Introduction and management of inter-campus learning assistant system for distributed campus

Kyushu University consists of several major campuses. Most students are required to go to a couple of campuses to take classes for the first one-and-a-half or two years. Teachers are also expected to go to another campus to teach students from their home campus. The time wasted traveling one-and-a-half hours between campuses is significant for teachers. Using a video-conference system (such as Polycom) seemed to be a good solution; however, the set up procedure before the lecture is time-consuming and troublesome. It is difficult for most teachers to set up such systems. Furthermore, operating the remotecontrol while teaching a class is difficult. Teachers want an easier and more intuitive interface to give a smooth lecture. In response to these requirements, we introduced the Inter Campus Learning Assistant System (iClass) into each distributed campus. The system uses an ordinary video-conference system that is customized for our purpose. The startup processes are automated and operation is performed intuitively with a touch panel. Teachers can operate cameras and other peripherals easily and with little training. We expect to promote the lectures among campuses, making the delivery of lectures between Japan and foreign countries such as our branch office in California easier with iClass. In this paper, we describe the detail, results, and effectiveness of our iClass. Furthermore, we will discuss further applications of such devices.