NIME International Symposium 2001

Context...

I found out about this symposium thanks to Prof Yonezawa at Kogakuin University, whom I had visited three weeks earlier [»]. After my visit, he put me in touch with Prof Nagaoka of NIME (National Institute of Multimedia Education) who subsequently suggested that I might be interested in attending the symposium. Attendance was free of charge.

NIME [ss/»] is a relatively new institute, established in April 1997.

About the symposium...

This symposium [ss/»] was organised to "review the current state and challenges of online and distributed learning in higher education and [to] explore the possibility of building ICT-based collaborative learning communities in response to the needs of universities in the Asia-Pacific region".

According to the enrolment list there were 143 attendees. I saw around 20 who were evidently non-Japanese, although from the enrolment list it looked as though some of these had Japanese affiliations. In addition, there were many virtual attendees - the symposium was broadcast live via satellite link to 50 receiving stations, mostly (or perhaps exclusively) within universities around the country. The communication link was bidirectional, so that virtual attendees could participate in the question and answer session following each talk. Two large TV monitors showed camera images of these receiving stations - most looked like empty classrooms containing just one or two individuals staring at a laptop computer screens. There seemed to be a lot of technician support to enable this - I noticed three cameramen, two sound recording engineers, and various others within the lecture theatre who looked as though they were involved in some way in the broadcasting or recording of the symposium.

The symposium program [ss] featured a range of international speakers, most of whom were academics involved in some aspect of eLearning. The lecture theatre and facilities were impressive. Since some presentations were in Japanese while others were in English, simultaneous translation was provided - with every attendee given a cordless receiver and ear piece for use during the symposium.

The summaries below are mostly derived from the notes I took during the symposium.

First day: morning

In his opening remarks, the Director-General for International Affairs at the Ministry of Education set the scene by saying that internationalisation is the way of the future, and that Japanese universities need to engage in more international collaboration.

In his opening remarks, the Director-General of NIME talked about some of the recent changes within the Higher Education (HE) system that have opened the way to the adoption of eLearning. He said that there has been considerable reform within the past decade, including...
     * curriculum changes
     * students now assess their professors' performance
     * semi-privatisation of the national universities
     * introduction of ICT (Information & Communication Technology)

He pointed out that BSc courses consist of 124 units. In the past, the law dictated that no more than 60 of these could be taken via some form of distance learning, except for certain "correspondence universities" that were allowed to deliver up to 94 units via distance learning. The law then changed (when ?) to allow these universities to deliver up to 104 units via distance; up to ten of the (previous) 30 required lecture-based credits could now be delivered via broadcasting or multimedia devices. Apparently the regulations have just been changed again so that all 124 units can now be delivered via distance learning - possibly over the Internet.

He said that a lot of (bidirectional) videoconferencing is now used within Japanese universities, supported by the national Space Collaboration System - a satellite-based commuication system for educational use [»]. He said he believed that Japan probably does more than any other country in this area. He mentioned the University of the Air [»] which apparently has collaborative links with the University of East Anglia (UK) and the el-Net Open College (Asia) and which specialises in delivering distance learning courses, adding that the learners are often mature individuals, sometimes retired. He cited the case of an 80 year-old woman who had recently obtained a degree from the University of the Air.

He said that many Japanese universities now exchange courses via teleconferencing, and that a smaller but growing number of Japanese universities "exchange courses" with universities overseas - mostly in the USA. He said that in 1999, 20 national universities and 16 private universities claimed to use the Internet for teaching purposes, and that by 2001 this had grown to 39 and 32 respectively. However, he said that expansion has been hindered by a shortage of funding and of staff with the appropriate skills. At the moment, use of the Internet in most institutions is restricted mainly to email and to distribution of printable material.

In the future he said he wants to see more international cooperation, with the ultimate aim being "global education of students" - achieved through virtual mobility of both students and faculty.

In his keynote address, the President of IBM Japan [»] covered a range of topics, and talked about his own personal experiences of living in America and of sending his children to school there. He was quite an inspiring speaker.

In comparing American schools to Japanese schools, he said that he was particularly impressed to see how the local community got involved in schools in America, from people volunteering to come into schools for various activities, to schemes in which children could shadow their parents in their parents' workplace for a day. He said that IBM has now initiated the latter scheme within Japan, and he has occasionally gone to give lectures within Japanese schools. He said he feels that pupils in Japan need to be given more insight into what goes on in the "real world". He also liked the way American schools seems to welcome foreigners with open arms, and the way they nurture creativity. He said that he felt quite pessimistic about the Japanese education system by comparison, although he said he was encouraged by the apparent enthusiasm and inquisitiveness of the school students to which he had lectured.

As far as ICT is concerned, he said that although there is currently a depression in the market for IT hardware - a reaction against the hype, he said - he believed we are still at the start of the Internet revolution. He pointed out that the agricultural revolution and subsequently the industrial revolution had both taken around 50 years to get fully established (in developed nations) and that it may take a similar period of time for the Internet to become fully integrated into our lives.

He said that in ten years time there could well be in the order of 1,000 times the number of Internet terminals that there are today, and 1,000,000 times the amount of stored data. This is based on the assumption that household devices, cars etc. will all contain at least one Internet connection each (cars may contain several, he suggested). He said that within IBM they now prefer to use the term "eBusiness" rather than "eCommerce", because the Internet revolution is about more than just commerce.

He said that the Internet revolution is fundamentally changing the way organisations such as IBM operate. IBM is moving away from a hierarchical management structure in which managers have access to more information, to a heterarchical structure in which information is more widely available and there is a greater emphasis on managers being leaders who can take the initiative and inspire others. He suggested that modern managers require the following skills/attitudes...
          1. focus to win
          2. personal dedication
          3. sustained momentum
          4. sense of teamwork
          5. decisiveness
          6. passion for the business
          7. ...and others

He said that the Internet is also changing the relationships between companies and their customers. On one hand, as far as information is concerned one can now offer immediacy to a global audience. On the other, there can be a one-to-one relationship between supplier and consumer.

During the course of his talk he put up a number of slides showing statistics and league tables from various reports. Unfortunately I couldn't make out the source for many of these, and there is no paper to refer to in the proceedings, but anyway these were some of the "facts" he quoted...

• From 1990 to 1993 Japan was ranked first among 49 developed nations in a league table of "international competitiveness".
• Japan is now ranked 23rd in this league table.
• In this league table there are four aspects to "international competitiveness"...
            - business efficiency
            - government efficiency
            - economic performance
            - infrastructure
  ...and Japan is now ranked well below the USA in each of these aspects.
• Japan's university education system is ranked very low. (Israel is ranked top in this category.)
• On the other hand, educational achievement in mathematics and science (at what age?) is ranked fourth in the world.

He believes that one of the main problems is that Japan lacks entrepreneurs and the infrastructure to support entrepreneurs.

He also cited a recent study which concluded that less than half of all (?) Japanese companies are generally happy with the graduates they recruit. Most felt that they don't have the necessary skills. He said that companies often retrain and transfer employees from other parts of the business to work on software development activities. This is commendable, but he doubted that they generally receive enough re-education to equip them properly for their new roles.

He said that eLearning now accounts for 36% of the internal training within IBM. This has resulted in huge cost savings, and also added convenience for the learners. He mentioned that within IBM they have broadband networking, and they have periodic web-based internal collaborative "events" - which I took to mean virtual conferences. He quoted a study by NTT Data Institute of Management Consulting (March 2000) which estimated that the market for eLearning in ten years time will consist of...
          - 13% schools
          - 19% lifelong learning
          - 28% universities
          - 41% employees
(Total = 101% ... I think the rounding errors are mine!)

He said that American universities currently lead the world in the field of eLearning, with 54% of colleges and universities offering distance learning courses now and (according to the IDC [»]) an estimated 87% set to offer distance learning courses in 2004. He said that MIT is currently drawing wide attention due its announcement that over the coming decade it intends to make most its course content open source and free for all to use [»]. However he added that MIT makes it clear that it will still be necessary to be enrolled as an MIT student to be eligible for an MIT qualification.

He quoted another study which concluded that Japanese employers rated the importance of various employee skills in this (descending) order...
          1. flexible and responsive to change
          2. originality
          3. logical thinking
          4. sense of cooperation
          5. basic IT literacy
          6. ability to adapt to IT
          7. various others ... less important

He concluded from this that while IT skills are important, they are not the most important thing.

I found the question and answer session following his talk particularly revealing. One university lecturer said that universities have not provided IT skills training to students in the past, and she asked for his advice about what universities should be doing. He answered that schools, rather than universities, should be trying to ensure that all pupils become computer literate.

A second academic asked (more widely) what universities should be doing to make companies happier with the graduates they recruit. He answered that universities should strive to equip students with a better insight into what they face when they leave university. He said there should be more industry-academic linkage, with for example exchanges of staff between the two. He added that from what he's seen, students are usually highly motivated when they have an opportunity to find out what really goes on in industry.

Another (American) questioner queried what "globalisation" really means, and wondered whether perceptions might have changed following the events of September 11th attack on the World Trade Centre in New York. He answered that globalisation should not be about imposing the American way on the rest of the world. It should be about diversity, and getting synergy where possible. He added that "America is a wonderful country", but that diversity is part of its essence. By way of analogy, he said that New York used to called a "melting pot", however that had the wrong connotation and instead many commentators now refer to it as a "salad bowl" - in which the various constituents maintain their separate identities.

It was nice to see the polite manner with which most questioners introduced themselves, not only in this session but in later sessions too. After stating their name and affiliation, many of them began by thanking the speaker for giving such an insightful presentation - with comments like "I'm glad I was here to hear you speak". Many of the speakers also prefaced their answers by first thanking the questioner for the question. I've attended many conferences over the years, but have never seen such politeness between speakers and audience.

First day: afternoon

In the afternoon session there were four speakers from around the world, giving presentations about their own activities and activities in general within their countries. The speakers were from Malaysia, Austria, China and Micronesia. I was forced to skip the last two presentations due to a prior personal engagement. (Getting to NIME and back was quite a trek - the journey time was nearly three hours each way, door to door.)

The first presentation was given by Prof Halimah Zaman, Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia [»]. She said that, as in Japan, there have been a lot of changes in Malaysia as a whole and in its education system in particular over the last ten years and especially over the last five years. She added that "Malaysia aspires to be a developed nation by the year 2020".

She talked about the "smart school" project which is now taking place within 90 schools (85 secondary schools and 5 elementary schools). The idea is for four subjects - science, maths, Malay and English - to be taught using self-paced (?) eLearning material. She said that if the scheme is judged a success, it will subsequently be rolled out to the other 8,000 or so schools in Malaysia.

She talked at length about the shift of society in general towards being knowledge driven, and said that universities should strive to develop students' soft skills as well as their hard skills. By soft skills she said she meant professionalism, entrepreneurship, communication skills, and also philosophy - including religious beliefs.

The second presentation in this session was given by Georg Anker from the New Media and Learning Technologies Section, University of Innsbruck, Austria [»], which apparently has some kind of formal cooperation agreement with NIME. He talked about the university-wide eLearning platform they have developed.

He said they started looking at this four years ago. After identifying and evaluating around forty different eLearning platforms, the choice came down to two - WebCT [ss/»] and Blackboard [ss/»]. They chose the latter, which I was pleased to hear as I knew that SBU had also recently decided to adopt Blackboard (referred to as BB below). He said that the implementation/testing phase began two years ago.

He talked quite a lot about the working group that developed the ideas behind their eLearning platform. This was a working group of the senate, and included students as well as faculty members and service centre staff. He stressed that they were mostly not new media experts, and that some of the teaching staff within the working group were quite suspicious of it all. He said that the discussion of the new concepts and exposure of individuals' fears, both within the working group and publicly, led eventually to "a widely acceptable model of flexible study programs".

He stated the usual advantages of eLearning platforms...
          * course materials become more reusable
          * more and better feedback for instructors (via quizzes etc.)
          * better tutoring for large classes
          * distance learning made possible and cooperative teaching easier
          * information channels open 24 hours/day
          * less dependence on administrative staff

He claimed that the project has been a big success, with...
          * 70% of instructors saying that BB was easy or very easy to learn
          * 88% of students saying that BB was easy or very easy to use
          * 92% of first-time users (instructors) intending to continue using BB

On the other hand, he said that they have learned the following lessons...
          * installation and integration with legacy systems is non-trivial!
          * support and training is essential for students and staff
          * ease of use is critical; most instructors do not use advanced features
          * educationalists focussed too much on advanced features, and were far too
                pessimistic regarding acceptance

Another thing he talked about was the "integrated publishing" system they have developed at Innsbruck. The idea is that a book exists as a real book - with an ISBN number - but also as a PDF file. Books are printed and distributed to order - there is no prospective batch printing and marketing. He said that the system is mostly self-funding, with 100 - 200 sold copies of a book being enough to cover the mastering costs. The university (rather than the author) keeps the copyright. All their PhD dissertations are now published this way, as well as textbooks authored by teaching staff.

He said that they are also heavily involved in the development of the Educational Modelling Language EML [ss/»] which he believes will be an important development. He also said that his university is planning to offer staff incentive payments to encourage them to develop new courses using their new eLearning platform.

He said that at Innsbruck they are quite happy to use the English language version of Blackboard, and he added that both a German version and a Japanese version are due out next year. I can imagine that once the Japanese version is out (of WebCT too, maybe?) it could really take off in Japan quite quickly.

Second day: morning

In this session there were three speakers giving presentations related to the general theme of "Globalization and The Japanese Universities".

The first presentation was given by Dr Jiraporn Intrasai, Assistant Director for International Affairs at King Mongkut's Institute of Technology Ladkrabang, Thailand. Like the previous speaker's university, this institute also has a "memorandum of understanding" with NIME as well as other institutions in a number of countries around the world.

She talked about the "stunning increase" in participation in HE in Japan from 1984 to the present. In 1984, 35.6% of school leavers progressed to HE (38.3% for males and 32.8% for females); by 2000 this had grown to 49.1% (49.4% for males and 48.7% for females). She said that the total number of students in technical (?) colleges and universities grew from 47,527 and 1,843,152 (respectively) in 1984 to 56,714 and 2,740,024 (respectively) in 2000.

She also quoted official statistics on legal migrants which showed that while 16,735 Japanese students studied abroad in 1983, the figure grew to 193,779 in 2000. On the other hand, in 2000 there were only 64,011 foreign students within the Japanese HE system (up from 25,643 in 1988).

She said that in the light of increasing numbers of exchange students, more attention needs to be paid to the problem of international credit transfers.

In the question and answer session one questioner said that, in his experience, transfer of credits between different universities within the same country is hard enough, and establishing credit transfers internationally is even harder. The speaker agreed with this, but said we must try to overcome the problem. Another questioner - a professor from the University of Tokai, to which some students from King Mongkut's Institute come - wondered what those students have to say about the experience after they return to Thailand. The speaker said that they are generally impressed, but that they really want/need more of the education they receive in Japan to be in English rather than in Japanese - they have a hard time (of course) understanding things in Japanese. She said that Asian universities really need to embrace the English language if they want to globalise in any sense.

Another questioner mentioned that in Taiwanese universities about 50% of the education which engineers receive is in the English language. He asked what proportion is in English in Thai universities; the speaker said that at her university most of the education is in Thai - very little is in English.

Another questioner said that most Japanese academics are unable to teach in English, and she wondered what kind of balance should be struck (in general) between teaching in English and teaching in the indigenous language. The speaker didn't really have an answer for this. Indeed, this was a message that came through (to me) very clearly from the symposium as a whole. Time and time again, various speakers and questioners alluded on one hand to the need to use more English, and on the other to the fact that most Japanese have a relatively poor command of English.

The last question following this presentation came from a professor at Kyoto University via the satellite link. He said that Japanese universities have not been very successful at introducing eLearning up to now, and he suggested that the main obstacle has been the conservative nature of the upper management within most universities. He said that localised initiatives by hard-working individuals is not enough. The speaker agreed completely with this, and added that it's often hard for older faculty members to adapt to the use of ICT, and that developing eLearning course material can be very time consuming.

The second presentation was given by Prof Akira Arimoto, University of Hiroshima. He seemed to be a very authoritative speaker, and his biography is certainly impressive. Amongst other things, he "serves as the President of the Japanese Association of Higher Education". During the question and answer session following his talk one of the questioners actually referred to him as one of the leading thinkers in the area of Japanese HE.

He began by saying that there have been a number of important reforms within the Japanese HE system recently, as in some other countries. He pointed out that universities were traditionally centres of knowledge, but now that society as a whole is becoming more knowledge-driven universities have a less distinctive role in this respect. He said that ICT is also beginning to change the way universities operate, and that this is one of many pressures on universities at the moment - some coming from within and some due to external forces.

He said that historically Japanese universities were based on German universities, in which research is the main focus. He said that in a recent survey 70% of Japanese university lecturers claimed to be research active, while in Anglo-Saxon nations the figure is closer to 50% and in Latin America (?) the figure is well below 50%. However, now that such a high proportion of school leavers go on to study at university, he suggested that Japanese universities must move towards having a 50/50 split between research-focussed and teaching-focussed staff. In his paper he states that a nationwide survey carried out in 1999 "revealed that only 63% of faculty members say that they are oriented to both research and teaching, but those with a research orientation continue to outnumber those more oriented to teaching".

He said that Japanese universities need to reform to adjust to the changing nature of the student population. According to a recent survey of over 3,000 Japanese professors, students are on average less academically able and less motivated (some detailed statistics to support this are in his paper). He said that the "distance" between teachers and students is too wide - teachers often do not appreciate students' views. There is also more diversity among students, especially now that distance learning has opened up opportunities for mature students. He said that with the current trends of mass education and globalisation there is a very real quantity versus quality issue.

He made a distinction between "internationalisation" and "globalisation", saying that we are moving from the former to the latter. He said that this movement in the education arena follows on from similar movements in the political arena and subsequently in the cultural arena.

He then quoted some statistics (echoing the previous speaker) which showed that the flow of exchange students into and out of Japan is very asymmetrical. Every year about 8,000 Japanese university students go abroad to engage in courses overseas. Of these, roughly 50,000 go to America, 15,000 go to China, and 5,000 got to the UK. As for exchange students coming into Japan, 47% are from China, 21% from Korea and 7% from Taiwan. Fewer students come from Malaysia, Indonesia and Thailand, and even fewer - around 2% - come from America. A total of 80% are from other countries within Asia. In his paper he states that "at present, about 60,000 foreign students, 5% of the world population of those studying abroad, are studying in Japan". He also states that "Japan has an official policy of expanding the foreign student population to 100,000", although he does not say by when.

I noticed another interesting statistic in his paper ... "The year 2009 is expected to be a watershed in Japan; that is the year in which everyone who applies to university is expected to be admitted". (This is due to the falling number of 18-year-olds.) I also noted this statement in his paper...
 

"Accompanying the advance of globalisation we see a need [for] a call for commonality, communicability, and contemporaneity with the world at large and exposure of the darker side of the research-oriented success story. Increasingly, critics attack the content of higher education, especially university teaching. With almost 50% of high school graduates in Japan entering junior college or university, the day has arrived when the university level training of personnel is of ever greater social significance. Now, however, we are discovering that higher education in Japan cannot compete internationally. Through councils and committees raising these issues, the national government is showing concern, and dissatisfaction and criticism of higher education, especially undergraduate education, is erupting on all sides. Japanese higher education has a huge task before it if we are to bring its curricula, educational methods, credit system, degrees, quality level, and methods of evaluation into synch with those of the world."

This is a very frank statement, to say the least, and coming from such an eminent speaker I think it says a great deal.

During his presentation he mentioned that there are currently around 670 four-year universities, and a total of more than 1,400 HE institutions altogether, including two-year colleges. He said that since last year (?) there has been third party assessment of universities in Japan, and that more QA activity is needed. He believes that the introduction of market principles into the national universities will bring improvements, and he said that the government's aim is to get the top 30 universities in Japan to be truly world-class. He said that Japanese universities are currently lagging behind world standards, especially at undergraduate level. They need to be more "output oriented" and less "input-oriented", he said. He added that there are now moves underway to migrate away from the German system to the American system, with a more even split between research focus and teaching focus. He also said that there is a need for more admin and support staff in Japanese universities.

In his paper he states that "almost 30% of institutions of higher education are using the Internet in teaching". He goes on to say that "it is clear that Japan's institutions of higher education have seriously lagged in anticipating the need to utilize IT and to adopt a learner centred point of view".

In the question and answer session, the first questioner said that he also believes that Japanese universities are lagging behind their American and UK counterparts, and he felt that part of the reason for this is that American and UK universities are run in a more corporate way, with for example more tightly defined job descriptions for employees. He suggested that this was one reason why American and UK universities are making better progress in the area of ICT. The speaker agreed with these comments, and added that since the HE industry has been expanding for so many years most of the top-level managers are ill equipped to deal with the difficulties they now face. He said they should (and sometimes do) hire someone like a chief financial officer from the corporate world. He also said that universities should consider outsourcing where feasible.

The third and final presentation in this session was given by Koichi Miyoshi, Deputy Managing Director of the Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA) [»]. His paper was an attempt to "rethink what role Japanese universities can play in the development of technical cooperation with developing countries by utilizing ICT". He discussed different types of "technical cooperation", such as synchronous communication facilities (video conferencing etc.) and asynchronous (mainly web-based) facilities. He also talked about JICA's activities in the areas of conducting technical cooperation training courses, engaging in technical cooperation projects, and dispatching experts overseas. He cited some examples including an information training programme in Vietnam and a multimedia technical training development centre in Sri Lanka, adding that ICT will affect the way they conduct these projects in the future.

During the course of his talk he also reiterated some points made by previous speakers, such as that universities should be more proactive in introducing ICT and that it needs to be tackled on an institution-wide basis.

In answer to the first question in the question and answer session which was about eLearning content production he said that there are currently very few good examples in Japan, and he suggested that the way forward is to study the good examples set by other countries. It occurred to me that this is a typically Japanese attitude - they have a history of carefully studying other nations' methods, and then adopting and adapting the best to fit their own needs. This is the opposite of a "not invented here" attitude, and I know that this is widely thought to be one of the reasons for Japan's success in the past.

Another questioner from Osaka university (via the satellite link) lamented the lack of funds to support ICT expansion, and asked how universities could be encouraged to make more use of ICT. The speaker pointed out that a lot can be done with fairly modest equipment, even without Internet links. He said that good eLearning courses can be distributed cheaply via CD-ROMs.

Second day: afternoon

In this session there were three speakers giving presentations related to the general theme of "Building International Learning Communities".

The first presentation in this session was given by Dr (Prof ?) Insung Jung, Director (?) of the Ewha Womens University in Korea [»]. She talked about recent developments in the area of ICT within the education system in Korea. She mentioned that the Presidential Commission for Education Reform had defined the goal of the Korean Education System in the 21st century as being an "Edutopia", meaning "an education welfare state - a society of open and lifelong education to allow each and every individual equal and easy access to education at any time and place". She said that they've been coming up with policies and strategies in line with this goal. One example is that educational institutions can now use telecommunication facilities at only 20% of their normal cost. She said that more than 50% of Korean households (?) now access the Internet via ADSL (i.e. wideband connectivity), compared with only 10% in the USA. She claimed that there is more Internet usage in Korea now than in any other country.

She explained that one of the drivers for Korean universities building up their ICT infrastructure has been the fact that the evaluation system introduced by the government in the mid-1990's specifically looks at this - over 10% of the marks are connected with ICT facilities and useage.

She said that in Korea, as in Japan, they are experiencing shrinking numbers of university applicants. Partly for this reason, and partly because of "brand image", many traditional universities in Korea are now diversifying to build ICT-based courses aimed at mature learners.

She also talked about the Korean Virtual University Trial Project, and said that it has been very successful. Private "cyberuniversities" have now been legally accepted as part of the formal higher education system in Korea - nine such universities were approved and started to operate in March of this year. These institutions "focus on lifelong learning and vocational education rather than replacing or competing with traditional colleges". Seven more cyberuniversities are due begin operation in 2003. However, she said that there were quite a few problems associated with these cyberuniversities - particularly in the area of establishing standards and quality criteria, and quality assurance. She said that faculty in these cyberuniversities have duties that are rather different (not surprisingly) from faculty members in traditional universities.

In the question and answer session following her talk, the first questioner was a professor from Kyushu University. He said that from the evidence he's seen, Korea has made huge progress in the past five years both in terms of ICT and also student TOEFL [»] scores. He said that five or six years ago Japanese and Korean students had equally poor TOEFL scores, on average, but now Korean students get significantly higher scores. He wondered what the reason was for these improvements. The speaker said that this was mainly due to the government's initiatives, and genuine commitment. For example, when universities are assessed a proportion of the points awarded are for ICT facilities and average TOEFL scores and this provides a very strong incentive for universities to show improvements in these areas.

The second speaker in this session was Prof William Busch, University of Maryland, USA. He described the five-year VIRTUE program [»] which has the following vision...
 

"Provide a model for an international, self sustaining networked organisation among universities established to rapidly translate cutting-edge marine biotechnology research into activities in: education, public outreach, and economic development. These initiatives will promote solutions to specific global environmental problems and sustainable development issues, addressing: water quality, food availability, and human health through marine biotechnology."

He started off by saying that he was very encouraged to see that others are struggling with exactly the same issues he and his colleagues have been struggling with, which he took to be an indication that they must be on the right path. The VIRTUE project was initiated in 1997 when the Wallenburg Foundation sugegsted that they would be willing to consider an application for funding for a project that demonstrated how three universities from different countries could collaborate in the development of new courses in marine biotechnology. The Foundation has funded the project to the tune of $5.2 million in total.

He said that, in spite of some earlier comments about poor academic/industry links in Japan, he has observed good links in the field of marine biology. He said that collaboration is not just about joint publications, but also about exchanges of staff, students and data.

In answer to a question about how the course material was developed, he said that there are incentive payment schemes - because some academics might refuse to cooperate otherwise - and that you also need a dedicated team of course developers. The academics provide the raw material and act as consultants. He said that it's very important to have course developers who are "credible" in the eyes of the academics.

The final speaker in this session was Professor Colin Latchem, University of Athabasca, Canada - an Englishman by birth, based in Australia but acting as an "adjunct professor" at Athabasca, and currently a visiting fellow at NIME! He started by saying that he sees the same issues arising in Japan that they are now grappling with in Australia. Australian universities are worried that they might lose some of their market share to global providers of HE. He said that funding of universities is becoming more competitive and market-oriented throughout the world, and that increased provision of lifelong learning and ICT are two important areas of development.

In relation to ICT he said that we need investment in hardware, software and methodology to support a whole range of ICT applications - from the use of PowerPoint during lectures to the provision of distance learning courses via sophisticated web-based eLearning platforms.

He mentioned that the development of ICT is causing some university lecturers to worry about their job security, but he said they needn't. However, he pointed out that, historically, workers in a range of industries have had to adapt their skills to adjust to new working methods. Academics may need to adapt their skills also.

In the question and answer session one questioner said that although there are a number of well publicised web-based distance learning courses available, she has seen little evidence that many students are eager to enrol on such courses. Prof Latchem disagreed, saying that there are already millions of students around the world engaged in such courses. He added that some south Asian countries - including Korea and Malaysia - currently lead the world in this area.

He said that the designers of online courses need to have some way of gauging student reaction and getting feedback, and must be prepared to adjust courses accordingly. He said that in his case he gets a lot of feedback through observing the students' discussions within the online discussion forums. He said that students as well as teachers need to adapt to working in an online environment. For example, students must become more active learners, and must learn how to communicate effectively via email and discussion forums. Teachers must learn how to be effective online mentors, must be flexible, and must always remember that students often lack self-confidence and are sometimes also hampered by family and/or financial problems.

Finally, he mentioned that an eminent professor recently said that around 30% of a country's wealth (typically) comes from its physical resources while the remaining 70% comes from its human resources. Consequently, countries are competing hard to be the "cleverest". However, we must always try to maintain a sense of equity. This means we should not neglect sub-degree HE, we should try to teaching everyone to be active learners, and of course we must not neglect poorer nations. This was a point he had made during his presentation as well, when he talked about initiatives such as the African Virtual University Project [»]. He pointed out that a lot of the violence in the world has its roots in poverty (a lack of equity).