By Ken Y-N ( March 2, 2007 at 21:03)
· Filed under Polls, Society
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goo Research recently published the results of a survey they conducted into the matter of university lectures being made publicly available, or OpenCourseWare to use the term coined to describe this phemonenom, pioneered in the USA by MIT’s OpenCourseWare project. In Japan there is the Japan Opencourseware Consortium, JOCW, based at Keio University, who have their own OpenCourseWare, including a small English section.
Demographics
The fieldwork was conducted between the 13th and 19th of December last year, with 1,050 people from their monitor group successfully completing a private internet-based questionnaire. The sample was split 50:50 male and female, 19.8% in their teens, 20.1% in their twenties, 19.5% in their thirties, 20.2% in their forties, and 20.4% aged fifty or older. Educationally, 6.1% had only completed middle school (although some of the teenage sample may not have finished high school yet), 26.8% graduated from high school, 8.8% vocational schools, 1.6% 高専 college (this type of college is seems to be a variant of vocational schooling?), 11.3% junior (two-year) college, 26.2% university arts course, 13.1% university science, 1.6% university medical or pharmacy, 3.4% post-graduate or business schools, 0.5% overseas university or post-graduate, and 0.6% other.
Research results
Q1: What do you think are the benefits to society from universities making their lectures public? (Sample size=1,050, multiple answer)
| Universities will become more open |
59.6% |
| Can compare details of courses of universities |
44.6% |
| Raise awareness about universities in society |
42.6% |
| Will promote life-long learning |
41.1% |
| Univeristies will share information |
39.7% |
| Can learn about many aspects of the one field |
36.2% |
| Will encourage competition amongst universities |
30.4% |
| Can use for revision |
27.5% |
| Will raise Japan’s education level |
24.6% |
| Will serve to encourage scholarship |
16.4% |
| Other |
0.7% |
| No benefits from it |
2.1% |
Q2: How do you rate the initiatives to publish university lecture contents on the internet? (Sample size=1,050)
| Highly rate it |
13.7% |
| Rate it |
65.7% |
| Don’t really rate it |
7.3% |
| Cannot rate it at all |
0.7% |
| Don’t know |
12.6% |
Q3: Do you intend to use sites where you can view various universities’s lecture contents? (Sample size=1,050)
| Really want to use them |
23.3% |
| Want to use them |
60.2% |
| Don’t really want to use them (to Q9) |
13.3% |
| Don’t want to use them at all (to Q9) |
3.1% |
Q4: Why do you intend to use these sites? (Sample size=877, multiple answer)
| For my cultural education or out of interest in topics |
68.3% |
| As additional material for personal study |
40.0% |
| Curiousity |
37.9% |
| To gain qualifications or boost my career |
38.1% |
| I’ve got a subject I want to study |
25.1% |
| To revise topics I’ve studied before |
21.9% |
| Other |
1.4% |
Q5: What sort of lectures do you want to take? (Sample size=877, multiple answer)
| Lectures directly related to obtaining qualifications |
55.2% |
| Lectures from famous universities’ fields of speciality |
48.1% |
| Noted lecturer’s lectures |
47.9% |
| Lectures from my alba mater |
15.6% |
| Lectures from univerisities I’m thinking of attending |
13.1% |
| Other |
3.7% |
Q6: Which university’s lectures do you most want to see? (Sample size=598, free answer)
I’m not really sure why only 598 people answered this question – perhaps the rest had no particular favourites?
Q7: Why did you select the university you chose in Q6? (Sample size=877, multiple answer)
| Because it’s famous |
41.9% |
| Because it seems interesting |
34.2% |
| Because it’s a hard-to-enter university |
25.4% |
| Because it’s a highly-rated university |
14.3% |
| Because I wanted to attend |
14.0% |
| Because friends or relatives have attended or are attending |
9.4% |
| Because it’s my alma mater |
8.8% |
| Because I’m definitely thinking of applying to enter that university |
3.4% |
| Other |
11.3% |
Back up to 877 respondents here – was there a mistake in the sample size for Q6?
Q8: What lecture materials would you want to be available? (Sample size=877, multiple answer)
| Lecture notes, reference material |
68.5% |
| Lecture transcript |
31.0% |
| Lecture sound recording |
26.6% |
| Lecture video recording |
56.7% |
| Communication tools for others using the same OpenCourseWare |
18.7% |
| Other |
0.8% |
Q9: What should be the scope of the universities that open up their lecture materials? (Sample size=1,050)
| Just well-known public and private universities |
17.2% |
| As many public universities as possible |
14.2% |
| As many private universities as possible |
3.4% |
| As many public and private universities as possible |
64.8% |
| Other |
0.4% |
Q9: What do you think is the more important point regarding using OpenCourseWare? (Sample size=1,050)
| Interesting lecture themes |
22.5% |
| Easy-to-understand lectures |
27.2% |
| Rich selection of courses |
19.3% |
| Availability of audio or video of lectures |
9.8% |
| Lots of universities participating |
7.3% |
| Can buy text books on the High Street |
5.3% |
| Can ask questions to the lecturers |
3.4% |
| Highly-topical research fields |
2.2% |
| Well-known lecturers |
1.1% |
| Can communicate with others using the same OpenCourseWare |
1.1% |
| Other |
0.7% |
Read more on: goo research,
jocw,
opencourseware
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