Name: The 20-Year Journey of Open Education in Japan: Moving from Institutional Initiatives Toward a Nation-Wide Collaborative Ecosystem
Start: 2026-10-09T11:05:00-0400
End: 2026-10-09T11:35:00-0400

All sessions are available online except round tables, special activities, and workshops.

The 20-Year Journey of Open Education in Japan: Moving from Institutional Initiatives Toward a Nation-Wide Collaborative Ecosystem

Friday October 9, 2026 11:05am - 11:35am EDT

2 Room M

ID: 33739

Open Education (OE) in Japan has reached a significant turning point, marking 20 years since the launch of OpenCourseWare (OCW) initiatives. This session provides a comprehensive overview of the Japanese OE movement, focusing on the collaborative efforts led by member universities of Open Education Japan (OEJ). By reflecting on twenty years of history, this presentation analyzes the ongoing journey of Japanese higher education institutions as they strive to move beyond individual institutional repositories toward a nationwide collaborative ecosystem.The journey began in 2005 with the formation of the Japan OCW Consortium (JOCW), involving early adopters such as the University of Tokyo, Kyoto University, Osaka University, Keio University, Tokyo Institute of Technology, and Nagoya University, alongside Hokkaido University. This initial phase focused on the "openness" of high-quality lecture materials through institutional OCW platforms. The second phase of this retrospective examines the expansion into Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs). Since the establishment of JMOOC in 2013, OEJ member universities have played a pivotal role in diversifying open content, leveraging their unique academic strengths to contribute to a collective pool of open knowledge. The session will also detail OEJ's collaborative governance model. Unlike top-down mandates, Japan’s OE movement has been characterized by a bottom-up, community-driven approach. This network has facilitated the exchange of usable knowledge and best practices, serving as a foundation for the collaborative framework that the community is currently endeavoring to solidify. A distinctive highlight of this inter-university synergy is the development of the cross-university OCW search system (https://search.oejapan.org). This platform was established to bridge fragmented institutional efforts, allowing users to search across the diverse OCW repositories of multiple universities from a single entry point. By aggregating metadata and providing a unified search interface, this initiative serves as a tangible example of how Japanese institutions are collaborating to improve the discoverability and accessibility of open resources, moving closer to a shared national infrastructure. Finally, the presentation addresses future prospects and the persistent hurdles to achieving a fully integrated ecosystem. While significant progress has been made through systems such as the cross-university portal, the transition to a resilient, nationwide network remains a work in progress. Key topics include the impact of generative AI, the shift toward Open Educational Practices (OEP), and the necessary policy shifts to sustain this collaborative vision.

Speakers

Katsusuke Shigeta

Professor, Information Inititative Center / Hokkaido University

Dr. Katsusuke Shigeta is a Professor at the Information Initiative Center and Director of the Data-Driven Education Initiative Center at Hokkaido University. He serves as the President of Open Education Japan (OEJ) and was previously a member of the Board of Directors for Open Education... Read More →

Takaya Yamazato

Professor, Institute of Liberal Arts and Sciences, Nagoya University

Dr. Takaya Yamazato is a Professor and Deputy Director at the Institute of Liberal Arts and Sciences, Nagoya University, Japan. He earned his Ph.D. in Electrical Engineering from Keio University in 1993. He joined Nagoya University as an Assistant Professor in 1993 and later served... Read More →

Friday October 9, 2026 11:05am - 11:35am EDT
2 Room M MIT Samberg Conference Center, 50 Memorial Drive, Cambridge MA 02139 USA

Presentation

Speaker Modality Hybrid
Track Hacking the Open Ecosystem and Praxis for the Public Good

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OEGlobal 2026

Katsusuke Shigeta

Takaya Yamazato

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OEGlobal 2026

Katsusuke Shigeta

Takaya Yamazato

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