Sustainability of Digital Transformation (DX), Institutional Research (IR), and Information and Communication Technology (ICT) in Higher Education Based on Eduinformatics

Amid the transition from Society 4.0 to Society 5.0, the role of Institutional Research (IR) in higher education is evolving. We have proposed an interdisciplinary field named "Eduinformatics," which integrates education and informatics, offering fresh insights into data-driven educational strategies. In this study, we further introduce "IR Philosophy" as a novel approach to bridge the gap between the theoretical and practical aspects of IR. By examining the current state of IR in Japanese universities, we emphasize the significance of technical skills and the importance of understanding the broader educational context, termed "contextual knowledge." Our findings suggest that while technical proficiency is crucial, a profound understanding of the broader educational context, referred to as "issue knowledge," is equally vital. Furthermore, as we move into the era of Society 5.0, our research underscores the need for a more integrated approach to IR, emphasizing its pivotal role in shaping the future of education.

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Proposing a New Field: Institutional Research (IR) Philosophy based on Eduinformatics

Takamatsu,

Tion,

Bannaka

et al. 2024

“…As disruptive changes, digital transformation (DX) has been drawn a lot of attention to higher education institutions. However, DX or similar disruptive changes have not been well considered in IR, except some papers, such as [1]. In this section, we first take a look at definitions of DX and then some research about disruptive changes.…”

Section: Related Workmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…However, we need some information, including some results, about the process in order to evaluate it. Therefore, it is intrinsically difficult for inductive 1 approaches to evaluate disruptive changes beforehand. Here, approaches in IR are basically inductive, which derives a general model from observed data.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

A Theoretical Framework for Disruptive Changes Based on Information Dissemination

Ikeda,

Qian,

Nawata

2023

Due to the recent pandemic and the rapid progress of ICT, higher education institutions have been undergoing rapid changes, such as digital transformation. Therefore IR-related sections must support it and evaluate progresses of such disruptive changes. In case of a disruptive change, it is important to evaluate it beforehand since it can be too costly and its impact can be serious. However, it is intrinsically difficult to deal with such changes because we need some data, which is available after some progress. In this paper, we propose a framework to evaluate such disruptive changes, defining information dissemination. In this framework, our daily behaviors are defined as a theory and a new theory with a different premise creates a disruption. With this framework, we deductively derive some findings, which are not obvious from existing approaches. So we can conclude that the proposed framework is fruitful. These findings include that information dissemination is derived to create disruptive changes and dissemination can develop a successive cascade. In addition, the proposed model can also explain why resistance to transformation is unavoidable. The main contribution of this paper is to show a deductive approach, which is not popular in IR, is effective to evaluate such disruptive changes.

“…We reported the importance of edu-informatics with a specific usage example and developed new informatics analytical methods to solve educational issues [13][14] [15]. Moreover, we proposed new analysis methods called "feasibility-sustainability analytics (FSA)" to improve sustainability in institutional research (IR) [17] and reported some practical findings of FSA [18].…”

Section: Eduinformaticsmentioning

confidence: 99%

A Two-Step Approach for Syllabus Development and Evaluation using Machine Learning such as Doc2Vec based on Eduinformatics

ITOH,

Ito,

Matsumoto

et al. 2023

This study examines the adoption of rubrics in grading criteria at Japanese universities. Between 2016 and 2020, the percentage of universities explicitly stating grading criteria in syllabi increased to 98.1%. However, the use of rubrics for all subjects at the undergraduate level only rose from 2.9% to 6.1%, indicating challenges in rubric adoption. A two-step approach was proposed to address faculty members' difficulties in creating rubrics: 1) introducing a reference rubric (R2) based on common learning outcomes in diploma policies, and 2) having faculty members create rubrics for their individual learning outcomes. Successful implementation of this approach was reported at a university where rubrics were introduced for all subjects. Furthermore, the study evaluated the comparison between R2 and syllabi rubrics using doc2vec, pre-trained by Wikipedia text data, and cosine similarity to assess the degree of optimization for educational goals of each departments.