The Global Electronic Classroom:
Bridging the World with WebCT
･Mr. Toshiyuki Sakabe, Dohto University
149 Nakanosawa, Kitahirohsimashi, Hokkaido, 061-1196, Japan
E-mail: tsakabe@dohto.ac.jp
･Dr. Robert Clougherty
Institute for Technological Scholarship, Tennessee Tech University
E-mail: RClougherty@tntech.edu
･Ms. Jessica Holt, Institute for Technological Scholarship, Tennessee Tech University
E-mail: jholt21@tntech.edu
Abstract:
In the Fall of 2002, Tennessee Tech University, in the US, and Dohto University, in
Japan, solidified their sister school relationship by offering their first joint online course using WebCT.
The Course was entitled International Professional Communication, was team taught by a professor at
TTU and a professor at Dohto, and the students were evenly split with half being from Dohto, and half
being from TTU. The course made extensive use of WebCT communication tools as students were to
create fictional companies and create the appropriate documents working as a global team.
Keyword:
international, global, online, communication, e-Learning
グローバル・エレクトロニック・クラスルーム：
世界の掛け橋となる WebCT
・坂部俊行，道都大学，〒061-1196 北海道北広島市中の沢 149 番地
E-mail: tsakabe@dohto.ac.jp
・ロバート・クロハティ，テネシー州立工科大学技術教育センター
E-mail: RClougherty@tntech.edu
・ジェシカ・ホルト，テネシー州立工科大学技術教育センター
E-mail: jholt21@tntech.edu
あらまし：
2002 年秋学期，テネシー州立工科大学と道都大学が WebCT を利用した共同
オンライン科目「国際ビジネス・コミュニケーション」を開講した。当科目は，両大学から
講師 1 名づつの 2 名がチーム講義をするという形をとった。学生 6 名づつ 12 名が履修し，
バーチャル会社の設立，ビジネスにおける様々な正式文書の作成などの課題を WebCT コミ
ュニケーション・ツールを使って行った。
キーワード： international, global, online, communication, e-Learning
Tennessee Tech University is a
university with over 9,000 students located in
Cookeville, TN which has faculties of
Agriculture and Human Ecology, Arts and
Sciences, Business, Education, Engineering, and
Nursing. It offers baccalaureate, masters, and
doctoral degrees.
Dohto University is a
university with about 2,000 students located in
Hokkaido, Japan, which has faculties of Social
Welfare, Fine Arts, and Management. It offers
baccalaureate degree. While these two schools
are around the globe from one another, they
have sought to work collaboratively for the
benefit of the institutions their faculties and their
students since they first became sister schools in
1978.
In the initial relationship, the schools
used all of the resources and tools at their
disposal: the two schools arranged joint visits,
student exchanges, and all other practices
normally developed in a sister school
relationship. In 2001, when Dr. Robert Bell
became President of Tennessee Tech, one of his
objectives was to better the relationship between
TTU and Dohto. In 1999, TTU had begun a
major initiative under the leadership of Dr.
Marvin Barker, Provost of TTU, to develop
online programs using WebCT. The success of
this is reflected in the fact that TTU has received
numerous recognitions for their achievements in
eLearning, including becoming a WebCT
Institute. In combining these initiatives, Dr.
Bell began a correspondence with Chancellor
Sakurai of Dohto on the possibility of using
WebCT as a tool to allow the two schools to use
technology to further develop the relationship.
The decision was made to offer a joint
course in WebCT. The course would have one
instructor from each school, and the enrollment
would be split between the two schools. The
topic of the course was to be International
Professional Communication. The course would
seek to develop scenarios in which students
would be asked to create business documents
that would succeed in both Japan and the US,
and the documents should be created working as
an international team as if they were working for
a contemporary global corporation.
It was the belief of both institutions that
there were numerous advantages to this
initiative. First, as the current global economy
values the ability to work as part of an
international team over the Internet, we believed
that providing such an experience for students
would be invaluable to the students in their
professional lives. Second, we believed that the
topic of the course would allow students both to
study culture and the importance of cross
cultural communication and understanding and
to actually put those lessons into practice in their
work groups. Third, we believed that such
courses provided wonderful opportunities for
students to enrich their experience in making
new friends from other institutions. What we
learned was that there were even more benefits
which we had yet to realize.
With the idea in place, we next had to
focus on specific actions to put the course into
place. An initial target date of Fall 2002 was
established, and the first issue which we faced
was training and support. TTU already a
complete WebCT training system in place;
however, we would need to support faculty and
students at Dohto to make sure that appropriate
support existed – especially as no one at Dohto
had used WebCT prior to this time. We also
could not use our TTU telephone helpdesk as
the expense would have been excessive for
faculty and students at Dohto. We decided that
we would deal with the issue in two directions.
We initially planned to train the faculty
member over the course of the summer. This
was done through the use of shared designer
access in a WebCT course which initially
contained only the chat tool. The faculty were
able to discuss the course inside chat, and then
add and develop the tools together. They spent
2 hours each week – the time chose was 7-9pm,
Monday, in Tennessee, which was 9-11am
Tuesday in Hokkaido. It was in this stage that
we encountered the first unexpected advantage –
faculty development. The faculty working
together on the course were also able to
exchange ideas about their academic areas as
well as learning from one another about the
academic traditions and practices in their
respective countries. This was a starting point
of many research opportunities not least of
which is this paper.
To deal with the support issue over the
course of the semester, a graduate student from
TTU was sent to Dohto for the duration of the
course to provide on site support. The expense
for this was shared by the two schools. It was
also a first in that this is the first time that TTU
had supported a graduate student abroad, and the
first time that Dohto had hosted a graduate
student from the US. While at Dohto, the
graduate student, Josh Mills, assisted with two
English classes and helped students in the
course with their English.
Our first challenge was to line up the
course as both schools were on a different
semester schedule. We decided to start on the
latest start date and finish on the earliest finish
date. To accomplish this, we used Dohto’s
starting date for the class and TTU’s completion
date for the course. When the class started, as it
was the first online class for most students, the
students were gathered together on their
respective campuses and oriented to the course.
At this point, the students were also
introduced to Jessica Holt, who was the other
Graduate Assistant in the course.
Her
responsibility was to oversee student
communication and coordinate student projects.
Students were informed at the first meeting that
this would be a project based class. Each
student was assigned to a project group, each
group had three students from each school.
Each group was to create a fictional company,
one which would have operations in both the US
Second, the students were given the
WebCT e-mail tool:
and Japan. Each group was assigned a category
into which their fictional company had to fit.
These categories were: cultural artifacts,
relationships, and lifestyles. Throughout the
course, they would create documents relating to
this company.
The first document they were to create
was a resume. Along with this, they were to
introduce themselves to the class, and from the
resumes and introductions, they were to assume
various roles within these companies. In order
to expedite the process, the students were given
three specific WebCT Tools.
First, the
discussion tool was established as the primary
means of communication:
Third, they were given the chat tool for
synchronous communication. However, the
time difference caused minimal usage of this
tool:
Both e-mail and discussion, however, received
significant usage and were the mainstay of the
course.
The second unit of the course focused
on how to write e-mails in a professional
situation. The third focused on the impact of
culture, and the remainder of the course was
devoted to creating documents specific to the
group companies including project management
manuals and company web sites. In total, the
course was an enormous success.
There are, however, some difficulties
we came across in putting this course together
that any attempt at replication must develop a
plan to deal with. These difficulties included:
• Differences in technical ability. This
was true across the course and not
simply on a school level. The students
in the course from both schools had a
range of technical abilities with
computers.
• Differences in levels of technology
access. TTU students have access to
•
•
computer labs 24 hours a day, seven
days a week. Students at Dohto were
limited in their access to labs other than
class times. We are still working on
addressing this issue, and that is part of
the reason for our current visit.
Differences in language levels. Part of
this was student expectation; and this
has not been an issue in the 2nd course
we are offering.
Differences in academic scheduling,
grading scales, etc. Each of these
issues was worked out ahead of time.
Since the first course offering, we have been
continuing to work collaboratively to
expand the venture. The one addition we
have made is that in addition to WebCT, we
are also using the Elluminate vClass – a
Voice Over IP software which allows
synchronous meetings.
Currently, we are offering a second course
this semester (Spring 2004) on Global
Business Management which is also team
taught by a professor at TTU and a
professor at Dohto with students from each
university. It is our plan to continue to offer
more and more courses to provide the
greatest possible advantages to our students.