# Multiple Platform Problems in Online Teaching of Informatics in General Education, Faced by Part-Time Faculty Members

Hajime Kita, Naoko Takahashi, Naohiro Chubachi

► To cite this version:

Hajime Kita, Naoko Takahashi, Naohiro Chubachi. Multiple Platform Problems in Online Teaching of Informatics in General Education, Faced by Part-Time Faculty Members. IFIP World Conference on Computers in Education (WCCE), Aug 2022, Hiroshima, Japan. pp.275-285, 10.1007/978-3-031-43393-1_25. hal-05533336

HAL Id: hal-05533336

https://inria.hal.science/hal-05533336v1

Submitted on 2 Mar 2026

HAL is a multi-disciplinary open access
archive for the deposit and dissemination of sci-
entific research documents, whether they are pub-
lished or not. The documents may come from
teaching and research institutions in France or
abroad, or from public or private research centers.

L'archive ouverte pluridisciplinaire HAL, est
destinée au dépôt et à la diffusion de documents
scientifiques de niveau recherche, publiés ou non,
émanant des établissements d'enseignement et de
recherche français ou étrangers, des laboratoires
publics ou privés.

<figure><img src="image_1.png" /></figure>

Distributed under a Creative Commons CC BY 4.0 - Attribution - International License
<figure><img src="image_2.png" /></figure>

ifip

International Federation for Information Processing

This document is the original author manuscript of a paper submitted to an IFIP
conference proceedings or other IFIP publication by Springer Nature. As such, there
may be some differences in the official published version of the paper. Such
differences, if any, are usually due to reformatting during preparation for publication or
minor corrections made by the author(s) during final proofreading of the publication
manuscript.
<figure><img src="image_3.png" /></figure>

# Multiple Platform Problems in Online Teaching of Informatics in General Education, Faced by Part-Time Faculty Members

Hajime Kita<fnref n="1" />(✉), Naoko Takahashi<fnref n="2" />(✉), and Naohiro Chubachi<fnref n="3" />(✉)

**Abstract.** The curriculum for an undergraduate program in Japanese universities usually comprises a general education and special/major education programs, and in general education programs, informatics is widely taught. It is one of the characteristics of the informatics education in Japan. A nationwide survey on the informatics education in Japanese universities conducted in 2016 revealed that the teaching of informatics in general education depends largely on part-time faculty members as well as full-time ones. During the COVID-19 pandemic, most Japanese universities were forced to conduct their classes online for 2020 and 2021 academic years. Online teaching was carried out in several modes, using various learning management systems and video conferencing services and student access terminals that differed across universities. Furthermore, the permission to access information systems depends on the employment contract renewal. In such situations, part-time faculty members faced various problems while using multiple platforms that were rarely recognized by full-time members. In this study, the authors point out these multiple platform problems faced by part-time faculty members and propose a common platform for informatics teaching in general education to resolve the issue and improve the teaching quality.

**Keywords:** Informatics in general education · Multiple platforms · Online teaching · Part-time faculty member · Identity management · Educational service provision

## 1 Introduction

The curriculum for undergraduate programs in Japanese universities usually consists of general education and special/major education programs, and in general education programs, informatics is taught widely, and a large number of students

© IFIP International Federation for Information Processing 2023

Published by Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023

T. Keane et al. (Eds.): WCCE 2022, IFIP AICT 685, pp. 275–285, 2023.

https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-43393-1_25

<footnote n="1">¹ Kyoto University, Yoshida, Sakyo, Kyoto 606-8501, Japan
kita.hajime.7a@kyoto-u.ac.jp</footnote>

<footnote n="2">² Kokugakuin University, Higashim-Shibuya, Tokyo 150-8440, Japan
n.takahashi@kokugakuin.ac.jp</footnote>

<footnote n="3">³ Takasaki University of Commerce, Negoya 741, Takasaki 370-1214, Japan
n-chubachi@uv.tuc.ac.jp</footnote>
take these courses. Informatics in general education will be subsequently referred
to as IGE in our study. It is one of the characteristics of the informatics education
in Japan.

For general education courses commonly taken by many students, such as
informatics and languages, securing teaching staff is an important consideration
for universities. A nationwide survey on the informatics education in Japanese
universities was conducted in 2016 [1]. It showed that teaching informatics in
general education depends largely both on part-time faculty (PTF) and full-time
faculty (FTF) members.

The outbreak of coronavirus (COVID-19) in 2019 escalated into a worldwide
pandemic. During the pandemic, most Japanese universities were forced to have
their teach online for the 2020 and 2021 academic years. The online mode of
teaching taken up by several universities became an “emergent evacuation of
teaching.” Hence, different styles of teaching, the use of learning management
systems (LMSs), and information terminals used by students varied one uni-
versity to another. In such a situation, PTFs faced the problem of using several
teaching methods and various information environments. Furthermore, there was
also the administrative issue of the renewal of employment contracts and access
permissions to educational information systems linked to them. This was recog-
nized as a serious problem in online classes taught by PTFs.

This study highlights the problems faced by IGE PTFs. As shown below, it
addresses problems faced by PTFs even before the pandemic. However, the prob-
lems exacerbated during the pandemic and were recognized by the IGE teaching
community. Recognizing these problems, the authors conducted a domestic sym-
posium focusing on the issues that arise in online teaching in 2021 [2]. While we
have not surveyed this problem yet in a wider PFT community, in this study,
the authors addressed the problems by sharing the insights that gained from the
discussion at the symposium.

Furthermore, the authors propose a common IGE platform to solve the prob-
lems. With this common platform, we can also expect an improvement in the
teaching quality of IGE.

This paper is organized as follows. In the next section, Sect. 2 provides an out-
look on IGE in Japan. Section 3 discusses the role of PTFs in IGE and highlights
multiple platform problems faced by PTFs. In Sect. 4, we share the experiences
of the authors on this issue. In Sect. 5, a common teaching platform for IGE to
solve the problems is proposed. Section 6 concludes the paper.

## 2 General Education of Informatics in Japanese Universities

As mentioned before, the curriculum for an undergraduate program in Japanese
universities usually consists of general education and special/major education
programs. Prior to World War II (WWII), general education was provided in high
schools, and universities provided only special/major education. In the reform for
the Japanese educational system after WWII, new universities were organized by
combining old high schools and universities, and hence new universities included both types of education in their mission.

Along with the introduction of computers in universities, classes on treating computers were introduced to the curriculum of universities. Currently, several universities have courses on informatics in their general education programs, and taken by many students. It is one of the characteristics of informatics education in Japanese universities.

As for the academic community, the Information Processing Society of Japan (IPSJ) covers the computer science field, and pays attention to field education as well as academic research. It established the Information Processing Education Committee [3]. This committee proposes periodically curriculum standards for special/major subjects of the field. Furthermore, under this committee, a committee for general education (GE) was also established. GE proposes the Body of Knowledge for IGE (GEBOK), and textbooks alongside the GEBOK have been published by some members of the GE committee [4].

Concerning informatics education in Japanese universities, a nationwide survey was conducted in 2016 [1]. It included IGE, as well as special/major field education.

The survey results showed that IGE was conducted in many universities and a large number of students took such courses. While a wide range of topics were treated in these courses, computer literacy, information ethics, and security were taught in many of them. Furthermore, relating conceptual knowledge on information networks, digitization of information, and elements and structure of computers were also selected often.

The teaching staff of IGE largely comprised PTFs as well as FTFs. The percentage of PTFs in the teaching staff is about 30%. They usually have the background of research fields such as computer science while among the FTFs who teach IGE, those with a research background are few.

# 3 Multi-platform Problems in Online Teaching

Online teaching is carried out by combining various technologies and administrative matters as discussed subsequently (See Fig. 1). The selection of technologies is done by each university. Furthermore, administrative options are also decided by each university. In such a situation, PTFs who teach at several universities may find it challenging to cope with multiple technologies and administrative options sets.

## 3.1 Technological Options in Online Education

During the COVID-19 pandemic, many universities in Japan were forced to continue their educational activities online. From a technological point of view, online education is carried out with various layered technologies listed as follows:
**Authentication System:** User accounts and their authentication are the basis of information systems. Usually, accounts are issued separately by universities. Furthermore, some universities issue different accounts for different information systems, while some introduce unified accounts with centralized authentication systems. Some accounts were issued by major IT service providers. Additionally, some universities introduced multi-factor authentication to enhance information security, while others used conventional ID/PW authentication.

**Learning Management Systems and Related Information Services:** Learning Management Systems (LMS) is a key component of online education. In Japan, various LMS are independently selected by universities. Some universities introduce campus-wide LMS, while others may use different LMSs by departments. Some may use LMSs of a cloud service type, and others run their selected LMSs on-premise.

Additionally, student information systems (SIS) for course registration by students and grade registration by instructors, portal services serving as an entrance for several web-based services are also introduced independently by universities. Furthermore, inter-system coordination among SIS and LMS such as the feeding of course rosters from SIS to LMS depends on universities as well.

**Support of Online Communication and Collaboration:** E-mail is a conventionally yet commonly used communication service in universities. Usually, e-mail accounts are issued by universities to faculty members, non-teaching staff, and students. Services for online storage and web-based teleconferencing are becoming increasingly common these days. In particular, web-based teleconferencing services have been newly introduced as key components of online teaching during the pandemic. Furthermore, on-demand video delivery solutions are also used in some universities.

**PC Terminals:** Online education requires network connection and PC terminals at the student side. For IGE classes, various application software such as office tools and programming environments are also required.

Before the pandemic, classes were held using campus computer laboratories with PC terminals maintained by universities, or on students' laptops whose specifications were approved by universities. However, in rapidly taken online education during the pandemic, universities and teachers had to consider a wide variety of students' environments, and not only personal computers but also tablet terminals and smartphones.

Furthermore, under the initiative of 'GIGA school' [5], senior high schools started to introduce access terminals for all students. In Japan, most public senior high schools are run by prefectures, the second-level local governments consisting of several first-level ones such as cities and towns. Some prefectures are asking students to buy their laptops/tablets. While universities mostly introduce PC-type terminals with Windows or macOS, high schools introduce tablet-type terminals with iPadOS, ChromeOS, or Windows. In 2025, students who experienced GIGA school environments will start to enroll in
universities, and the variety of information terminals held by students may
increase.

<figure><img src="image_4.png" /><figcaption>Fig. 1. Technical elements and administrative options for online teaching.</figcaption></figure>

**3.2 Administrative Issues**

Administrative issues related to online teaching were also decided by each uni-
versity.

**Online Teaching Style:** There are several online teaching styles.

- Synchronous type using teleconferencing systems.

- Asynchronous type where course materials are distributed via an LMS and/or video delivery services, and obtain responses as assignments, etc. using LMS

In the case of having in-person classes, hybrid/hyflex type operation of classes had to be considered for students who are unable to attend due to various reasons. Furthermore, the assessment in classes was also an important issue during the pandemic in which we experienced difficulty conducting an in-person examination. Policies of course assessment were also decided by universities independently.

**Contract Renewal of PTF:** Renewal of the contracts for PTFs is typically done annually, and new contracts usually start at the beginning of the semester. However, preparation of online teaching takes time, and PTFs may want to start it during the previous academic year. In the case of newly contracted PTFs, it gets difficult because new accounts and access permission to relating information systems such as LMS are not prepared within the academic year before commencement of classes.
**FD and TA:** PTFs usually do not participate in the decision-making process, and their access to informal/tentative information is limited. It may also be difficult for PTFs to attend university activities for faculty development (FD) because of time constraints. Access to teaching assistants and communication with them may be difficult for PTFs who stay outside the universities.

**Academic Calendar and Timetable:** The academic calendar and timetable of the course also vary from one university to another. While online education may save commuting time, adjustment of various class schedules due to national holidays is also a problem for part-time faculty members even before the pandemic.

# 4 Experience of Multi-platform Problems

Problems of multiple platforms for PTFs who conduct online IGE classes were recognized through teaching during the COVID-19 pandemic, and this study points out and addresses the issue. However, we do not have enough evidence (e.g. survey results) on the issue. In this section, we would like to share author experiences.

## 4.1 Background of Identity Management of PTFs

Kita, the first author of this paper, had served as director-general of the Institute for Information Management and Communication (IIMC), the central ICT organization of Kyoto University for more than four years until the end of 2020.

In Kyoto University, SIS uses its original accounts while LMS and other information systems use unified campus accounts. For students and FTFs, these two accounts are well linked via the portal sites, and information on SIS such as course rosters are automatically fed to LMS; hence usability of these systems was good. However, in the renewal of employment, PTFs' employer numbers are alter every year, thus from the SIS, PTFs cannot create course sites on the LMS for the classes they teach themselves. Furthermore, the SIS accounts were issued to all PTFs for registration of syllabus and grades, but the unified campus accounts were issued upon their request, a limited number of PTFs used the LMS before the pandemic.

Under such conditions, the IIMC faced a very heavy workload in issuing new accounts to PTFs, setting up course sites on LMS taught by them manually, giving instruction of usage of LMS and other linked services in in-person or online seminars to PTF, and answering many questions on LMS and web-conferencing services from PTF at the help desk. This problem was reported by Kita [6] from a viewpoint of system administration. Kinoshita [7] who taught language classes as a PTF reported the issue from PFT's point of view.

## 4.2 Notes on Work as a PTF for IGE

Takahashi, the second author of this paper, has taught IGE at several universities as a PTF as well as at Kokugakuin University as an FTF. She experienced dif-
ficulties as a PTF in applications for the LMS account, the LMS authentication processes, and campus networks differing across universities.

The followings are notes on the points to work as a PTF:

- Usually, prior to the start of the PTF contract, the university issues an account to enter the syllabus of the course held in the next academic year. However, with such an account, only the syllabus system may be accessible, and an access to LMS may be unavailable. Hence he/she has to obtain a permission to access LMS. Even in the case of contract being extended, an access to LMS may be restricted temporally at the end of the academic year, and he/she must confirm it.

- For communication from the university, he/she has to register his/her mail address or has to use a mail address with the domain name of the university issued by the institution. In the latter case, he/she also has to confirm the mail system of the account, availability of Web-mail, and set forwarding to the address for daily use. During the pandemic, there was a case that a new mail account was issued to introduce new online services in a university.

- At the beginning of a new semester, a PTF has to confirm the availability of his/her account at the LMS, check the course roster, the way of sending announcements to course students, communicate with particular students, prepare course contents, and uploading of them to LMS. In the case of renewal of contract, he/she has to check availability of course contents used during the previous year. If cleared, the same procedure was to be followed for the first year. In LMS operation, available functions and resources for PTFs may differ from those of FTFs. If students can use the same functions and resources as the FTFs, they cannot be explained by the PTFs in their classes.

- IGE classes are held in campus computer laboratories with PC terminals. PTFs have to confirm the way of logging into the terminals. A login account may be different from the LMS account. Depending on universities, other than the use of the same ID with the LMS, there are various login ways such as the use of e-mail address for a login account, use of special account for computer laboratories, log in with electronic ID cards read by a card reader of the terminal etc.

If a PTF is employed by another university as an FTF and has experience working as a PFT as well, he/she can ask or check the environment and necessary procedures in advance. However, if he/she works only as PTFs of several universities, preparation of classes may lead to anxiety.

As an actual case, Takahashi experienced the following in a university: This university introduced a portal web site that had the function of LMS. The e-mail address is used for logging into it, while the faculty ID number was used before. The login procedure of the PC terminal for the instructor is different from that of the PC terminal for student use. Different mail systems are used for faculty members (Microsoft) and students (Google). The cloud storage used by FTFs is not available for PTSs, and hence the PTFs cannot explain such services to students as same as the FTFs.
## 4.3 Organizational Aspect of Computer Laboratories

Chubachi, the third author of this paper, was an FTF in four universities and a PTF in two, and served as an instructor for IGE classes that use university computer laboratories. He points out the importance of recognizing organizational structure that manages computer laboratories as a PTF or an FTF newly joined to a university. A new staff had to check the relationship of the department of educational affairs and that for information systems. In the teaching of IGE classes, we have to use computer laboratories and have to confirm the specification of PC terminals, e-mail addresses of the universities, authentication systems, university portal sites, and LMSs. To learn these things, faculty members have to know the departments managing these systems and their operational information.

In many Japanese universities, the departments of educational affairs do not pay much attention to activities held in classes, and hence they may not offer an adequate environment for each class. Even IGE classes, computer laboratory may not be assigned unless the instructor requires. If such courses are also held in the previous year, usually the same room is assigned, but for newly open courses, the instructor has to pay attention to room assignment. Depending on universities, different departments manage computer laboratories. If computer laboratories are managed by the department for information systems, the instructor has to submit an application for using a room, while other procedures are taken at other departments. If communication between two departments is poor, this can lead to problems.

For example, Chubachi encountered various issues in computer laboratories. There was a case when the available software on PC terminals was different in each room, and classes were assigned to the room that did not have the necessary software. Another case was that an update of software versions or replacement of PC terminals were held without notification, and hence course materials had to be revised after the classes commencement. When a teacher starts working in universities as an FTF or PTF for the first time, the start of courses becomes difficult without obtaining relating information in advance, knowing the relationship of departments in charge of the matter. Thus, for the success of IGE courses, knowing the relationship of the organization and services necessary for the class is a key issue.

# 5 Proposal of a Common IGE Platform

This section proposes the construction of a common platform for IGE to solve the multi-platform problems discussed above. It is expected that this common platform can improve the quality of IGE teaching as well as solve the aforesaid problems.

The common platform consists of two key components: an identity management system and a learning management system. See Fig. 2.
<figure><img src="image_5.png" /><figcaption>Fig. 2. Proposal of a Common Platform for IGE</figcaption></figure>

## 5.1 Identity Management of Part-Time Faculty Members

As for the authentication among Japanese universities, the Academic Access Management Federation in Japan (GakuNin) formed in 2009 connects identity (IdP) and service providers (SP), and many universities and companies join this activity as IdP or SP [8]. With GakuNin, various services of SP can be used with the ID provided by IdP.

By introducing an identity management system that works as an identity provider of an authentication federation, and if LMS's of universities having classes join the federation as service providers, instructors can log in to various LMSs of universities where they teach using the same accounts.

This identity management system will also work as a platform for instructors of IGE to join original platform activities such as training opportunities, sharing good practices, and collaboration projects for development of curriculum and IGE learning material.

## 5.2 LMS for IGE

The other key component is LMS as a unified teaching environment of IGE across universities. In the concept of the Next Generation Digital Learning Environment by EDUCAUSE [9], the LMS works as a hub that connects various educational services. It can be implemented using LTI [10], a standard proposed by IMS Global for connecting an LMS to various services. With this, instructors can teach their courses in a unified environment that can be accessed via the LMS of each university they teach. Connecting various services from LMSs via LTI has already been widely experienced by universities, and administrative workload at the university side is quite light.
This kind of architecture is also considered in the project of MEXCBT of the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science, and Technology, Japan [5]. It is trying to construct a nationwide learning system for school education with learning portals (a kind of LMS) that host each school and MEXCBT, a centralized computer-based testing system connected from the learning portals via LTI.

The unified LMS for IGE not only provides a unified environment for teaching but also works for efficient dissemination of learning materials, tests, and questions for CBT, support of instructors by the community such as GE in IPSJ. For example, there is a learning material developed by a community of IGE instructors, and it is widely used in IGE [11]. Furthermore, by obtaining adequate permission on learning records stored in this LMS, it can be used for the evidence-based improvement of teaching.

## 5.3 Qualification of Instructors

Furthermore, the unified environment for IGE will provide the instructors with training opportunities and qualifications as well. Activity records such as qualification as well as taught courses can be exported to electronic CV such as ORCID [12], a global ID system for researchers.

## 5.4 Management Issues on the Common Platform

So as to achieve the proposed concept, we also think about the management of the platform as well as technological issues, that is, an institution that runs the platform, and ways to cover its cost.

A similar situation is also observed in several subjects taught in general education in universities. Classes are taken by many students, but universities face difficulties to have a sufficient number of FTFs to teach such classes. Hence, many PTFs are required to teach such classes. Foreign language classes are a typical example. The proposed common platform may also encourage the education of such classes.

# 6 Conclusion

In this study, the authors discussed problems of multiple-platform in the online teaching of informatics in general education (IGE) in Japanese universities. The nation-wide survey shows IGE depends largely on part-time faculty members (PTFs), and during the pandemic, they seemed to face problems of multiple platforms used by universities both in technological and administrative aspects. While there is still no statistical evidence, the authors pointed out the problems by sharing their experiences. Furthermore, they also propose a concept of a common platform for IGE considering recent trends of technologies for teaching. This common platform is designed to improve the issues experienced and the quality of teaching. To confirm the feasibility of this proposal will be the subject of future study.
**Acknowledgements.** Discussion of the problems of multiple-platform was based on the discussion in the Symposium “Future Informatics Education for University Students” 2021. The authors sincerely express their gratitude to the GE committee of the Information Processing Society of Japan, SIG-ITE of the Academic eXchange for Information Environment and Strategy (AXIES), the cosponsored organizations of the symposium, and its participants.

## References

1. Kakeshita, T., Takahashi, N., Mika Ohtsuki, M.: Survey and analysis of computing education at Japanese universities: informatics in general education. Olympiads Inform. **13**, 81–98 (2019)

2. Kita, H.: “Petagogy” for future: education of informatics in multiplatform era—a report of symposium “future informatics education for university students” 2021. Mag. Inf. Process. Soc. Jpn. **63**(10), 568–571 (2022). (in Japanese)

3. Jyoho-Shori-Kyouiku-Linkai (Education Committee), Information Processing Society of Japan. https://www.ipsj.or.jp/annai/committee/education/index.html. Accessed 17 Jan 2022. (in Japanese)

4. Jyoho-shori-gakkai Ippan-jyoho-kyouiku-Linkai (GE Committee of IPSJ) ed.: Ippan-Jyoho-Kyoiku. Ohmsha, Tokyo (2020). (in Japanese)

5. Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology: GIGA School KOUSOU NO JITSUGEN. https://www.mext.go.jp/aMenu/other/index_00001.htm. Accessed 20 Jan 2022. (in Japanese)

6. Kita, H.: Jyugyou no online-ka to hijyoukin-koushi - Kyoto Daigaku no jireikara. https://edx.nii.ac.jp/lecture/20200731-07. Accessed 21 Jan 2022. (in Japanese)

7. Kinoshita, Y.: Zenki no enkaku-jyugou no genba to sono kadai—Hijyoukin-koushi no baai. https://edx.nii.ac.jp/lecture/20200821-05. Accessed 21 Jan 2022. (in Japanese)

8. About GakuNin. https://www.gakunin.jp/en. Accessed 20 Feb 2022

9. Brown, M.: The NGDLE: We Are the Architects (2017). https://er.educause.edu/articles/2017/7/the-ngdle-we-are-the-architects

10. IMS Global: Learning Tools Interoperability. https://www.imsglobal.org/activity/learning-tools-interoperability. Accessed 20 Jan 2022

11. JYOHO-RINRI Digital Video. https://axes.jp/report/video/. Accessed 20 Jan 2022. (in Japanese)

12. ORCID. https://orcid.org/. Accessed 20 Jan 2022