Suzuki, K. (2013). University faculty development in Japanese context. An invited keynote address at theInternational Conference on Faculty/Educational Development 2013, October 30-November 1, 2013,
Qingdao, China.

University Faculty Development in Japanese Context
Katsuaki Suzuki
Graduate School of Instructional Systems
Kumamoto University, JAPANksuzuki@kumamoto-u.ac.jp
This paper describes trends and issues of university faculty development (FD) in Japan. In
order to assure quality of university education, the Japanese government made FD a required
activity in all higher education institutions in 2008. The most frequent FD activities include
student questionnaire to evaluate university courses, observations of lectures among faculty
members with a discussion session, and seminars and workshops on various active learning
methodologies. As we go into universalization of higher education, more systematic effort has
been needed to accommodate less qualified university students, while maintaining a highstandard as the diploma policy for graduation. Learning technology must be integrated into
university education, as well as open resources that the network technology have madeavailable for students, in order to improve and maintain the quality of our university education.
An ICT utilization model will be proposed to differentiate roles of e-learning and e-portfolio
systems to create a university with application emphasis over basic knowledge transmission.
Keywords: faculty development, learning technology, e-learning, e-portfolio, Japan

Introduction
It is said that the word "Faculty Development" first appeared in a Japanese academic journal in 1985
(Murakami & Yamada, 2012). University seminar house initiated a series of capacity building seminar for
university faculty in January 19901, with a title of "Practices of FD Programs," and published "Faculty
Development Handbook: Toward better educational methodologies in universities” in 1991. Ministry of
Education of Japan (MEXT) published Education White Paper FY1995 with a special emphasis in“Remaking Universities: Continuing Reform of Higher Education,” in which FD was mentioned as animportant way to enhance quality of teaching in universities2. It said as follows:
Faculty development plays an extremely important role in activities designed to
improve universities' educational functions. Japanese universities, however, have justbegun to make organized efforts to improve class content and teaching methods.
Efforts in this area are still not as widespread as the above-mentioned measuresrelating to curriculum structures and the compilation and publication of syllabuses.
As of fiscal 1993, slightly more than 10% of universities had established faculty study
groups.
Note: from http://www.mext.go.jp/b_menu/hakusho/html/hpae199501/hpae199501_2_016.html

12

http://www.seminarhouse.or.jp/seminar_kaisaiichiran/ichiran_dkkp.html
http://www.mext.go.jp/b_menu/hakusho/html/hpae199501/index.html

Suzuki, K. (2013). University faculty development in Japanese context. An invited keynote address at theInternational Conference on Faculty/Educational Development 2013, October 30-November 1, 2013, Qingdao,
China.

Class evaluation questionnaire by students preceded any other systematic efforts of FD in Japan. The
continuing revision and improvement of class content and teaching methods rely on self-monitoring andself-evaluation by teachers and on feedback based on the results of those efforts. As of fiscal 1994, 138
universities (approximately 20% of all universities) were implementing class evaluation by students. This
represents a dramatic increase from fiscal 1992, when only 38 universities had such a system. The specificitems for evaluation differ from university to university, but in most cases students are asked to assess theextent to which classes meet their expectations, the efforts of teachers to make classes systematic and easy
to understand, the use of teaching materials, and the characteristics of teachers, such as enthusiasm anddiction.
Inoshita (2008) analyzed a total of 219 papers presented at Kyoto University Conference on Higher
Education between 2002 and 2007 based on an analytical framework of research on faculty development.
In 2002, there were only 11 presentations. The recent trend, however, has been consistent at 30–48 papers
per year in the period 2003–2007. Among these, more than half (126 papers) can be categorized into thefollowing 10 groups, representing major trends in FD: (1) Class evaluation by students and improvement ofteaching; (2) Utilization of Information and communication technology; (3) Specified area of study such as
intercultural communication, multicultural education, information sciences, medical education, social andpolitical sciences; (4) Open classes and analysis of the teaching process; (5) Methods of teaching andlearning; (6) Study of students’ and teachers’ roles and behaviors; (7) Improvement, enrichment, anddevelopment of teaching and curricula; (8) Facility management; (9) Trends in higher education outside
Japan; and (10) Theoretical analysis of faculty development.
On January 28, 2005, the Central Council for Education report "The Future of Higher Education in Japan"
was released. With a declining number of potential university applicants (prospective population of the
18-year-olds becoming less than the total capacity of all universities and junior colleges in Japan in 2007),interest in the quality of university education was aroused. While, as a whole, higher education diversifies,
it is necessary to further make clear the individuality and distinctiveness of each school in order toaccurately respond to the various needs of learners. Guaranteeing the quality of higher education in order toprotect learners and maintain international validity was regarded an important issue. Development offaculty capacity for good quality education for wider range of university students was of high priority. For
this reason, accurate operation of the approval system for establishing new departments and enhancementof the third-person evaluation system became necessary3.
Therefore, Article 25-3 of Standards for Establishing Universities (Organized Training for Improving
Educational Contents) has been changed in 2007 to require FD that “A university shall conduct organizedtraining and research for improving the contents and methodology used to give classes at said university4.”
The article was made effective from 2007 for all graduate programs, and from 2008 for all undergraduate
programs.

Current Practices of FD in Japan
Figure 1 shows that almost all universities are currently engaging in FD. 746 universities (99%) reported
34

http://www.mext.go.jp/english/highered/1303556.htm
http://www.mext.go.jp/component/english/__icsFiles/afieldfile/2011/06/20/1307397_1.pdf

Suzuki, K. (2013). University faculty development in Japanese context. An invited keynote address at theInternational Conference on Faculty/Educational Development 2013, October 30-November 1, 2013, Qingdao,
China.

that they engaged in FD in 2009. Figure 2 shows kinds of FD activities carried out. The most frequent FD
activities were to conduct workshops and seminars, while peer evaluation of lectures among faculty
members was the least popular activity5.

Universities Engaged in Faculty Development
2007

2008

2009

Figure 1: Numbers of Universities engaged in FD

Kinds of Activities in Faculty Development

Workshops
Mutual Classroom
Observation
Mutual Evaluationof Courses
Seminars to
improve educational
methodology
Case studies toimprove educational
methodology

Figure 2: Kinds of FD activities (2009)
The Japan Association for Educational Development in Higher Education (JAED)6 was established in
September 2009, based on the outcomes of the “Research on the Support for FD Program Construction andthe Development of FDer Capacity” conducted by the National Institute for Educational Policy Research(NIER). JAED, as a member of the International Consortium for Educational Development, aims tocontribute to the enhancement of quality of teaching and learning in higher education institutions in Japanthrough the activities related to higher education development, while strengthening the solidarity of higher
education developers. It also intends to improve the quality of higher education developers and enhancetheir professional capabilities backed up by academic research.
Kawashima (2010), who lead the research project by NIER and also the creation of JAED, felt redefinitionof the scope of FD was needed to expand its role: “We need to improve our skills and knowledge in 3 areas:
56

http://www.mext.go.jp/a_menu/koutou/daigaku/04052801/__icsFiles/afieldfile/2011/08/25/1310269_1.pdf
http://jaed.jp/jaedweb/?q=en/node/11

Suzuki, K. (2013). University faculty development in Japanese context. An invited keynote address at theInternational Conference on Faculty/Educational Development 2013, October 30-November 1, 2013, Qingdao,
China.

a micro-level, where individual instructors aim to improve their teaching skills; a middle-level, including
curriculum reform and management; and a macro-level concerned with organizational development. (p. 9)”
The FD Map and its utilization guideline were developed by the NIER research project as an FD support
tool in response to that need for a new definition of FD7. Specific activity areas defined by JAED also
represent the expanded view of FD as shown in Table 1.
Table 1: What is higher education development? (Specific activity area)
Teaching and
Learning
Development
Curriculum &ProgramDevelopment
Organizational
Development

Staff
Development
Teaching and
Learning
Portfolio
Development
Educational
Developmentwith ICT

to improve classes and teaching methods of individual teachers or a group of professors.
These efforts include mutual class visitations between teachers, open classes, classconsultation, development of teaching tips and utilization of class evaluation questionnaires.
to improve curriculum and educational programs provided at departments and faculties, etc.
These efforts include educational programs other than the regular curriculum. Specifically,
they are the creation of curriculum maps and curriculum trees, examination of the entire study
course of a bachelor program and its consistency, evaluation of curriculum and educational
programs and development of new programs, etc.
to enhance the structure and function of organizations responsible for education and toactivate the role of managerial officials and persons in charge. Specifically, these efforts
include the establishment and operation of various committees, examination of the entire
design of organizations, evaluation of organization structures, development andimplementation of training programs designed for managerial officials.
to improve the skills of faculty members of the departments at all levels of universities. These
efforts include the development and systematization of training programs designed forteaching assistants, university teachers, managerial officials, persons in charge of FD andclerical staff, and the implementation of various consultations.
to systematically produce educational improvements, making use of TP systems, where
teachers organize and use the records of educational achievements, and LP systems, wherestudents evaluate and use learning outcomes including learning processes. Specifically, these
efforts include the support for building structures to introduce TP and LP systems, creation ofguidelines to promote understanding of the portfolios, planning and operation of mentoringworkshops and training of mentors.
to educational development at individual class level such as class improvement by use ofclickers, support for education and students, establishment of basic educational infrastructure
systems related to educational capacity building and increase of the functionality of therelationship between existing systems. Specifically, these efforts include training programsfor developing skills to use ICT, support for education and students, development,
introduction and operation of information systems related to development of educational
capacity, training programs for such systems and planning of a grand design for
university-wide information systems.

Note: from JAED Website, http://jaed.jp/jaedweb/?q=en/node/26
Japan Private Universities FD Coalition Forum8 was established in 2008 with Ritsumeikan University’s
Institute for Teaching and Learning as representative managing institution. Its scope is to cover 22 middle
to large size private universities (3% of universities in Japan) that hold a total of 0.54 million students (20%of university students) to be accountable for the quality of private universities, which has such uniquechallenges as larger class sizes, heavy teaching load for faculty, diversity of students’ abilities andmotivation for learning, among others.
As of 2013, it offers a series of Practical FD Program for entering faculty members that combines 15
required and 18 optional on-demand lectures online (45 minutes each), 10 required and 5 optional

78

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http://www.fd-forum.org/fd-forum/

Suzuki, K. (2013). University faculty development in Japanese context. An invited keynote address at theInternational Conference on Faculty/Educational Development 2013, October 30-November 1, 2013, Qingdao,
China.

face-to-face workshops (2 hours each), and educational consultation sessions (dealing such issues as classplanning, implementation, and evaluation, communication with students, and other topics related to study
and education). A sample on-demand lecture in English9 and Course Guidebook in English10 are available
on its Website. Table 2 shows areas and instructional competencies assured by the Practical FD Program.
Table 2: Instructional Competencies Assured by the Practical FD Program
Instructional Competencies

Area
1.
Designingteaching

2.
Implementing
teaching

3. Testing andevaluatingteaching

4. Organize
and coordinate
the learning
environments
5.
Professionalisation
6. Policy

1-1. Understands general theories of teaching and learning.
1-2. Can design courses with an appreciation of how students learn.
1-3. Can design and plan learner-centered classes.
1-4. Can set goals necessary for learner-centered classes and formulate statements
appropriate for them.
1-5. Can design evaluation approaches and select evaluation methods appropriately forlearner-centered classes.
1-6. Can design and plan classes employing active learning methods.
2-1. Understands teaching and learning strategies and methods for conducting
learner-centered classes in the context of higher education.
2-2. Understands the features and applications of a range of learning support technologies,
and can use them in class.
2-3. Can modify and transform classes flexibly in accordance with learning developments.
2-4. Is motivated to operate classes in collaboration with students.
2-5. Actively applies research and practical processes and outcomes from one’s own
specialist ﬁeld in the classroom.
2-6. Can conduct classes employing active learning methods.
3-1. Understands how to evaluate educational effects in accordance with teaching andlearning strategies and methods.
3-2. Can undertake objective and rigorous evaluation of student performance.
3-3. Can provide effective feedback to students on the outcomes of evaluation of educational
effects.
3-4. Can reﬂect on one’s own classes and practices, and work to improve them.
3-5. Can evaluate classes employing active learning methods.
4-1. Can promote the formation of learning communities.
4-2. Can apply a range of media and tools to develop effective learning environments andlearning support.
4-3. Can develop tools and environments for learning support.
5-1. Appreciates and respects diversity among students.
5-2. Applies oneself to the design and ongoing development of one’s own career.
5-3. Works as a member of the university faculty group.
5-4. Applies oneself constantly to the assimilation of new knowledge concerning higher
education and teaching methodology
6-1. Understanding one’s own University’s educational policy.

Note: from Course Guidebook in English, p. 4. http://www.fd-forum.org/fd-forum/tpl/common/img/deta/fdp_guide_eng2010.pdf

Impact of Learning Technology and Open Educational Resources
e-learning
Distance education has officially been in existence in Japan since 1950. Correspondence programs withprint materials were the only alternative until the University of the Air (renamed in 2007 as the Open
University of Japan, OUJ) was established in 1985 as a dedicated national distance teaching university,
9

http://www.fd-forum.org/fd-forum/html/practice_lec_en.html

10

http://www.fd-forum.org/fd-forum/tpl/common/img/deta/fdp_guide_eng2010.pdf

Suzuki, K. (2013). University faculty development in Japanese context. An invited keynote address at theInternational Conference on Faculty/Educational Development 2013, October 30-November 1, 2013, Qingdao,
China.

using radio and TV broadcasts as the main means of delivery. OUJ offers around seven hundred courses a
year to its approximately eighty thousand students across various study fields.
Since 2002, governmental deregulation and technological advancement have led to the establishment of anumber of online programs and institutions (including for-profit). The Shinshu University’s Graduate
School of Science and Technology11, founded in 2002, was the first to offer a fully online option to its
master’s program. The Tokyo University of Career Development 12 was established in 2004 (butunfortunately had to close its door to new students from 2010), the University of Digital Content13 in 2005,
the Kenichi Ohmae Graduate School of Business14 in 2005, the Kumamoto University’s Graduate Schoolof Instructional Systems (GSIS) in 2006, the Cyber University15 in 2007, and the Business Breakthrough
University16 in 2010.
The Kumamoto University’s GSIS started to provide a fully online program in April 2006, becoming
Japan’s first graduate school to train e-learning specialists through e-learning (Suzuki, 2009). Although the
Kumamoto University, founded in 1887, is an on-campus university with about ten thousand students andone thousand academic staff across seven colleges and nine graduate schools, GSIS was created as its first
fully online program. It is one of the University President’s special projects to investigate the potential ofe-learning in higher education, and thus is of an experimental nature. As of April 2011, it has 60 degree
seeking (including 14 in the doctorate program) and 36 non-degree seeking students who are scatteredacross Japan. Most students work full-time in a corporate training or higher education sector. The
admission quota is controlled by the government at 15 per year for a master’s program and 3 per year for adoctorate program, with no limit in accepting non-degree seeking students.
GSIS offers four areas of study to train well-rounded e-learning professionals:Instructional design (ID);Information technology (IT);Instructional management (IM); andIntellectual property (IP).

GSIS’s master’s program, which is equivalent to any other regular on-campus master’s program, requires
two years of study and a minimum of 30 credit hours of courses. To complete the master’s program,students take 12 required courses and four or more from a list of 16 elective courses. GSIS added a fully
online doctoral program in April 2008 (Suzuki, 2012a).
While e-learning in the form of fully online programs and courses has been slowly increasing in Japan,
most of the uses of learning technology have been in the forms of blended approaches. That is to say,learning technology has been used, not to create an online program/course, but to enhance existing
on-campus programs/courses, while maintaining weekly face-to-face classes. According to a national
11

http://cai1.cs.shinshu-u.ac.jp/xoops/
http://www.lec.ac.jp/english/13
http://www.dhw.ac.jp/en/1214

http://www.ohmae.ac.jp/gmba/
http://www.cyber-u.ac.jp/
16
http://bbt.ac/15

Suzuki, K. (2013). University faculty development in Japanese context. An invited keynote address at theInternational Conference on Faculty/Educational Development 2013, October 30-November 1, 2013, Qingdao,
China.

survey17, only 16% of Japanese universities had one or more fully online course(s). On the other hand, as
shown in Figure 3, the ratio of Japanese universities having one or more blended e-learning courses has
been around 30 - 40%. The same survey reported that only 40% of Japanese universities used learning
management system (LMS), which was lower than that of United Kingdom (almost 100%), USA (morethan 90%), or South Korea (70%).

National
PublicPrivate
Total

2005

2006

2007

2008

2009

2010

Figure 3: Japanese universities offering distance education courses using the Internet

JOCW
On May 13, 2005, the start-up of open courseware (OCW) activity in Japan was officially announced on
the joint press conference by presidents of six universities and also the establishment of Japan
Opencourseware Alliance (ex-JOCW, predecessor of the current JOCW) was declared. On April 20, 2006,
Japan Opencourseware Consortium (JOCW) has been established with the aim to assist and disseminate the
OCW activity, which is an open and a free publication of formal course materials of higher educationalorganizations, through mainly exchanging information among consortium members 18 . Kumamoto
University joined JOCW as the 26th universities in August 2011. Figure 4 shows increasing numbers ofcourses made available by JOCW, but the majority of the courses is written in Japanese.
When Kumamoto University joined JOCW, four courses had been made public on the official Website of
GSIS19 in both English and Japanese, by copying all the contents on the LMS to static html files. It can besaid that a duplicated course written in a static html is resemble to the original course on LMS, trying toimitate what you would see if you registered to the target course in the target term when the course wascompleted at the end of the term (Suzuki, et al, 2011).

17

http://www.mext.go.jp/a_menu/koutou/itaku/1307264.htm
http://www.jocw.jp/AboutJOCW.htm
19
http://www.gsis.kumamoto-u.ac.jp/en/opencourses/
18

Suzuki, K. (2013). University faculty development in Japanese context. An invited keynote address at theInternational Conference on Faculty/Educational Development 2013, October 30-November 1, 2013, Qingdao,
China.

Figure 4: Numbers of Courses published from all JOCW universities

The intents of opening these courses were different from a course to another. The first course was madeavailable for the publicity’s sake, because it is an introductory course in thesis writing, which introduces
what can be done if somebody would be enrolled in our Master’s program. The second and thirdcourses were made available for providing self-study opportunity for the students prior to the start of thegraduate program, because they deal with basic skills and knowledge of pedagogy and information
technology. The fourth course was made open when major renewal of the course was undertaken so that theolder version was to be archived as a historical reference.

From Japanese participation to MOOCs to JMOOC
Year 2012 marked the start of Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs) with Coursera, Udacity, and edX.
On February 22, 2013, the University of Tokyo announced to offer two courses in Coursera20, while on
May 21, 2013, Kyoto University joined edX21. On October 11, 2013, Japan Massive Open Online Courses(JMOOC) 22 has been established to offer open courses in Japanese, from April 2014. At first, 13
universities, including the University of Tokyo, Kyoto University, Waseda University, and Keio University,
are planning to offer various courses designed specifically to offer online, not video-recorded lectures
converted from existing on-campus courses. JMOOC aims at serving more than one million users within
three years, with an ultimate goal of “all Japanese universities will join JMOOC.”

Sandwich Model of ICT Utilization
Based on an international consultation project at the University of South Pacific, Suzuki & Nemoto (2011)
suggested an overall framework for promoting e-learning in a university. By expanding the framework, theSandwich Model of ICT Utilization was proposed (Suzuki, 2012b) as shown in Figure 5. The frameworkshows the use of e-portfolio on the top of the diagram, while e-learning system (LMS) on the bottom, topromote ICT utilization by a sandwich of the two ICT systems to be used at a higher education institution,
thus named as the Sandwich Model.
20

https://www.coursera.org/todai
https://www.edx.org/school/kyotoux/allcourses
22
http://www.jmooc.jp/english/
21

Suzuki, K. (2013). University faculty development in Japanese context. An invited keynote address at theInternational Conference on Faculty/Educational Development 2013, October 30-November 1, 2013, Qingdao,
China.

Figure 5: Sandwich Model of ICT Utilization(Note: translated from Suzuki, 2012b)
It is important to distinguish two kinds of outcomes of university learning: application skill and basic
knowledge. The former consists what will be showcased in an e-portfolio system as a student creates
unique artifacts as the results of university learning, whereas the later shows each student understanding ofbasic knowledge, which can be stored as learning log in an e-learning system (LMS). To accumulate each
student’s understanding of the basic knowledge, such functions of an LMS as automated scoring ofmultiple choice quizzes can be used to allow multiple challenges until basic knowledge acquisition has
been adequately shown. Once LMS can assess basic knowledge acquisition of each student at any given
time, there is no need to wait until the final examination to test all that the students remember from thecourse. Thus, the final examination is not included in the Sandwich Model. The basic knowledge is notsuitable to be showcased in the e-portfolio system, as they are the same across all the students; i.e., all thestudents result in the same answer if they understand the basic knowledge. The unique and original artifacts
that are produced as course assignments as the evidence of application skills should be showcased, insteadof the basic knowledge.
In order for a college or university to appeal good quality learning of its students, it is important to shiftknowledge transmission model of teaching to creation of unique and original artifacts at an applicationlevel. This has been historically done in the last year as taking a capstone course or as writing a graduation
thesis. However, the author recommend to start such emphasis to be in place from the earlier years, so thatthe students will have something original to put in the e-portfolio for their personal reflection ofself-regulated learning via consecutive projects with increasing difficulties and complexity as they progress.
It is the faculty’s challenge to come up with a series of projects, from easy one to be manageable forfreshmen, to more complex and challenging ones for more advanced students. In the series of projects,

Suzuki, K. (2013). University faculty development in Japanese context. An invited keynote address at theInternational Conference on Faculty/Educational Development 2013, October 30-November 1, 2013, Qingdao,
China.

more complex and more advanced knowledge should be introduced, just in time when they must be appliedin the projects at higher levels.
This will lead to a shift in curriculum from “basic knowledge first then application project at the end” to“series of projects (from easy ones to difficult ones) with just-in-time knowledge acquisition on a neededbasis,” where open education resources can be utilized at appropriate times. Lecture time can be converted
to projects, if basic knowledge acquisition will be done outside the class using LMS, before the lecture time,
as advocates of “flipped instruction” show benefits of such a method.
The Sandwich Model also shows institutional graduate attributes on the left, and disciplinary attributes on
the right, forming another sandwich vertically. Institutional graduate attributes, or diploma policy for aimed
competencies, are those skills and knowledge expected for all the graduates. On the other hands,
disciplinary attributes will be different among programs of study, reflecting on what is expected from theprofessional areas, such as civil engineering or nursing.
At the bottom of the Sandwich model, student learning support is included as a critical element in theuniversity learning environment. As diversity among students’ attitudes and basic academic abilities
increases with universalization of higher education, a systematic effort should be institutionalized toprovide help in learning skills and everyday study habits. Movement of learning commons to convert
library from storage of books to a common place to get help in learning or as a place for collaborative
learning is worth incorporating in establishing the student learning support. Student mentors for peer
tutoring is another important element in student learning support, as junior students learn better from a little
more advanced students, and senior students will benefit from teaching the junior students. Providing asystematic training to become skilled student tutors is critical for the student learning support, to form anofficial structured mechanism with professionally trained student learning support staffs.

Conclusion
This paper describes trends and issues of university faculty development (FD) in Japan. Assuring quality ofuniversity education is not an easy task, as ICT environment will bring changes in learning environmentthat should not be overlooked but utilized to benefit both faculty and students. Learning technology must be
integrated into university education, as well as open educational resources that the network technology
have made available for students, for which the author hopes the Sandwich Model of ICT Utilization to be
useful for creative thinkers and leaders of university education worldwide.

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China.

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