1. I nt r oduct i on
The maturity ofonline education ispositively correlated with economicand technological development. The majority ofthe membersofthe OECD (the Organization forEco- nomicCo-operation and Development)are the developed countriesin the world and have 97% ofthe InternetIP addresses,control92% ofthe production ofcomputerhardware and software,and have 86% ofInternetusersaround the globe. On the contrary,the coun- triesto the south ofthe SaharaDesertin Africaonly possesslessthan 1% ofthe Internet usersin the world (Yuan,2007). Thus,rich and technologically advanced countiesand regionshave advantagesin developing online education.
Japan,the second biggesteconomicpowerin the world,isalso aland ofhigh technol- ogy. Advanced technology hasformed the premise ofonline education developmentin Japan. Asaresult,governmentpoliciesare anothercatalystforhealthy and rapid online
A Compa r a t i v e Res ea r c h
Wa ng Shudong * a nd Nei l Hef f er na n **
(Received on May 8,2008)
Abstract
In thispaperthe authorswillcompare online education in Japan and China. A thorough analysisofdatafrom numeroussourceswillbe performed. The comparison isbased on
“software aspects”,such asthe levelofawarenesseducationalauthoritieshave ofonline education,and “hardware aspects”,such asthe infrastructure ofwired Internetand mobile telecommunications. The resultsofthisevaluation indicate thatChinaislagging behind Japan when itcomesto both the software and hardware aspectsofproviding adequate online education. Some possible remediesto thisproblem are then discussed along with ideasforfuture research in thisarea.
Key words: Comparative research,Chinaand Japan,online education,government policies,IT infrastructure,currentdevelopment
* Faculty ofLaw,HiroshimaShudo University
** English Education Center,Ehime University
education development.
In thispaper,the authorswillconductacomparative study on the developmentof online education in both Chinaand Japan. The principalpurpose ofthispaperisto inves- tigate the main gapsofrecentonline education developmentsin these two countries,then try to suggestsome remediesforeliminating these gaps.
The paperconsistsofthe following parts:Section 1 introducesthe background ofthe problem and delineatesthe purpose ofthe research. In Section 2,we compare the two government’spolicestoward online education. Section 3 comparesthe popularity of LMS (Learning ManagementSystem)use foronline learning. Also in Section 3 we dis- cussthe currentuse ofmobile devicesforonline education. Section 4 comparesmobile online education in both countries. Section 5 concludesthatatpresent,Chinalags behind Japan in online education,especially in mobile online education,buthasgreat potentialto catch up quite rapidly. Section 6 demarcatesfuture work to be done in this area.
2. A compar i son of t he t wo government s’ pol i ci es t owar d onl i ne educat i on.
Asearly asJanuary,2001,the Japanese governmentpromulgated an “E-Japan Strategy”, aimed atmaking Japan the world’smostadvanced country in IT infrastructure within 5 years. The Japanese parliamentpassed relevantlawsto ensure the enforcementofthis plan. Afterthe “E-Japan Strategy”,an “E-Japan Priority Plan 2004”wasannounced in June 2004,which aimed to emphasize online education policiesand prepare forachieving itsIT goalsin 2005,and laying the stepping stonesfor2006 and beyond.
Since the featuresofthe “E-Japan Strategies”include responding to the diverse edu- cationalneedsin the eraoflifelong learning,they have had beneficialeffectsforthe utili- zation ofonline education in Japan.(Ministry ofEconomy,Trade and Industry,Japan, 2006). Asrelated policiesto supportthe promotion ofonline education,the Japanese gov- ernmenthasturned itsattention toward policiesthatenhance “soft”areasratherthan the developmentof“hard”areas. Rich and effective online education contentisrequired and emphasized in Japan’seducationalpolices,such ashuman resourcesforcontent,and the effective utilization ofcontentresources.
In September,2006,following the implementation ofthe “E-Japan Strategy”,the Japa-
nese governmentannounced anew ambitiousIT plan called U-Japan. The “u”in “u- Japan”representsnotonly “ubiquitous,”butalso “universal,”“useroriented,”and
“unique.”The plan focuseson “easy connection to networksanytime,anywhere,by any- thing and anyone”(Ministry ofInternalAffairsand Communications,2007). According to the Japanese government,everyone,including the elderly and disabled,willbe able to use ICT with ease in orderto assistin theirdaily lives. Further,the ICT Policy Outline 2007 statesthat“ICT willalso transform society from one ofuniformity and standardiza- tion to one thatiscreative and vigorous,and which strivesto achieve more creative busi- nessapproachesand services,aswellasanew socialsystem and values”(Ministry of InternalAffairsand Communications,2006).
Both the E-Japan Strategy and the U-Japan Plan were promulgated by the Japanese governmentbased on the BasicLaw on the Formation ofan Advanced Information and TelecommunicationsNetwork Society,also called the IT BasicLaw,passed in 2000.
Since then,the Japanese governmenthassetup an IT Strategy Headquarterswhose pre- senthead isthe prime ministerofJapan. These headquartersregularly hold meetingsto guide IT developmentin Japan.
Consequently,E-Japan and U-Japan include online education. The E-Japan Strategy hasconsistently reached itsgoalsin relation to online education:asofMarch,2005,morn than 50% ofclassroomsin Japan were equipped with LAN,and 76.8 % ofteacherswere trained and able to use computersto assistteaching and learning in the classroom. Fur- ther,73% ofpublicschoolshave homepages,while home Internetusage hasincreased 23- fold since 2001. Lastly,and perhapsmostimportantly,DSL,CATV and FTTH have decreased in price by two-thirds. Therefore,online education fundamentalshave been tremendously enhanced since the introduction ofthe E-Japan Strategy (Sakamoto,2006). In the U-Japan Plan,educating IT human resources,encouraging campusesto be digital- ized,requiring teaching staffto develop theirICT abilities,and improving the IT ethicsof teachershave had an auspiciousstartunderthisprogram.
In Japan,online education supportcome from variousofdepartmentsofthe Japanese government,such asthe Ministry ofEconomy Trade and Industry,the Ministry ofEdu- cation,Culture,Science and Technology and the Ministry ofInternalAffairsand Commu- nication. Online education hasbecome avery importantconceptwhich drawsalotof attention notonly from governments,butalso from educationalinstitutionsatdifferentlev- elsand industries.
Many otherdeveloped countriesand regionshave IT strategiesin place forlong- term planning. Forinstance,in the United States,the Networking IT R&D Program started in 2000;the EU hasimplemented the eEurope 2005 Action Plan;the U.K hasthe UK Online Plan (2000-2005); Korea has the e-Korea Vision 2006; Singapore with Infocomm21 (2000-2004),and the Connected Singapore Program (2003-present). Allof these actionsand plansinclude online education asavery importantpartofschoolcur- riculumsand detailed measuresand goalsare in place foreach (Sakamoto,2006).
In comparison,the Chinese governmentseemsto lack enough law and policy guide- linesand long term strategiesin the field ofonline education. In 1999,the Ministry of Education ofthe People’sRepublicofChinaannounced the Action Plan forChinaEduca- tion Developmenttoward the 21stCentury. The Plan encouraged the implementation of the “Modern Distance Education Project”based on the platform ofChinaEducation and Research Netand the Satellite Video Transmission Network,in orderto constructan open education and alife-long study system (Ministry ofEducation ofthe People’sRepub- licofChina,1999). Since itsimplementation,online education hastaken greatstrides forward:atthe end of2002,70% ofuniversitiesand collegesbuiltLAN and were con- nected to the Internet;atthe end of2004,48,605 satellite distance education spotsand 7094 computerroomswere builtin ruralareas. In 2005,sixty eightuniversitieswere approved to offerdegreesthough online education and the numberofregistered students reached 2.3million (Nan,2005). However,seeing asChinaisalarge country with apopu- lation of1.3 billion,people who are currently benefiting from low costonline education are stillin the minority. On the otherhand,online education in the western and central partsofChinaare much more backward than in the eastern areas. A huge gap existsand isonly getting larger. Unlike Japan,differentdepartmentsofthe Chinese centralgovern- mentlack collaboration on thisissue.
Therefore,itisnotsurprising thatin the 2007 e-ReadinessRankingspublished by the EconomistIntelligence Unit,Japan wasranked as18thwhile mainland Chinadropped to 56thfrom 54th,their2005 standing (EconomistIntelligence Unit,2007).
3. The i nact i ve use of onl i ne LMS/CMS f or educat i on i n Chi na
Online education systems(platforms)and applicationsare innumerable. The key ishow educationalauthoritiesmake bestuse ofthem fortheirteaching. WebCT,Blackboard,
CyberExtension VirtualLearning Environment,WebWeaverSuite and Moodle are well known LMSs. MostJapanese universitiesare actively using atleastone ormore LMSs foronline teaching and learning. Among these LMS,some were purchased by educa- tionalinstitutions,some were boughtby language teacherswith theirown research or teaching budget,and asmallamountoflanguage teachersare developing and setting up theirown free online learning systems.
Mostofthe online LMSsshown in the above table are commercial,butMoodle isa free open source Learning Source Software which iswildly popularwith teachers. People can freely download Moodle and use iton any computerwith any OS. ThisLMS is designed to help educatorscreate online courseswith opportunitiesforrich interaction (Moodle,2007). AsMoodle isfree,ithasthe ability to crossplatforms,iseasy to use, and isonly gaining in popularity. Currently Moodle hasnearly 20 million users,speaking over70 languagesin 196 countriesasofApril,2008 (Moodle,2008). And the numbers are increasing every day. Itcan be asserted thatMoodle usage reflectsadegree ofmatur- ity ofLMS usage in acountry. On the Internetthere are over490 registered Moodle sitesforlanguage study in Japan while mainland Chinahasonly about310,some ofwhich have started to disappear.
Itcan also be argued thatthose who do notuse Moodle may use some otherLMSs foronline language education. However,Moodle,aLMS-designed program,isfullof interactive functions. Teacherswho use the system have accessto an array ofpowerful toolssuch aslesson,Wiki,assignments,forums,journals,quizzes,surveys,chatrooms, and workshops,and many more (Whilliam & Rice,2006). Whatismore important,the system isopen-code,and itcan be customized to meetdifferentonline modalities.
Table 1 LMS examples in Japan universities Online Language LMS University
VirtualUniversity HiroshimaUniversity
Gyuto-e,Moodle,Hiplus,Meeting plaza HiroshimaShudo University
SmartHtml,Moodle,Aruku Academy Service YamaguchiUniversity
ALC NetAcademy Tokyo KeizaiUniversity
Gyuto-e (aTOEIC-based Program) RitsumeiUniversity
WebCT OsakaUniversity
Among the nine mostcommonly used LMSs,Moodle wasassessed by Grafand List (2005)to be the bestby using QWS (the Qualitative Weightand Sum)Approach. Moreo- ver,the phenomenathatmostMoodle usersare in Europe and North America(see Fig- ure 1),both are areasranked high in e-Readiness,also strongly supportsourassumption:
there isareason to believe thatusage ofMoodle can reflectonline education level.
4. Mobi l e onl i ne educat i on
The ultimate purpose ofmobile online learning isto learn knowledge ubiquitously and movably (Ogata& Yano,2004). Mobile learning isconducted with m-devices,such as mobile phones,PDAs,and iPODs. Through these devices,people can learn when they are on the move,are practically anywhere,aslong asthey have theirdeviceswith them.
Mobile online education isbound to become the nextmostpopularlearning environment and the main meansofu-learning,meaning thateducation can happen anytime,anywhere.
In Japan,asofJanuary 2007,contractswith mobile phone companies(mainly AU- KDDI,NTT DoCoMo and Softbank)exceeded 95,315,200,which isroughly 78.5% of Japan’stotalpopulation. Considering thatthere mightbe severalmobile phonesbeing used by membersofthe same family on one contract,thisrepresentsamuch largerper- centage ofthe population actually using cellphones. In Japan,nearly allofmobile phoneshave Internetconnection capability. Web browsing,email,FM radio,recorders,e- booksand audio playerscan be allenabled on allmobile phonesifthe service isrequired by auser. Many Japanese universitiesare using mobile phonesto assistforeign lan- guage studies.
Figure 1: Moodle UserIntensity in the world (May 2008,image from Moodle site)
Forinstance,English teachersin NagoyaWomen’sUniversity regularly send emails to students’mobile phonesforvocabulary review;NagoyaKinjo Gakuin University cre- ated electronicflash cardsforstudentsto review English on theirmobile phones(Houser
& Thornton,2005). Mobile video blogsare used atKochiUniversity forEnglish speak- ing practice. Podcasting language education isenthusiastically performed in OsakaJoga- kuyin College (McCarty,2007).
Besideslanguage study,mobile phonesare being used forevaluating teacher’steach- ing,checking students’attendance,and forsubmitting homework (Matsumura,et.al, 2006). One segmentofbroadcasting technology (mobile digitalTV)wasused to play edu- cationalanimated figuresformathematicalstudy (Hayashi,et.al,2006). In addition,more and more Japanese universitiesare enhancing theirwirelessLAN environmentso thatstu- dentscan accessonline education anywhere on campus.
In contrast,because ofalack ofsolid infrastructure enhancement,mobile education hasnotbeen fully exploited in China. Mobile phone technology in Chinajuststarted to enterthe 3G generation,while Japan did so in 2004. Although Chinahasthe most mobile phonesusersin the world,70% ofmobile phonesdo nothave the capability to con- nectto the Internet(17 million WAP usersvia130 million mobile phone holders) (CNNIC,2007). Only SMS (shortmessage service)isuniversally available in China.
Further,the price ofaccessing online educationaliscomparatively expensive. In China, the actualpracticesofmobile online education are notoften reported. A search ofthe mostofinfluentialacademicdatabasesboth in Chinaand in othercountriesregarding Chi- na’smobile online education garnered very few results.
In orderto verify the assumption thatChinalagsbehind in mobile online education,
Figure 2: Among 30 randomly selected university website,13 have mobile phones oriented pages
the authorsdid a“University Search”ofallJapanese universitieson Google. Then,the authorsrandomly selected 30 (n=30)university sites,and found 11 have specialmobile phone oriented pages/innersites. Some were carefully designed forthree different majorJapanese mobile phone web browsing systems:i-mode,ezweb and Yahoo Mobile.
The contentofthe mobile phonessitesranged from emergency noticesfrom the school to lesson review quizzesfrom individualteachers.
In the same way,we did asearch ofChinese university sites. Among 30 randomly selected university sites,none have web pagesdesigned formobile phone WAP users. There are no QR codesformobile phonesto recognize university emailaddressesorsite URLs.
5. Di scussi on and concl usi ons
From the above empiricaldatawe can conclude that,in general,the mainland ofChina lagsbehind Japan in the areaofonline education,particularly in mobile online education.
The reasonsthatChinese online education hasfallen behind are due to the sluggish gov- ernmentpolices,alack ofclose collaboration between governmentaldepartments,and teachers’motivation ofusing LMS. Simply put,mobile online education hasnotyetoffi- cially been launched in China. Some ofthe main disadvantagesin thisregard include a lack ofhuman resourcesengaged in online education,and governmentpolicestoward
Figure 3: Among 30 randomly selected university websites, none have mobile phones oriented pages
online education are bereftofdetail. However,because ofthisslow start,online educa- tion in Chinaissure to become more and more developed in the coming years. How- ever,these developmentsare clearly linked to the building up ofIT infrastructure. This hasclearconnotationsto the economicpowerand technologicalstrengthsofthe country.
In spite ofrapid and continuouseconomicaldevelopmentin China,the country isstill adeveloping nation;itseconomy and technology stillcan notcompete with Japan. Since the existence ofthissituation willprobably continue forthe foreseeable future,itwill surely take more time forChinato catch up with Japan with regardsto online education development. Atpresent,Chinashould focuson solving the problemsinherentin its system:Online education isstillexpensive and isbeyond reach ofmostlow-income partici- pants;the speed ofChinaEducation and Research Net(CERNET)iscomparatively slow, which isvery frustrating forpeople who study athome viaDSL. Lastly,online education in Chinacontentisnotdynamic,interactive and rich. In fact,mobile online education doesnotreceive the attention itdirely needsin China.
6. Fut ur e wor k
There isstillmuch work to be done in thisarea. Due to the lack ofconfirmation ofthe dataso farthe authorshave obtained,many differencesin online education in both coun- triesare notdiscussed and acomplete analysisofthe situation in both countriescannot be done. The difference in computerliteracy ratesbetween college teachersin China and Japan isan areathatstillneedsmuch work,asisan investigation into the differences between the countriesin exactly how diplomasare issued foreducation done through online learning. Withoutresearch in these facetsofonline education,there isunlikely to be aclearpicture presented ofthe situation ofonline learning in both countries.
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