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Education Solutions
2015-1 (Vol.51. No.1)
This special issue describes the latest developments in the field of formal education and introduces Fujitsu's efforts in developing new businesses with public libraries, its global activities centered about museum and student-support solutions, and its approach to developing various other education-related technologies. Fujitsu is committed to expanding its activities in the field of education, and to this end, we will continue our aggressive efforts in assessing customer needs and in creating new value in collaboration with our customers while anticipating the direction of educational reform in Japan.
Feature Papers
- 1. Preface (457 KB)
- Fujitsu has proclaimed its aim of "shaping the learning journey of future generations together with champions of education" as its brand promise in the field of education. We have undertaken various activities in the field of education to back up this promise. In higher education, we have been providing solutions to achieve labor-saving and efficient school operations, improve student services, create an optimal education and research environment, etc. Going forward, we would like to add to those services by providing solutions targeting the essence of education such as "quality assurance in education," "development of basic skills essential for members of society," and "development of global human resources." We plan to achieve these solutions by analyzing and applying the huge amount of data accumulated through the course of education, research, and university operations. In K-12 education, we welcome the coming of an era of "one information terminal per student" and plan to contribute to the firm establishment of basic academic abilities through the use of ICT and the provision of individualized instruction that respects the diversity of each and every student. ---[Hirofumi Gouda, Corporate Executive Advisor]
Primary education
- 2. Current Situation and Issues Related to ICT Utilization in Primary and Secondary Education (558 KB)
- The development of information and communications technology (ICT) has brought about significant changes in society. As society changes, education must also change. Since the 1980s, Japan's government has been promoting the use of information technology in education. In particular, policies related to ICT in education have been accelerating since the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) regained control from the Democratic Party in 2012. Fujitsu has participated in the government's demonstration projects and has been providing and gathering technologies and know-how aimed at making innovative use of ICT in education and learning. There are still many issues that need to be resolved regarding the use of ICT in education, including safeguarding personal data, protecting copyrights, and alleviating the cost burden. Fujitsu is using its technologies and know-how to help revolutionize education by working with teachers and administrators to resolve these issues one at a time and to create new learning concepts. This paper describes the government's policy for the introduction of ICT in education and the efforts that Fujitsu is making in this regard. ---[Kiyoshi Oshima, Yuko Muramatsu]
- 3. FUJITSU Education Solution K-12 School Business Support Services for Elementary and Junior High Schools (589 KB)
- Under the measures and policies of the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology (MEXT) and the Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications (MIC), the education boards of local governments and elementary and junior high schools in Japan have started making full-scale use of information and communications technology (ICT) in their educational programs. According to the Results of a Survey on Educational Informatization in Schools released by the MEXT, the objective of having one information terminal per member of teaching staff has almost been achieved in all parts of the country. In addition, more than 60% of elementary and junior high schools have already computerized their documents related to school business. A project to have one information terminal per student is now underway, and further promotion of ICT use for education is expected. To support these informatization efforts, in the spring of 2013, Fujitsu launched "software as a service" type "FUJITSU Education Solution K-12 School Business Support" services, which integrate the school business know-how it has accumulated over many years. Whereas current support systems use packages, application service providers, private clouds, etc., these services are aimed at reinventing school business support systems. In this paper, we consider the computerization of elementary and junior high school business and introduce the operation of "FUJITSU Education Solution K-12 School Business Support" services and their expected effects. ---[Toru Toguchi]
- 4. Educational Support for Children with Special Needs: K-12 SNE Kids Touch (950 KB)
- Schools for special needs children need educational tools based on information and communications technology (ICT). ICT is especially effective when used in accordance with each child's disabilities and needs, enhancing their achievements in various subjects and activities and thereby promoting independence. In June 2012, Fujitsu started developing an educational software series to meet the needs of such children, the "FUJITSU Education Solution K-12 SNE Kids Touch" series. This series comprises four software programs: "Let's draw lines!" "Let's write hiragana!" "Let's write katakana!" and "Let's do jigsaw puzzles!" They are equipped with a touch-based interface and are designed for use by children with physical or intellectual disabilities and/or developmental disorders. Their difficulty level can be adjusted to match the child's abilities, educational materials can be added or composed, and the child's usage can be tracked to facilitate follow-up on his or her progress. This paper introduces these programs, describes the trials conducted at special needs schools, and discusses the outcomes. ---[Tomoyuki Ito, Aya Nozawa, Makiko Miyairi, Kaori Takaishi]
- 5. Next-generation Digital Educational Solutions for Use in the Classroom (695 KB)
- Fujitsu Network Solutions Limited has developed, through on-site research conducted jointly with participating schools, two next-generation digital educational solutions that address problems in elementary and secondary schools. One, called "Shu-Chu-Train," is a modular learning system that provides effective training for the prefrontal area of the brain and improves a student's ability to concentrate and retain information, skills that are critical to academic ability. The other, called "Manavication," is a system that supports collaborative learning. It dramatically speeds up communications between the teacher and students and among the students while supporting the development of thinking power, judgment, and expressive power. These two solutions are designed to be used with tablets so that they can be regularly used to maintain and improve fundamental knowledge and basic skills and support the development of collaborative problem-solving abilities. This paper introduces these next-generation digital educational solutions designed to support new learning appropriate for the 21st century. ---[Hidehiko Mayumi]
Higher education
- 6. Working on Visualization of Academic Behaviors with Learning Management System for Universities-CoursePower (600 KB)
- In recent years, universities have been facing increased competition both domestically and internationally due to the low birth rate in Japan and globalization. As a result, universities are expected to improve the quality of their education. Various types of admissions systems and high-school instruction have diversified students' academic achievements and their orientations. Consequently, there is an urgent need for individualized instruction suited to each student's particular abilities. In these circumstances, Fujitsu has provided a learning management system for universities, "FUJITSU Education Solution CoursePower," to meet universities' needs for better education quality, such as an improvement of course contents and their methods and ensuring transparency of academic achievement assessments. Furthermore, we provide functions to analyze each student's level of preparedness, course review habits, and participation in lectures and to show the characteristics of academic behaviors by using charts. Through these functions, we support appropriate tutoring and help to improve education quality. This paper describes the background to and summary of the development of CoursePower and its function to visualize academic behaviors. ---[Atsushi Nagai, Hiroyuki Yamasaki, Ikuko Miyajima]
- 7. Fujitsu's Efforts for Education and Research System (785 KB)
- Over the past several years, smartphones have become widely used and tablet PCs have emerged, and the result is that system environments have been reviewed considering countermeasures against disasters. Therefore, information and communications technology (ICT) environments surrounding us are changing. Such trends also have impacts on educational places. In particular, as ICT environments in universities, it is preferable to have systems that can be used more simply and more flexibly by users including students and teachers. Now, a virtual desktop system, which is less affected by the devices to be used, is attracting people's attention. However, considering that universities' usage environments differ from those of companies, there are some problems to solve such as those related to the system scale and license. The important task is to find a balance between provision of new values and cost reduction. This paper introduces the issues with the education and research system provided by Fujitsu and its efforts to improve them. In addition, the expected future trends are described. ---[Koji Kawaguchi, Takayasu Sasaki, Norio Yuzawa, Shinobu Kimura]
- 8. On-Campus Data Utilization: Working on Institutional Research in Universities (679 KB)
- Institutional research (IR) in universities refers to a wide range of activities such as collection and analysis of on-campus data, planning of measures for improvements, and implementations and verifications of the measures for the purpose of management improvement, student support, and higher-quality education. In Japan's universities, improvements with on-campus data utilization have been increasingly expected and there has been a big upsurge in IR for this. And universities are seeking approaches for specific practices. In response to such trends in Japan, Fujitsu is currently working on IR research and study, aiming to provide new services that can contribute to university business and management. Specifically, we carried out surveys on the needs for and expectations of IR, made hypotheses, and conducted trial experiments of data analysis. By using various statistical analysis methods, we also tested the trend analysis of the improvement in education quality and dropout prevention, for which data utilization will be especially needed in universities. Furthermore, research on dropout prediction was carried out, by which it is possible to predict which students may leave universities in the future from their current situation. Through the approaches above, we are currently defining the concept of Fujitsu's IR and examining the provision of services supporting IR practices in universities. In this paper, the IR trend research and study that we have tackled so far and Fujitsu's IR are described. ---[Aiko Otomo, Yutaka Iwayama, Takao Mohri]
- 9. Realization of Next-generation ICT Infrastructure with UnifIDone Campus Cloud (552 KB)
- These days, the information and communications technology (ICT) environments in universities such as the spread of students' smartphone usage have been significantly changing. Diversification of users and usage scenes leads not only to a change in the existing learning environments, but also to a disorganized increase and upsurge in ICT services provided by universities. As a result, an urgent issue now is to have effective ICT operations. "FUJITSU Education Solution UnifIDone Campus Cloud" is a private cloud solution tailored to universities' operational characteristics. In this solution, the Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) function, which performs flexible dispensing of a server environment, and the Desktop as a Service (DaaS) function, which allows a desktop environment to be used whenever it is required, are integrated and managed. The functions required by universities are added and then the solution is provided as integrated cloud infrastructure. This paper presents the problems with conventional private cloud products and VDI products when they are used in ICT operations at universities, and describes the features of FUJITSU Educational Solution UnifIDone Campus Cloud that can overcome them. ---[Keita Hatase, Takahiro Totani]
Public
- 10. Solution Concept for Public Libraries: One Library (535 KB)
- Fujitsu has been engaged in the public library market for over 30 years. With all-around support that covers the overall market through multiple products and services, Fujitsu currently has the largest share of this market in Japan. However, public libraries are operated mainly by local governments and they provide free-of-charge services in principle. Consequently, there are some aspects where the cost-benefit achieved with information and communications technology (ICT) cannot be directly identified. Furthermore, the current economic circumstances weigh on the operations of public libraries and make it difficult to invest in keeping and expanding services. On the other hand, there are growing needs for public library services due to changes in people's lifestyle that are caused by ICT such as the spread of smart devices. In consideration of these situations, Fujitsu has set out the concept "One Library" as guidelines for promoting new proposal activities and product development while continuing to expand multiple existing products. In this paper, the background to this concept creation and the product development based on this concept are described. ---[Keisuke Nakatsuka, Yoshio Akagi, Yuko Shimizu]
Global
- 11. Museum Solutions and Plans for Global Expansion (931 KB)
- The importance of museum materials is increasing as time passes, and there is a growing need to manage them with databases by making use of information and communications technology (ICT). In addition, with the strong originality of individual museums, such management systems should be highly flexible. Under these circumstances, Fujitsu offers museum solutions designed to help create value for museums. The main one is FUJITSU Education Solution Musetheque, a collection management system characterized by its flexibility that enables items in museum collections to be easily added and that enables information located in different categories to be easily stored in management databases. Its excellent search response is not degraded by the addition of large amounts of data. This paper describes Fujitsu's museum solutions including their strengths and its plans for their global expansion. ---[Akira Chino, Ryosuke Ishida]
- 12. Field Trial of Student Support Solution in Collaboration with Chulalongkorn University (550 KB)
- Fujitsu constructed a student support solution based on the Fujitsu Education Solution Campusmate-J/Student series of comprehensive student support systems and tested it in a one-year field trial in collaboration with Chulalongkorn University of the Kingdom of Thailand from June 2013 to June 2014. The objectives included evaluating its effectiveness and expanding its functionality to meet the needs of other universities in Thailand and Japan. This solution provides information and advice tailored to the needs of students who excel in sports, art, or music. In the trial, various types of information related to the target students was collected from multiple departments at the university and consolidated into a system so as to make it visible. This system is aimed at identifying students who need support, creating opportunities for advisors and students to communicate with each other, and improving student services. ---[Masahiro Shimada, Hirofumi Nakao]
New technology
- 13. Approach to Education Innovation Making Use of Open Content (899 KB)
- "Open education" innovation, which originated in the United States, is becoming widespread all over the world. At the same time, there is a dramatic transition from educator-centric to learner-centric learning through utilization of the Web. We have been researching and developing an education method called "curation learning" in which content and services on the Web are curated and value is added for social learning through collaboration with others as well as creating a platform to support it. In curation learning, people learn through a cycle of actively "searching," "creating," and "engaging," which can not only help learners acquire information and knowledge but also cultivate "21st-century skills" including critical thinking, communication/collaboration ability, and information literacy. This paper describes case studies at universities in the United States using the curation learning method and the platform and presents a future outlook. ---[Kanji Uchino, Yuko Okubo, Takuro Watanabe]
