Measuring the learning effectiveness of Kampo Medicine (KM) education is challenging. The aim of this study was to develop a web-based test to measure the learning effectiveness of KM education among medical students (MSs). We used an open-source Moodle platform to test 30 multiple-choice questions classified into 8-type fields (eight basic concepts of KM) including “qi-blood-fluid” and “five-element” theories, on 117 fourth-year MSs. The mean (±standard deviation [SD]) score on the web-based test was 30.2 ± 11.9 (/100). The correct answer rate ranged from 17% to 36%. A pattern-based portfolio enabled these rates to be individualized in terms of KM proficiency. MSs with scores higher (n = 19) or lower (n = 14) than mean ± 1SD were defined as high or low achievers, respectively. Cluster analysis using the correct answer rates for the 8-type field questions revealed clear divisions between high and low achievers. Interestingly, each high achiever had a different proficiency pattern. In contrast, three major clusters were evident among low achievers, all of whom responded with a low percentage of or no correct answers. In addition, a combination of three questions accurately classified high and low achievers. These findings suggest that our web-based test allows individual quantitative assessment of the learning effectiveness of KM education among MSs.

This paper attempts to discover the distinguishing characteristics of Japanese national universities, and to determine the strengths of each university by analyzing their midterm goals. We propose a method that extracts words from documents, analyzes them, and visualizes the features of documents on the basis of these extracted words. We developed two systems, a cross-tabulation search engine and a keyword map search engine, for the midterm goal document. In these systems, the user both decides the viewpoint to be compared and analyzed and inputs the search word, so that the relation of the words related to the search word is visualized, and a novel comparison analysis method among university organizations is realized. In this paper, we report the outline of these systems and the results of the verification of the two systems, using "regional contribution" as an example.

This preliminary study visualizes the characteristics of the medium-term plan of ten universities that were transferred from private to public ones. The analysis tool is KH Coder version 3. Drawing 2-D maps in three ways: Co-occurrence network, Correspondence analysis, Self-organizing map make it to interpret the whole picture.

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