ActionPlan2012

Aiming to be a University of Excellencein Education
Responding to the Diverse Needs ofDiverse Students

The Open University of Japan Action Plan 2012

ActionPlan
2012This Action Plan presents the medium-term vision for the future of the Open
University of Japan (OUJ), so that faculty, staff, students, and other stakeholders will beable to share the vision. Action Plan 2012, the first plan to be formulated since I
became the President in May 2011, is intended to serve as a future vision for action
with a perspective extending several years to cover my term of office. While based onmy own conception, Action Plan 2012 was also developed through dialogue withfaculty, staff, and students. I see it as a guide for actions that our faculty and staff
should engage in, working together as one, in the time ahead.
In April 2013, OUJ will mark the 30th anniversary of its establishment. Japanand the world have undergone rapid change in these past three decades, and thesocial environment of OUJ has also experienced major changes. It will beextremely important for us to accurately perceive the present situation ofOUJ and, on that basis, to discern how to affirm our own raison d'etre.
The Open University of Japan

President Yoichi Okabe

I Basic Principles
OUJ is a distance education university where people canstudy mainly through television, radio, and the Internet. As
indicated by its name, it is a publicly open university that isaccessible to anybody who wishes to delve into higher
education.
OUJ was established in April 1983 as a distance education
university offering education mainly through television andradio, and over a quarter of the century since, we have been
producing large numbers of graduates with degrees or otherforms of recognition. The full transition to terrestrial digital
television broadcasting in 2006 as well as the initiation of BS
satellite digital broadcasting in 2011 has increased students’
access and has also been raising public recognition at large.
OUJ has been utilizing broadcast media to provide distanceeducation to students at any time and any location. Now, thecomplementary use of information and communication

technologies (ICT) that have advanced so rapidly in recentyears is making it possible to offer further enhanced
education. It is in the last several years that the necessity forthe use of ICT has come to be strongly recognized at OUJ
and has begun to act as a driving force for a change here. We
have instituted the System WAKABA administrative system
online, mid-term assignment submission system online,
and streaming video of many television lecture programs
online. Now we have finally reached the stage where thetechnological infrastructure for teaching and learning is
coming into place.
Considering these advances in technology, Action Plan
2012 sets forth two master plans and ten specific actionplans as directions that should be pursued and tasks thatshould be achieved. These are presented as follows.

Aiming to be a University of Excellencein Education
Responding to the Diverse Needs ofDiverse Students

放送大学
THE OPEN UNIVERSITY
OF JAPAN

II Two Master Plans
1. Aiming to be a University of Excellencein Education
This means that the basic direction that OUJ should
pursue in the future is to become a university of excellence ineducation. This is our fundamental strategy to make OUJ
distinct among the multitude of universities in Japan. To be aunique and distinct university in its own way means tobecome a university of excellence in education that stands on
the solid research carried out by individual faculty members
while bringing the concerns of education to the fore.
Speaking of “openness,” there are two kinds of openness
at OUJ. One signifies the Open Education aspect of theuniversity in which higher education is accessible to all
without imposing any entrance examination requirement.
This should not need any particular explanation. The other isthe openness in terms of Open Educational Resources(OER), the provision and utilization of instructional
materials at no charge, which has been attracting worldwide
attention in recent years. OUJ makes all broadcast
instructional materials publicly available for free as they arebroadcast over public airwaves. In other words, we have
implemented OER from our inception as a university. This
makes OUJ a rare university in Japan. On these two points,
OUJ is always unique not only among Japanese universities
but also among those in the world. As we see it, however, ouraim to become a university of excellence in education will be
realized when we take these two kinds of openness still
further forward. We have a number of specific action plans
to that end, and they are presented in the following.

2. Responding to the Diverse Needs ofDiverse Students
The students of OUJ come from a wide range of age
groups as well as from diverse occupational and otherbackgrounds. Consequently, our students present extremely
diverse needs. A fundamental mission of OUJ is to create
ways of meeting those diverse needs as much as possible. As
one method of creating those ways, we have placed many
Study Centers throughout Japan, but we need to further
improve the functionality of those centers. The Study
Centers are valuable facilities where students and faculty
members can meet face to face, and are considered as crucial
pillars that uphold education at OUJ.
On the other hand, considering that there are students
who live on isolated islands and other locations far from any
Study Center, and disabled students who are unable to easily
get to a Study Center, there are also certain respects in which
improvement of the Study Centers alone will be insufficient.
Even students who are close to a Study Center may notbridge the communication gap that the Study Centers alone
cannot make up for, by means of e-mail, discussion boards,
and other such systems. This will make it possible to resolve
the loneliness felt by students who cannot make their way toa Study Center often enough to interact with other students.

spend their time at the Study Center when they are taking
broadcast courses. Instead, they have no choice but to study
in relative isolation and view and listen to broadcast
programs. We will therefore have to improve our virtual
campus for student interaction. By using the Internet, we canIII Ten Specific Action Plans
1. Curriculum Improvement
We will comprehensively reexamine the curricula ofLiberal Arts at OUJ, not just for broadcast courses but also
for face-to-face schooling courses. This will include themeasures taken at OUJ in recent years to add subjects
related to the acquisition of certificates, to institute newcourses, and to increase the number of credits that can betransferred to and from other universities. We will have thekind of breadth appropriate to a Faculty of Liberal Arts andreconstruct our curricula to enable systematic, cumulative
learning for students.
We will give our basic courses titles that are in line withthe frameworks of knowledge in each field so that they will
be more readily understandable. Continuing thoseframeworks will maintain the stability of our curricula
while at the same time clarifying the positioning ofspecialized and applied courses. We will also use
face-to-face schooling classes for presentations, theses, andother kinds of training that are not easy to implement inbroadcast classes. The overall curricula will be madeappropriate for a Faculty of Liberal Arts, and arrangements
will be made to increase the choice in selecting courses, aswell. In other words, we will explore modes of curricula thatmake learning easier for students and teaching more
fulfilling for faculty members, and we will achieve them.

2. Improvement of Instructional Materials
We will strive to further improve the quality of broadcast
and print instructional materials.
As for broadcast instructional materials, the instructors
and production staff will closely collaborate to establish
methods for producing instructional materials that furtherenhance the students' understanding, and will build asystem for producing high-quality broadcast instructionalmaterials. We will also provide an environment that still
further enhances the ease of learning with broadcast
instruction materials by increasing the use of the Internet
along with digital broadcasting.

We will also reexamine the process of making printmaterials, from the stage of writing the manuscript to thatof printing, proofing, and distributing to the students. We
will make it possible to create and to distribute printmaterials that are of better quality, both in their form
and in their content. For example, by allowing ample
time for proofreading, we will minimize errors. We willalso make an arrangement so that third party advice canbe obtained as part of faculty development (FD) during theproofreading stage. The aim of this arrangement is to create
instructional materials that take the student perspective
into consideration. We will also create a system for making
some print materials available on the Web and take othersuch measures for the purpose of giving sufficient
information about the content of the courses to students
before they enroll in those courses.

3. Enhancement of Learning Support
through Digital Media
Efforts to assure interactivity in teaching and learning tocomplement students' self-directed learning of broadcast
instructional materials and print materials so far consist
primarily of correspondence tutorials and questionnaires.
We will use the Internet and other technologies to further
enhance teaching and learning and make those tutorials
and questionnaires more interactive. While we makearrangements to support autonomous learning by students,
we will also take steps to provide more finely tailoredguidance and to lighten the increased burden on faculty
members by introducing a teaching assistant (TA) system.
We will also improve supplementary instructional
materials and efficiently unify the various different learning
support methods. As matters stand at present, there aremany students who do not make use of information andcommunication technology (ICT). We will address thisissue by providing face-to-face schooling and broadcast
courses as well as volunteer workshops run by students
themselves as ways to provide introductory ICT literacy
education.

4. Exploration and Utilization of
New Educational Methods
At most universities, the improvement of teaching islargely a matter of individual faculty members' efforts. AtOUJ, however, it is relatively easy and effective to achievegroup improvement. This is because OUJ’ s lecture contents
exist in the form of video and audio recordings, and these
are not just created by full-time faculty members, but also
by numerous adjunct part-time faculty members who areexperts in their respective fields. Due to this fact, a great
diversity of educational methods accumulates at OUJ.
Alongside with the accumulation of past instructional
materials and objects, various educational methods are also
accumulated, and succeeding materials are prepared in thatlight. Therefore, increasingly improved educational methods
can be achieved as a result. This kind of feedback loop isachieved by more than just accumulation of materials andmethods. The use of enhanced materials and methods will
be promoted by making them structured and visible andwill be utilized for faculty development (FD).

5. Quality Assurance and Enhancement ofthe Graduate School
We will establish the doctoral program that OUJ has
sought for so long, taking the diverse and abundant
knowledge in the Faculty of Liberal Arts as the base for
implementing a highly selective doctoral program of a kindpossible only at OUJ.
At the same time, we will also improve the curricula forthe master's programs, enabling students to effectively
articulate their own thinking, to acquire the technical skills
for conducting research, and to systematically master theprocess up to writing their own theses. Guidance inconducting research will not be limited to just between faculty
members and students. As the educational outcome will beheightened by interaction with diverse people, we will create
an environment centered on seminars where students andalumni can communicate and interact among themselves.

6. Provision of Flexible Opportunities for
Active Use of Characteristics as an OpenUniversity
OUJ students tend to be working adults and take longer tocomplete their studies. It is also necessary, therefore, to devise
ways of sustaining their motivation to study. OUJ has alreadyadopted an Expert certification system that has become amodel for universities throughout Japan. In addition to that,
however, we will motivate students to continue studying by

methods such as providing special OUJ certification of credits
to students who have already acquired one-half the numberof credits needed to obtain a degree. OUJ presently accepts
students who do not have a high school diploma. For theseand other such students who are not yet adequately prepared
for a university education, we will develop instructional
materials for freshmen education as well as preparatory
education, and other supplementary materials for tutoringand make-up study that utilize the Internet.
We will also take steps so that OUJ students who areworking or raising children, and who are ill or disabled will
not be disadvantaged. We will, therefore, offer morning andevening hour classes for face-to-face schooling, provide
Braille support, place subtitles on television instructional
materials, and provide special assistance for final exams andface-to-face classes, including active use of the Internet andother finely tailored assistive services.

7. Expansion and Enhancement of
Study Center Functions
Considering the fact that Study Centers play the role ofuniversity campus for OUJ students, we will take steps tofurther enhance student life. We will move away from using
Study Centers simply for face-to-face classes and course
completion certification examinations, and utilize Study
Centers to increase opportunities for students of different
backgrounds and generations to interact. This will provide a
multiplier effect by which we aim to heighten the students'
motivation to pursue and complete their studies.
We will develop a new system for student consultation
about their studies. In order to satisfy the abundant
intellectual curiosity of our students, we will increase theiropportunities to consult with Study Center directors andvisiting instructors about their studies. When full-time faculty
members from the headquarters visit the Study Centers forface-to-face classes, we will also set up opportunities for
consultation about studies with them. We will further developa system whereby full-time faculty members from theheadquarters will go to the Study Centers to realize student
needs with regard to OUJ. A peer support mechanism will
also be developed so that OUJ students can help each otherwith their studies.
Even though these functional improvements are made to
the Study Centers, there will still be some students who areunable to visit a center frequently because they live on isolatedislands or other remote locations, or because of their work orother obligations. In order to bridge the communication gap
with students like these, we will work to develop a virtual
campus using communication tools on the Internet such associal networking services (SNS) and discussion boards on
the Learning Management System (LMS) .

ActionPlan
2012
8. Local Leader Development Support andLocal Community Contributions by
Study Centers
Large parts of the populations in local communities areaging, and regional societies are growing more diverse andmore sophisticated. These changes in communities andregions must be addressed, and we will position our Study
Centers as centers for lifetime learning in their communities.
We will plan face-to-face schooling courses, public lectures,study tours, and other activities from a broad perspective,
and we will provide support for extracurricular activities andother programs aimed at achieving collaboration with local
communities, so that the Study Centers can fulfill their roles
not just as places where we support learning, but as places
where members of local communities can feel at home.
We will also make the effort to support development ofleaders who will be able to engage in building prosperous,
livable communities where p eople with different
backgrounds can coexist. Using these and other means, wewill explore new roles for the OUJ Study Centers in an aging
society.

9. Enhancement of Library andInformation Services
We will maintain the breadth and depth of education atOUJ while also responding to diverse learning needs of ourstudents. For that purpose, the library plays a major role insupporting teaching and learning. We will proceed to expand
our home delivery services, to enable all types of applications
and requests to be placed online, to adopt reference services
at a distance, and to provide other library and information
services that are rooted in their users' needs. These efforts
will coordinate traditional bricks-and-mortar library services

with outreach services, moving toward development of asystem that supports learning by anyone at any time and at
any location.
We will also expand OUJ holdings of digital materials,
improve our search and retrieval tools, digitize necessary
information for study, and improve the environment foraccessibility. In general, we will upgrade our digital libraryfunctionality in order to contribute to the effective use oflibrary resources across the wide range of fields and subjects
needed by our students nationwide.

10. Promotion of Internationalization
Students are taking an increasing interest in international
matters. We will, therefore, join with open universities inother countries to seek mutual agreements in expanding
educational opportunities for their students and ours. To that
end, we will explore possibilities for joint development ortranslation of instructional materials. We will also respond tooverseas needs for training Japanese language teachers anddoing research on Japan by developing instruction materials
designed for international students before their arrival inJapan. By doing so, we will strive to actively disseminate OUJ
education and instructional materials and to make aninternational contribution.
Making international contributions to open universities
around the world is becoming a matter of great importance.
In 2012, we will host the annual conference of the Asian
Association of Open Universities (AAOU) at OUJ. As amember of the global community of open universities, wewill take active part in the International Council for Openand Distance Education (ICDE) and the AAOU, thus
heightening our international presence and contributing toimprovement of the open universities’ role in the world.

May, 2012The Open University of Japan
2-11, Wakaba, Mihama-ku, Chiba, 261-8586, Japan
Phone 043-276-5111 Fax 043-297-2784
http://www.ouj.ac.jp/