eBook Technology Facilitating University Education During COVID-19: Japanese Experience

Rwitajit Majumdar; Brendan Flanagan; Hiroaki Ogata

doi:10.21432/cjlt28038

Authors

Rwitajit Majumdar LET Research Unit, Kyoto University
Brendan Flanagan Kyoto University
Hiroaki Ogata Kyoto University

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.21432/cjlt28038

Keywords:

e-Book, BookRoll, Learning Analytics, Higher Education, Online emergency teaching and learning, COVID-19

Abstract

UNESCO reported that 90% of students are affected in some way by COVID-19 pandemic. Like many countries, Japan too imposed emergency remote teaching and learning at both school and university level. In this study, we focus on a national university in Japan, and investigate how teaching and learning were facilitated during this pandemic period using an ebook platform, BookRoll, which was linked as an external tool to the university’s learning management system. Such an endeavor also reinforced the Japanese national thrust regarding explorations of e-book-based technologies and using Artificial Intelligence in education. Teachers could upload reading materials for instance their course notes and associate an audio of their lecture. While students who registered in their course accessed the learning materials, the system collected their interaction logs in a learning record store. Across the spring semesters from April - July 2020, BookRoll system collected nearly 1.5 million reading interaction logs from more than 6300 students across 243 courses in 6 domains. The analysis highlighted that during emergency remote teaching and learning BookRoll maintained a weekly average traffic above 1,900 learners creating more than 78,000 reading logs and teachers perceived it as useful for orchestrating their course.

Author Biographies

Rwitajit Majumdar, LET Research Unit, Kyoto University

Rwitajit Majumdar, Academic Center for Computing and Media Studies, Kyoto University, Yoshida-Nihonmatsu, Sakyo-ku, Kyoto 606-8501, Japan.

Brendan Flanagan, Kyoto University

Brendan Flanagan, Academic Center for Computing and Media Studies, Kyoto University, Yoshida-Nihonmatsu, Sakyo-ku, Kyoto 606-8501, Japan.

Hiroaki Ogata, Kyoto University

Hiroaki Ogata, Academic Center for Computing and Media Studies, Kyoto University, Yoshida-Nihonmatsu, Sakyo-ku, Kyoto 606-8501, Japan.

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