Reports FY 2016 and before

Hosted by Charles Sturt University, the ICDE(International Council for Distance and Open Education) President's Summit was held at Cronulla Beach near Sydney, Australia, from 20- 23 November 2016 with the theme of "A Era New Era of Leadership & Quality, The Business of Open & Distance Learning 2020".

Among 115 delegates from over 32 countries, President Yoichi Okabe and Professor Mitsumasa Okada, Director of Center for Open Distance Education (CODE) attended the conference to share the experience and ideas.

President Okabe presented his poster at the Learning Analytics Market Place with the title, "Learning Analytics for Regular Online Courses, MOOCs and Classroom Teaching at OUJ" on the second day.

The 2017 ICDE Presidents' Summit will be hosted by LORIA at Université de Lorraine, 22-23 May 2017 at Nancy, France.

For more information, see

http://www.icde.org/

The OUJ has signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) with the National Open University (NOU). Since 1993, the two universities has cooperated in various activities such as faculty exchange programs and sharing of educational publications. The renewed relationship is expected to strengthen our ties further.

The ceremony for signing the MoU was held during the NOU's annual International Conference on Distance Education (30 October to 2 November 2017) together with the 30th anniversary of the establishment of NOU. NOU President Sung Po and OUJ Vice President Wataru Koterayama signed the agreement.

Professor Koterayama gave a keynote speech at the International Conference with the title "Mobile Era of Distance Education". He spoke about the current issues of OUJ, such as how we provide PC skill training for the senior generation students with the expanding numbers of the online lectures, and how we recruit young students under the circumstance of the declining birth rate. He also reported the senior student's activities at the study centers that are located nationwide.

Established in 1986, NOU is the first open distance learning institution in Taiwan. OUJ and NOU have many aspects in common, the main mission is to provide higher education to adults and both universities has the characteristics of the open access that allows anybody who wants to enroll without any entrance selection.

With signing of the MoU as a turning point, it is hoped that both universities could strengthen their relationship and communication in exploring more cooperation opportunities in the future.

The 30th AAOU annual conference was held at Crowne Plaza Manila Galleria from 26th to 29th October 2016, hosted by University of the Philippines Open University (UPOU). The theme of the conference was "Open Education in Asia: Changing Perspectives''.

Nearly 500 participants in Asia attended this conference.

From OUJ, President Yoichi Okabe as a member of the Executive Committee, Professor Tomotsugu Kondo (Informatics) and Associate Professor Junji Shibasaki (Informatics) as a speaker respectively and Professor Tsuneo Yamada as a steering committee member of the Asian MOOCs Project, attended this conference.

The paper entitled ''How non-professionals can create a broadcast-quality e-learning course" was presented by Professor Kondo at the parallel session. The presentation introduced the necessary skills in creating high-quality e-learning courses, mentioning about his past experiences on producing full online courses under the difficult circumstances of the limited funds and staffs, and the speech appealed to the audience. In the closing ceremony on 28th October, Professor Kondo's presentation received the silver prize of the AAOU Best Practice Award.

Associate Professor Shibasaki made the presentation titled "Development and Evaluation of Learners' Viewing Response Systems for Video Content as Instruction and Learning Support Tool in Blended Learning''. He spoke about the development and assessment of the interactive learning support system called learners' viewing response systems.

Professor Tsuneo Yamada, with his project team members offered a speech with the title ''Analysis of Learning Processes and Outcomes in an OUJ-MOOC Practice".

On the last day of the conference, President Okabe took the stage and delivered his speech on the theme titled "New Market for Asian OUs -- ODL in Asia in 21st Century''. He spoke about the possibilities of increasing the number of students in the Asian open universities in the future, referring to the issues universities in Japan have at the moment.

The next AAOU Conference will be held from 27th September to 29th September 2017 in Royal Ambarrukmo Hotel, Yogyakarta, Indonesia and it will be hosted by Universitas Terbuka (Indonesia Open University).

OUJ held its annual international symposium at AV Hall in OUJ Library, on Wednesday, March 15, 2017. The theme of the symposium was "What can we learn from open universities abroad?" and about eighty people attended it. The symposium was not open to public this time and it was targeted to the personnel working for OUJ. At the beginning, President Okabe addressed the keynote speech of OUJ's issues and challenges during his tenure, which was followed by the presentation by Professor António Moreira Teixeira from Universidad Aberta, Portugal, who succeeded in transforming a distance learning institution to fully online within only three years. Professor Teixeira's presentation showed us various practices experienced in the transformation he directed. Subsequently, six OUJ faculty staffs reported and shared collected information through interviews and facility tours from ten open universities abroad they visited. At the final panel session, many questions were posed toward Professor Teixeira from the audience, in regard to the management on the transformation of Universidad Aberta.

OUJ TIEC International Symposium co-hosted by JASSO (Japan Student Services Organization) was held in Tokyo on the 27th of November 2015 on the theme: "Assessment of Learning in the 21st Century''. In the keynote speech titled "Learning Analytics: In their own words'', Professor Belinda Tynan from UK presented a holistic approach to learning analytics and showed how it can benefit the students with a willingness to learn. Practical examples and approaches on assessment of learning were introduced by the four distinguished speakers from Japan, USA, Australia and Malaysia. The symposium indicated that the methods and quality of assessment of learning would greatly affect the quality of online education.

The abstracts, videos of the presentations and the symposium report can be accessed through

Report of OUJ TIEC International Symposium

OUJ International Symposium 2015 (OJIS2015) was held at Makuhari Messe in Chiba, Japan under the theme of "Impacts of ICT on Supporting Students with Disabilities in Higher Education". 4 distinguished speakers were invited from the USA, UK and Japan and their practical research and experiences were shared with the participants. From their point of view, sharing information between not only the student and support staff but also professors and technical staff is important and will ameliorate the disability support.

More information can be accessed through

Report of 2015 OUJ International Symposium

OUJ held its annual international symposium (OJIS2014) at Makuhari International Training Center, on Friday, February 7, 2014. The theme of the symposium this year was "Global Trends of Online Teaching and Learning" and a total of 180 people attended the symposium. The symposium speakers included Sir John Daniel (Education Master, Beijing DeTao Masters Academy / Former Vice-Chancellor, the Open University, UK), Prof. Grace Alfonso (Chancellor, University of the Philippines Open University), Mr. Andrew Law (The Director of Open Media, The Open University, UK), Prof. Jan Herrington (Professor, Murdoch University), and Prof. Yoichi Okabe (President, The Open University of Japan). The panel discussion followed the invited talks by speakers mentioned above and various aspects of online teaching and learning were discussed. The symposium concluded that online teaching and learning would be very promising in transforming higher education and we now live in a very exciting time to witness such transformation.

More information can be accessed through

Report of 2014 OUJ International Symposium

OUJ organized the 5th OUJ, OUC, KNOU International Seminar. This year OUC was unable to participate due to the unexpected circumstances and 4 delegates from Korea participated in the event. The topics were chosen 2 for each by OUJ and KNOU under the main theme of "Quality Improvement in Open University Education", which we would like to learn from the other university. Active discussions were made on the topics of "Responding to Aging Societies", "Learning Support System for students", "Learning Material Production System" and "Online Lectures". The seminar ended with fruitful success.

OUJ hosted the 26th Annual Conference of Asian Association of Open Universities (AAOU) at Makuhari Messe in Chiba, Japan. The main theme of the conference was "Expanding the frontiers of Knowledge through Open and Distance Learning in Changing Societies," and six scholars and policy makers in the field delivered keynote and plenary speeches. In the parallel sessions, over 100 participants presented their papers on one of the eight sub-themes. About 300 participants from 22 countries and regions attended this conference. A special session titled "Crisis and Risk Management" was also held to present what has been learned from the great east Japan earthquake of March 11, 2011. In addition, OUJ campus tours were organized for participants to visit our facilities of the TV recording studios, the master control room and the Chiba study center.