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ACADEMIC YEAR	2007 (Feb 27, 2008)
NAME	MURAKAMI, Yoko
TITLE	Research on Distance Learning System and Management Mechanism for the Next Generation Higher Education Institutions
ABSTRACT	This research aims to enable the universities to meet increasing social needs for higher education through achieving their responsible roles and establishing a reliable management system of distance learning environment on the Internet. From 1997 to 2001, WIDE Project School of Internet (SOI) has established a virtual university utilizing the universities' lectures as its educational resources. This SOI "phase I" model has achieved the digitization of lectures and the communication among faculty and students. Based on this model, this research has proposed SOI "phase II" model, which achieved universities' management functions on the distance learning environment. This paper has discussed about the design and implementation of SOI phase II systems, its practical experimentations, and the process of institutional reforms in the university. The key elements of SOI phase II model were the autonomous management in educational resource sharing and time-oriented record management. System design base on these management mechanisms was indispensable to solve the problems of copyright, privacy and the diversity of sharing policy on educational resource and to achieve the reliable evaluation and certification of distance learning. The autonomous management system of educational resources, the learning record management system, and the grade information management and certification system have been implemented based on the proposed model. By establishing various management systems and extending the method of lecture digitization, we achieved 3 universities' roles on distance learning environment: 1) providing high quality educational resources in abundance, 2) evaluation of students' learning and issue of certificates and 3) providing universal learning environment to students. We also proposed systems for the administrations to improve the reliability of the system management. The implemented systems have been applied to SFC Global Campus (2002 - 2007, 334 courses, 4,195 lectures), Graduate School of Media and Governance e-kamoku system (2005 - 2007, 13 courses), and Keio university correspondence courses (2006 - 2007, 3 courses). These results have proved the effectiveness and practicability of this research. As a result of this research, the expansion of higher education opportunity with university lectures and the certification of distance learning with formal credit have been achieved. This research has also contributed to the universities¡Ç collaborations such as double degree programs and credit transfer systems.
CONTACT	To obtain the whole paper, please contact; Yoko Murakami ( yoko at sfc.wide.ad.jp )

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