references to well known computer scientists such as Dijkstra, Gries and Hoare. I asked Prof Tsujigado whether he was aware of any differences between what they are teaching and what is typically taught in Europe or the USA. For example, perhaps there were some well known Japanese computer scientists I might be unaware of whose work was being taught within Japanese universities. He couldn't think of any. Indeed it seems that most of the textbooks they recommend students to purchase are the same American or European textbooks - from publishers such as Prentice Hall and Addison Wesley - that are used internationally, although some of the textbooks they recommend are Japanese. Prof Tsujigado said he usually recommends students to purchase books through amazon.co.jp because they generally offer the best prices.

Apparently the students are not taught how to author web pages/sites, but Prof Tsujigado said that many of the students had taught themselves HTML.

eLearning...

I was interested to know whether there were any eLearning initiatives within the Dept. It seems there aren't. Prof Tsukamoto showed me some impressive examples of his powerpoint lecture presentations, and said that he gives students copies of his slides. However he feels reluctant to author any web-based teaching material because he recognises that this is a very time-consuming endeavour. He said he was not aware of any other professors at Kogakuin or most other universities developing web-based material, but he suggested that at leading universities such as the University of Tokyo there probably are such initiatives. He added that there is an academic association for distance learning in Japan.

Prof Tsukamoto then showed me the brochure for a forthcoming IT Education conference in Japan - to be held at the end of this month - at which he will be giving a presentation. He pointed out that one of the speakers (from Hiroshima University (?)) will be talking about WebCT [»], so there clearly is at least some interest in eLearning.

Miscellaneous...

The students at Kogakuin are assessed primarily by examination. Prof Tsukamoto said that his examination papers sometimes include multiple choice questions. There are also coursework exercises, but these are often not counted as far as the overall mark is concerned. Prof Tsukamoto said that he only refers to coursework marks in borderline cases. It seems that the method of assessment for each unit is largely up to professor leading the unit.

Although computer education has been neglected in high schools up until now, the situation is set to change. Prof Tsukamoto said that the Ministry of Education has plans to provide a specialist course for teachers, starting this year, which is designed to rectify this.

Both Professors agreed, to a greater or lesser extent, with the idea that software was not as prestigious in Japan as it is in the USA. Prof Tsukamoto pointed out that the success of the Japanese economy has in the past been due largely to the strength of its electronics industry, not its software industry - with the exception of the games industry. Prof Tsujigado said that he has close links with Fujitsu, and confirmed that the majority of the senior managers within Fujitsu were originally electrical engineers. He believes that, in general, the executives of large manufacturers such as Fujitsu have a greater understanding of and respect for hardware than they do for software.

Prof Tsujigado told me that a typical teaching load for a professor at Kogakuin is normally seven or eight hours per week. Teaching sessions are usually 90 minute blocks. Masters students are often employed as teaching assistants.

It seemed that they have no intranet for students equivalent to our SCISM StudentWeb [»]. In general there is much less information on the University's website in English than there is in Japanese. The English version of their home page [ss/»] for example is very spartan compared with their Japanese home page [ss/»]. From what I've seen of other university websites this seems to be typical. I imagine that more effort will be devoted to developing the English-language content in future as the pressure to recruit students internationally increases.

Acknowledgement

I am indebted to Prof Tsukamoto for checking this report, correcting several errors and supplying some additional information.