Special Research I Session13: Study Case in IM Field (3)

I am Aya Watanabe, and having lived through the analog age (perhaps, the last?), experienced WebCT for the first time when I started to teach at this university, last April. In this course, I would like to make efforts to deepen the understanding of the organization culture of higher education institutions, consider strategic management, and examine methods to approach the future of e-Learning in higher education in social science terms.

[Research that the Lecturer Has Carried Out]

Major research that I have carried out in the past is shown below, regardless of any relation to e-Learning.

1) Development of international collaboration and exchange among higher education institutions
2) Trend of education reform and education policy in Finland
3) Higher education management and instituional autonomy in it

For 1), I have been conducting the researches mainly about the trends in international exchanges among universities and international mobility of students and researchers. Most of the research in this theme is relatively practical, since it has been conducted as work tasks.

・Japan Society for the Promotion of Science, Strategic Fund for Establishing International Headquarters in Universities, "Innovative Models for Developing International Activity in Japanese Universities (Interim Report: Development of methods for internationalizing the research environment in Japan)", 2007.
http://www.u-kokusen.jp/e/activities/interimreport.html (broken link)
・Ota, Hiroshi and Aya Watanabe. "The International Mobility of Researchers: Policy Support at National and Institutional Levels", Room document at the Workshop on the International Mobility of Researchers, OECD Committee for Scientific and Technological Policy (CSTP) & Steering and Funding of Research Institutions (SFRI), 28 March 2007, at IEA, Paris.
http://www.oecd.org/dataoecd/32/33/38919942.pdf (broken link)

As for 2), I have dealt with a variety of issues such as academic ability, curriculums, educational finance including salaries for teachers, educational administration and education policies. Generally, most of my research deals with systems and policies.

・Watanabe, Aya, “Systems that Supports Good Performance in PISA and the Advancement of Education Reform', Yoshinobu Shoui, Hiroshi Nakajima (Eds.) ‘Education and Academic Ability – Learning from Finland', Akashi Shoten, 2005 (Japanese only)
・Watanabe, Aya, “Education Reform and Competency Model in Finland”, Nobuyuki Harada (Ed.), ‘Comprehensive Learning Ability and Rich Learning Ability', Minerva Publishing, 2007 (Japanese only)
・Watanabe, Aya, “Finland: Leading Global Discussion on the Vision of Lifelong Learning”, Yukiko Sawano, Manabu Sato, Yuto Kitamura (Eds.), ‘Mapping the Dynamic Trends of Academic Achievement of Students across the World”, Akashi Shoten, 2008 (in print) (Japanese only)

As for 3), which seems to deal with the closest area that I am responsible for in this course, I conduct a research on systems that assure the autonomy of universities in terms of its administration and administration. The research in the past includes quality assurance of higher education, decision making systems in universities, and financial allocation.

・Watanabe, Aya and Akiyoshi Yonezawa, “Linkage Between University Evaluation and Financial Allocation in Finland”, ‘University Evaluation” (Bulletin of National Institution for Academic Degrees and University Evaluation) No. 3, 147-166, 2003 (Japanese only)
・Watanabe, Aya, “Influence of Regionalization in Quality Assurance Systems in Finland”, Research Institute for Higher Education, Hiroshima University, ‘Comparative Studies on the Quality Assurance System in Higher Education', 2006 (Japanese only)
http://rihe.hiroshima-u.ac.jp/pl_default_2.php?bid=66282 (broken link)

As shown above, I have less experience in research directly related to e-Learning. However, I engaged in projects that were related to e-Learning in a broad sense 8 years ago.

One of the projects was a study on the future of textbook, and teaching and learning materials along with the development of information technology”, which was a survey mainly conducted by the Japan Textbook Research Center. It was conducted to investigate the status of the development of educational software materials and changes in the medium of “textbooks” in order to explore the future of textbooks, which is a paper medium. I was in charge of cases in Singapore. Another project was a study on the social impact of virtual universities: from the viewpoint of future higher education”. It was an attempt to analyze the influence and impact that the development of virtual universities would have on society and higher education, which is part of society. In the planning stage of the study, I had a great vision, however, as it materialized, the research ran into a brick wall, namely: limitations of research and reality. Eventually, taking Finland as an example, the research clarified the influence of virtual universities on universities through analysis of policies and examination of the changes in organization. However, as the scale of the work “became smaller” than I had expected, it was unsatisfactory research for me.

[Assignment]

Now, here is the assignment for this session. If you were to research on “the impact of virtual universities”:

(1) To what subject
(2) By what approach
(3) By what research method

Would you conduct this research?
First create research questions, consider the three points shown above, and then post the results on the Discussion Board. Please provide your confident and worthy advice to me, who had unsatisfactory results in the same research eight years ago. If you have difficulties with your approach or methods, read documents that describe research methods or how to set research themes, such as the references shown below, to get some ideas.

Session 13: Study Case in IM Field (3) (Lecturer: Aya Watanabe)

[Introduction]

[Research that the Lecturer Has Carried Out]

[Assignment]

Reference