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Breaking distance barriers
SHUNJI MURAI |
| JICA started JICA NET Distance Education from 2004 in cooperation with JSPRS |
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JAPAN International Coorperation
Agency (JICA) initiated RS course
once a year since 1978FY with full
sponsorship to invite 10-15 trainees per
year from developing countries. JICA
expanded to mapping & surveying,
hydrographic survey, GIS etc. However
JICA has changed the policy to introduce
partially e-learning system in 2004 to
improve the cost-efficiency. The reason
is that the cost to invite a person from
a developing country used to be 10,000
US dollars per month in average.
JICA plans to expand JICA NET, a
telephone-line based communication
system to about 30 developing countries
to enable TV conferences between
Japan and developing countries.
They include Indonesia, Cambodia,
Thailand, Philippines, Vietnam,
Malaysia, Laos, China, Sri Lanka,
Pakistan, Bangladesh, Turkey, Jordan,
Palestine, Kenya, Argentine etc.
The objectives of JICA Distance Education are; |
- To supplement or replace “Face to
Face” training courses whichhad
been adopted by JICA in the past.
- To increase cost performance with
respect to number of trainees, high
quality lecture materials and lecturers.
- To promote advanced
education using IT.
- To support capacity building
in developing countries.
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JICA contracted with Japan Society of
Photogrammetry and Remote Sensing
(JSPRS) in 2003 that the fundamental
frame work should be proposed by
Technical Committee on Strategic Plan
for JICA NET Distance Education under
the chairmanship of Prof Shunji Murai
on remote sensing and GIS including
the mission and goals, modules and
contents, teaching methods etc. In 2003
FY, JSPRS prepared six CDs in total
with 3 CDs for RS and another 3 CDs
for GIS respectively including power
point teaching materials with video and
voice and English text for explanation.
JICA started JICA NET Distance
Education from 2004 FY in cooperation
with JSPRS, JICA Offices in developing
countries and a site facilitator representing
from each developing country. Until
now, eight rounds were implemented in
the first three year project from October
2004 to March 2007 and a round has
been just finished in the second three
year project starting from August 2007. |
| Problems of conventional
JICA training courses |
The conventional “face to face” teaching
style in a class would be the best if
the teacher and the teaching materials
were perfect. But this condition will
be difficult to acquire in many cases.
The following problems are recognized by the Technical Committee. |
- It is too expensive for JICA to
continue to invite trainees from
developing countries to Japan. The
cost as mentioned before will be
about 10,000 US Dollars per person
per month, which makes about
200,000 US Dollars if JICA invites
10 trainees for two month course.
- There will be a limitation in term
of the number of trainees; say 10 to
15 trainees per year for a course.
- As there is also a limitation that
JICA can find Japanese resource
persons who can speak English fluently, some instructors prepared
poor teaching materials without
the aid of IT, which resulted in low
quality lectures without inspection.
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In order to overcome those problems,
JSPRS recommended JICA to prepare
high quality teaching materials and
select eminent lecturers or resource
persons, who can speak English well. |
| Goals of JICA distance
education on RS and GIS |
Realizing the requirements of
developing countries particularly
in Asia, JICA and JSPRS agreed to
set up the following two goals. |
- To promote capacity building for
human resource development to
support sustainable development
of natural resources and
environment using RS & GIS.
- To provide self learning materials
through e-learning to upgrade
the capability of applicability.
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The main target of trainees will be
governmental staffs, who are operating
RS and/or GIS on daily basis or are
going to introduce RS and GIS in
their technical projects. Teaching
faculty and researchers of universities
will be also accepted as trainees. |
| Basic design of a course |
- Power Point materials: 25-35 slides
per module for 11 modules in total.
The 12th module is a special module on application of RS or GIS which
is composed of 20 applications
respectively. Each module except
the 12th module will take about 30
minutes lecture with voice and video.
The lecture will be delivered at each
site using CD and LED projector.
The text of explanation in English
is distributed to each participant.
- After watching the power point
materials with voice and video, about
30 minutes will be given to Q&A
session through TV conference for
three or four developing countries. A
resource person should be responsible
for answering questions on site. Email
services will be also provided
in case when there are some more
questions which are not accepted at
TV conference due to time limitation.
- The contents of Q&A session
are recorded in writing materials
and distributed to the participants
afterward. Q&A session will be
supported by a facilitator at each
site, whose knowledge will be
high enough to bridge between the
resource person and participants.
- A course on a day will be three hours
and half which accommodate three
modules including Q&A sessions.
In consideration of time difference
between Japan and a developing
county, the time difference of six hours
in maximum will be the limitation
to accept the JICA NET Distance
Education. Those limited countries
include Kenya, Jordan, Turkey, etc.
- 12 modules each for RS and GIS can be
managed for four half days including
examination on the fourth day.
- Those who attended 75 % and more
the lectures and passed examination
with more than 60% completion
will be conferred Certificate of
Successful Completion in the
name of JICA and JSPRS.
- Three or four developing countries
are selected under the condition
that JICA local office is requested
by the developing country and a
facilitator can be assigned who will
call for participants and serve as
an assistant through all courses.
- The maximum number of each
country will be less than 40.
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| November 2007 |
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