Supported by a policy priorities subsidy for Building the Core in Faculty Development (the 2008 academic year) and a special subsidy for education and research for Building a Mutual Faculty Development Core (the 2009-2012 academic year), the Center worked over a period of five years to establish a world-class Mutual Faculty Development Core. The aim of this project was to respond to the challenges facing higher education institutions, including enhancement of university education in the era of globalization and many under-enrolled universities and the moves toward statutory enshrinement of faculty development (FD) obligations.

In March, 2010, the Center was accredited by the Minister of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology as an educational joint-use center (Mutual Faculty Development Core), and undertook activities in this capacity from 2010 to the 2014 academic year. Based on the theoretical and practical outcomes of previous activities, we pursued the development of networks for FD and teaching enhancement across four levels: within the university, regionally, nationally, and internationally.

From the 2015 academic year, after the Core’s activities had come to an end, the Center embarked on a university functional strengthening project titled Consolidation of the Support Base for Evidence-Based Educational Reform and Internationalization of Education Using ICT (Information and Communication Technology) (the 2015-2019 academic year), and has been working on more multi-faceted, emergent approaches to teaching reform and enhancement through international joint research and university-industry joint research projects centered on MOOC.

This project involves the design, development, operation, promotion, and evaluation of lectures, content of teaching materials, and digital teaching materials for Massive Open Online Courses (MOOC), OpenCourseWare (OCW), and course/learning management systems (CMS/LMS), with a view to achieving the globalization of university education and strengthening of educational capacity. Based on data including electronic portfolios on usage and learning obtained through these activities, the Center builds support systems to enable effective, efficient, and sustainable enhancement of teaching methods and materials, and disseminates findings and insights on educational innovation at Kyoto University not only within the university itself but to other universities and wider society both within and beyond Japan. Specifically, the following activities will be pursued.

(1) Enhancement of support system

The Center builds and enhances support system by strengthening the functions of each of the three teams in the Division for Educational Media Research and Development (design/development, operation/promotion/propagation, analysis/evaluation) and building inter-team collaboration. Tools and methods for the analysis of learning data are developed to conduct formative evaluations.

(2) Establishment and development of base for the advancement of assessment (organizations/student surveys/systems)

To build a base for the advancement of assessment university-wide, the Center conducts development activities centered on (1) building organizational structures (Educational Assessment Office in April 2016), (2) developing assessment of learning outcomes (student surveys), and (3) developing systems to render assessment more visible (Kyodai Student Profile).

(3) Design, development, and evaluation of teaching content

The Center designs, develops, operates, ad evaluates teaching content in MOOC (edX, etc.) and OCW, and analyze and evaluate the learning data gathered therefrom. Furthermore, the Division for Educational Media Research and Development supports course development and evaluation for instructors using CMS/LMS.

(4) Sharing of teaching enhancements and innovations

The Center develops support resources and provide support services (workshops, TA training) for FD and enhancement of teaching and learning. Outcomes of teaching innovation produced during the academic year are disseminated and shared through a CSU (Create-Share-(Re)Use) cycle.

In this joint research project with Fujitsu, the Center makes use of course learning records, teaching material access records, and other learning data accumulated in various learning support systems both within and beyond Kyoto University in order to develop more effective teaching methods and promote self-directed learning by students.

The project analyzes learning data as evidence to establish how learning outcomes are connected to the teaching methods and curricula used by instructors to date, and the learning behaviors of students. The results of this analysis will also be used to develop new teaching methods and new approaches to supporting students’ self-directed learning, as well as the ICT platforms to enable them. The ultimate goals of the project are to raise the effectiveness of Kyoto University’s tradition of self-directed learning and to serve society by developing new and improved approaches to teaching and learning that can be used both in universities and throughout people’s lives.

Project overview

特色ある大学教育支援プログラム
「相互研修型FDの組織化による教育改善」（2004年度〜2007年度）
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政策課題対応経費
「大学教員教育研修のためのモデル拠点形成」（2008年度）

特別教育研究経費
「大学教員教育研修のための相互研修型FD拠点形成」（2009年度〜2012年度）
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教育関係共同利用拠点
「相互研修型FD共同利用拠点」（2010年度〜2014年度）
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Project on Transition from School to Working / Social Life (10-year Transition Project) (from the 2013 to 2018 academic year)