To be distributed at An International Education Symposium "Developing International Exchanges in the Post-Cold War World" Greater New York Chapter of the Fulbright Association Saturday, May 15, 1993 by Takeshi Utsumi To be distributed at The First European Fulbright Alumni Convention Brussels, Belgium May 14 to 16, 1993 by Harold C. LyonTakeshi Utsumi, Ph.D. President, Global University of the U.S.A. (GU/USA) A Divisional Activity of GLOSAS/USA Association (GLObal Systems Analysis and Simulation Association in the U.S.A.) 43-23 Colden Street, Flushing, NY 11355-3998, U.S.A. Tel: 718-939-0928; EIES: 492 SprintMail: TUTSUMI/GU.USA/ASSOCIATES.TNET Internet: utsumi@columbia.edu
Harold C. Lyon, Jr., Ph.D. Guest Fulbright Professor of Medical Informatics Institut fuer Medizinische Informations-verarbeitung, Biometrie und Epidemiologie (IBE) Institute for Medical Informatics, Biometry, Ludwig-Maximilians-Universitaet Epidemiology (IBE) Marchioninistrasse 15 8000 Muenchen 70, Germany Tel: +49-89-7095-4491 FAX: +49-89-701000 Internet: Harold.C.Lyon@Dartmouth.edu
Russian students will use the U.S.-Russia EDES to access courses offered by member schools of GU/USA, without coming to the U.S. or requiring their American instructors to travel to Russia. The students will be able to converse with American instructors and classmates at a distance, using such devices as audio, voice-mail, electronic mail, fax and slow-scan TV through a free of charge narrow band channel of INTELSAT's Project ACCESS. The plan will include the lease of a broad band (video) channel on INTELSAT satellites in subsequent years, thus permitting Russian students to receive American satellite courses directly at their homes. American (and later other nations') students will have equal opportunity to receive courses from universities and outstanding academicians in Russia.
Currently, over 75 prominent schools and organizations contacted GU/USA to indicate their interest in this project. Some have already confirmed their participation. Apart from schools such as Agricultural Satellite Corporation, Brown University, Dartmouth College, George Washington University, National Technological University, University of Hawaii, University of Maryland or University of Tennessee, GU/USA has also received expressions of interest from potential corporate sponsors such as IBM, Sun Microsystems, DEC, US Sprint, INTELSAT and the World Bank. Our Russian partner AIE has over 20 school members in Russia. GLOSAS/USA has also received inquiries and proposals to join this project from Australia, Canada, Croatia, England, Finland, Germany, Hong Kong, Hungary, Israel, Italy, Sweden, Ukraine, and a number of countries in central and eastern Europe, making this an international project to help Russia and, later, other ex-communist countries in Europe.
Once in place, the U.S.-Russia EDES will later become the Russian Electronic University, part of Global (electronic) University founded by GLOSAS/USA.
Improving and expanding education are essential ingredients of any national development policy. Countries look to the future's well educated generations as the best way to improve their overall social and economic standing. National educational programmes mainly rely on conventional or formal education methods with traditional classroom contact, which are often expensive, and may not be suitable for segments of the population, particular- ly in industries at rural area that have no easy access to conventional schools or which must combine studies and work.
For these reasons, electronic distance education is a rapidly expanding field nowadays. Quality education can be provided to large number of students in almost any location at varying distances from conventional educational centers without having to leave homeland and workplace, because of constraints on time, resources, or available options. Yet these experiences can include high levels of interaction and feedback amongst students and instructors via various telecommunication media.
Electronic distance education is a powerful tool to help educate Russians in the working of the "missing culture of market economy," as reaching large numbers of persons who seek training of both degree-oriented and non-degree formal education in such areas as macroeconomics, management, marketing, accounting, privatization, small business, entrepreneurship, joint ventures, real estate, or banking, etc. This will then lead to changes in consciousness of self and society that are central development of a market economy and culture.
Distance education system in Russia has a long history of successful training of millions of people by correspondence distance education. Russians are familiar with distance education, and they trust it to give them training for specific jobs and general knowledge. A major strength of distance educa- tion in Russia is the technological potential to use computer technologies. The combined use of e-mail and satellite can accomplish a great deal for lecturing and demonstrations.
Russians are now eager to apply distance education via various telecom- munication media to reform their education system. Our Russian colleagues are now initiating two projects; (1) one for international -- firstly between Moscow and the U.S. and later with other countries; (2) the other for domestic to reach students in remote locations who have little or no access to conven- tional schools -- which may become similar to the renowned Chinese TV Univer- sity (established some 8 years ago, and now having three million students throughout China) which was established with the use of free INTELSAT channels under Project SHARE (a predecessor of Project ACCESS).
GU intends to promote innovation and economy in pedagogical and techno- logical development by providing electronic distance education models that are adequate to the needs and economic and technological capacities of participat- ing institutions. GU will distribute education from all the world's best sources to all students who crave knowledge, wherever they are, so as to enlarge and expand the present exchange of courses -- "electronic distance education" which now exists on five continents -- into a worldwide educational system that can provide a specially tailored educational program for each individual, bringing to his or her home an array of resources that can empower individuals and bring new wealth to the Third World also. The goal of GU is to empower under-served people of the Third World by giving them access to the educational excellence available at the institutions of the more developed.
By participating in GU, institutions that currently are limited to one country will be able to extend their services to learning centers and learners in regions where there may be a shortage both of trained faculty and of resources in technical and other fields of study. Students could access some of the world's finest resources with a far greater variety of educational philosophies, courses and instructional styles than they could ever encounter on single campus. The quality of education for those unable to attend conventional universities in disadvantaged countries will be greatly enhanced.
Experience shows that the expertise necessary to participate in peace games does not yet exist in many parts of the world. The GLOSAS/Global University Project can help educate future participants and promote peace by educational course exchanges and joint research.
To this end, over the past two decades, with considerable time, effort and a great deal of his own personal money, Utsumi played a major role in helping the U.S. data communication networks extend to other countries, parti- cularly to Japan. He successfully helped deregulate the Japanese telecommuni- cation policies for e-mail and computer conferencing in and from Japan. This enabled cost reduction of telecommunications -- down to one fifth to one eighth of previous cost in only a decade. Many countries have followed suit. The way has thus been paved for the global educational exchange with experien- tial learning via various telecommunication media in the service of better understanding of global issues.
Benefits brought by Utsumi's effort can be attested by the proliferated use of e-mail among academics at all levels. Many high schools and universi- ties in the U.S. can now communicate with Japanese counterparts at ease and inexpensively. Information and telecommunication are the very basic infra- structure of economic development, as attested by the rapid rise of Japan to the world economic power after the demonopolization and liberalization of telecommunication policies and industries in early 1980s. This also brought a transformation and upheaval of Japanese society from feudalistic (vertical) to democratic (horizontal).
GLOSAS/USA projects now concern more on substance and content of the information, i.e., knowledge and education, starting with the extension of American education to overseas countries with the use of advanced telecommuni- cation media. However, lack of capability to transmit graphics and video via the data communication networks prompted Utsumi to develop "Global Lecture Hall" (GLH) multipoint-to-multipoint multimedia interactive videoconference technology. GLOSAS/USA conducted many GLH videoconferences to demonstrate several inexpensive media in parallel to facilitate interactions amongst participants. Participants in several countries communicate and see each other while using methods affordable for the Third World countries.
These demonstrations linked universities together, ranging from the East Coast of the North America to Japan, the Republic of Korea, Saipan and Guam, from Fairbanks, Alaska, to Caracas, Venezuela, and to Brisbane, Australia. At the other event, it connected many universities in Turkey, Croatia, Lecce, Rome, Venice and Bari in Italy, Paris, etc., and Ohio, New Jersey, Florida, etc., in the North America. The largest GLHs held in October, 1992, brought together participants from Japan and New Zealand to Canada and the U.S., Finland, Italy, Spain, and the Netherlands -- using ten satellites (including two free video channels on INTELSAT satellites, thanks to an endorsement of the United Nations). Prominent panelists spoke about the necessity of global education for global citizenship on planet Earth.
These demonstrations have helped GLOSAS discover and compensate for the technical, regulatory, economic and marketing impediments to the creation of a GU. They also indicated that a GU is indeed feasible. They have hence aroused considerable interest from various organizations around the Pacific Rim, Latin America, and Europe. Associates in these countries are working on the establishment of Global/Pacific University (GPU), Global/Latin American University (GLAU), Global/European University (GEU).
AIE is a consortium of higher education institutions, companies, inter- national associations and foundations. Many fields of U.S. distance education courses can fulfil desires of those Russian schools through the U.S.-Russia EDES.
The enthusiasm of the Committee for Higher Education of the Russian Federation (who established AIE) for electronic distance education is a strength, as is Russia's strong technological base in electronics, informati- cs, and telecommunications. During the first stage of the project, the Information Systems Research Institute of Russia (ISRIR) will cooperate with AIE because this institute has all that is necessary for it, e.g., funding, staff, the desire to work on the project and the possibility to solve all the problems with Committee for Higher Education of the Russian Federation.
In his report at the Fourth Congress of the Russian Federation deputies, Vladimir Shorin, Chairman of the Supreme Soviet Committee on Science and Public Education, claims that science, public and especially higher education are being ruined. The question is that the intellectual potential of the nation can be irrevocably lost. The government has failed to develop a social program to keep certain actions from disintegrating science and education, or suppressing "sabotage" of decisions adopted earlier. The funds allocated for this sphere are so woefully inadequate that the threat of a catastrophe is very real.
On the other hand, Russia's human resources are its greatest asset. The labor force is almost entirely literate, and has learned how to learn. There is a wealth of highly trained technical and scientific manpower. But presentand future members of the labor force need to acquire new skills if they are to be effective in the new conditions and Russia is to reap the potential returns to its large existing investment in human capital. That means not only acquiring the "missing culture of the market" and new attitudes, but learning new management skills, new techniques of analysis to interpret and act upon market signals, and new ways to learn. Electronic distance education is the most cost-effective way to help provide these skills within or nearby the workplace (Keyssar and Knight, no date).
There appears to be agreement from all sides -- from economists, computer science experts, programmers, and administrators of higher education and electronic distance education programs -- that electronic distance education should be given the greatest possible support. All of leaders of distance education in Russia agree that use of e-mail and satellite will accelerate the education of students in the skills and knowledge needed for the economic and social reforms (Keyssar and Knight, no date).
The very important step on the way of Russian universities' integration into world educational system is to establish a U.S.-Russia EDES for gifted Russian students. This will give a possibility for them to have electronic distance courses via e-mail and other telecommunication media in English and will enable them to fulfil the whole curricula for B.S. and M.S degrees in such fields as management, economics, computer applications and so on.
GLOSAS/USA received a request from Ministry of Science, Higher Education and Technology Policy of the Russian Federation to jointly establish a U.S.- Russia Electronic Distance Education System (EDES) with the Association of International Education (AIE) in Russia, which Russian side will later become a Russian Electronic University as a part of Global (electronic) University. Ideas call for using underemployed computer programmers from the military- industrial complex to develop sophisticated training program to be placed at major electronic distance education centers (Keyssar and Knight, no date).
For example, the electronic linkage among participating institutions via e-mail through the U.S.-Russian EDES will enable Russian students receive courses from American universities without leaving Russia, and on the other hand, American instructors need not to be in Russia, thus saving considerable travel expenses and time. With telecommunications, more students and teachers of Russian and American institutions can also share discussions on education- al, research and cultural problems. In the future, American and international students will have the equal possibilities to receive courses from Russian universities and outstanding academicians.
The objective is to construct a comprehensive project design and plan for the development of the U.S.-Russia EDES in order to assist American and Russian distance education and higher education institutions in testing, adopting and institutionalizing innovations in the field of international electronic distance education.
A pilot phase of this project may start for selected gifted Russian students with strong motivation at AIE consortium member schools, with a hope of quick successful result of obtaining American educational credentials. Those students must have good knowledge of English. Such credentials will enable them to take a position in branches of foreign companies in Russia and abroad. Upon their return, they will bring valuable experience to Russia.
This project will not only help extending American educational courses to Russia (later the CIS and other neighboring countries), but also promote both countries' mutual collaboration and understanding and will lead to an important turning point in Russia and even global electronic distance educa- tion system.
The World Bank plans to support Russia's establishment of a media center and electronic distance education activities, including the activities of AIE (Keyssar and Knight, no date). The Bank has already been involved in training Russian trainers and in building up the institutional capacity of key Russian training institutions in the areas of market economics, macroeconomic manage- ment, project analysis, financial sector policy, bank management, and privat- ization. The Bank may also utilize the U.S.-Russia EDES for dissemination of bank policies and staff training, as well as for supplying the Russian public and educational institutions with educational materials required for their mastery of market economic principles.
GLOSAS/USA are now soliciting funds for this project from various phi- lanthropic foundations. GLOSAS/USA also plans to approach Japanese government and industry for major funding of this project under the auspices of Japan's Overseas Development Assistance (ODA) program. This project will then become a U.S.-Japan joint effort, contributing to electronic distance education, and research and development in Russia with; (1) educational excellence, (2) advanced technologies in electronic, computer, telecommunications, and information, and (3) financial support of both countries.
This project may then initiate a Japanese national project for financial support of global electronic distance education, not only in Russia and Eastern Europe, but also other regions such as Latin America and Africa, etc., in the future. In a sense, this will (a) reduce Japanese trade surplus and increase their image, (b) help finance students in those regions for their receiving American courses, and subsequently, (c) help American educators gain financial support.
Utsumi has an encouragement from Mr. Tadashi Kuranari, former Minister of Foreign Affairs, former Vice Minister of Finance and Utsumi's family friend, and other Japanese echelons for this movement. Mr. Kuranari and Late Commerce Secretary Baldrige once kindly helped Utsumi's effort of de-regulat- ing Japanese telecommunication policies for the use of e-mail, upon which GLOSAS/USA projects have been based.
Russian colleagues are now working to obtain President Yeltsin's endorsement to make this project as a Russian national project. Utsumi has then suggested that they ask Yeltsin appeal to the leaders of countries at the Economic Summit in Tokyo this summer for their technical and financial support.
The well-known Russians' theoretical and mathematical capabilities may be one of the reasons why Sun Microsystems in California has pioneered the U.S.-Russia cooperation in computer programming. Sun indicated their interest in participating in this project, as having Sun office in Moscow contacting our Russian colleagues. Digital Equipment Corporation (DEC) in Europe is now also evaluating how to cooperate in this project. Its Russian subsidiary is actively supporting the efforts of the Russian Committee on Higher Education to establish a distance learning program. In particular, DEC is providing a number of leading Russian universities with campus computing systems that will be used to establish distance learning nodes. For example, DEC is now working with the State University of New York (SUNY) and Moscow Institute of Electron- ics and Mathematics (MIEM) to establish a support center for distance educa- tion in Moscow.
The Hawaii Network for Education in Science and Technology (HI-NEST) of the University of Hawaii, which is working with the Russian Academy of Sciences in translating and pilot testing FAST in Russian, also indicated interest in joining this project. Brown University offered GLOSAS/USA their cooperation with a compressed digital video link with Space Research Institute (IKI) in Moscow, an important part of the Academy of Sciences, via Russian Intersputnik satellite. George Washington University want to extend their educational technology courses and to provide a focal point for all universi- ties and federal offices in the D.C. metro area. Dartmouth College want to utilize the U.S.-Russia EDES for their East-West Bridge to have Russian scientists access to up-to-date scientific journals and to have research collaboration. They also want to extend their multimedia medical informatics to Russia and other neighboring countries. And, there are many others, such as Agricultural Satellite Corporation (AG*SAT), American Graduate School of International Management, Atascadero Junior High School, East Carolina University, Iowa State University, National Technological University, Nova University, Rio Salado Community College, Towson State University, University of Tennessee, etc.
Fulbright Association Task Force on East Central Europe and the CIS is now planning to establish "Fulbright Corps," with support of Senator J. William Fulbright, Ambassador Richard Armitage and Mr. George Soros, to assist the transformations in eastern Europe in a number of ways including distance education. Their specific objectives are: identification of needs; promotion of dialogue within disciplines and from all countries; promotion of individual and local institutional contributions from Western Europe and Japanese Fulbright Associations and members, as well as from U.S. sources; building of an action agenda on creation of electronic communications and teaching networks, etc. They intend to cooperate with this U.S.-Russia EDES project and, the Fulbright Alumni being 150,000 strong worldwide, they could provide the core for the establishment of a global university. Utsumi is one of Fulbrighters.
Generous donations of services by major carriers enabled GLOSAS/USA to conduct almost a dozen "Global Lecture Hall" (GLH) (TM) videoconferences free of charge. Sprintnet/SprintMail, a U.S. commercial electronic mail service, now acknowledges Utsumi's previous effort of deregulating the Japanese telecommunication policies (mentioned above) which benefitted their business expansion. Their support greatly facilitated the internal functioning of GLOSAS/USA whose members, scattered around the world, used the superb facili- ties provided by Sprint for coordination and proposal, report and paper writing. We thank our supporters and invite potential sponsors to join this truly international consortium.
GLOSAS/USA has also received inquiries and proposals to join this project from Australia, Canada, Croatia, England, Finland, Germany, Hong Kong, Hungary, Israel, Italy, Sweden, Ukraine, and a number of countries in central and eastern Europe, making this an international project to help Russia and, later, other ex-communist countries in Europe.
Authors' Biographies
Takeshi Utsumi
Takeshi Utsumi, Ph.D., P.E., is Chairman of GLOSAS/USA and President of
GU/USA which he created in 1988. He is also President of Global Information
Services, a firm which assists businesses in various countries, and especially
Japan, to access computer information via global Value Added Networks (VANs).
Among his many duties he is board members of the Institute for Educational
Studies (Atlanta, Georgia); Strategic Educational Planning (ST.E.P.) Institute
(Ramat Gan, Israel); the University of the World (La Jolla, California); the
World Association for the Use of Satellites in Education (WAUSE) (Bari,
Italy); an advisor to Electronic Information Exchange System (EIES) of the New
Jersey Institute of Technology; a member of International Electronic Advisory
Council of Hawaii Network for Education in Science and Technology (HI-NEST) of
the University of Hawaii; and an honorary member of advisory committee of
Distributed Knowledge Project at York University (Toronto, Canada). He is
also Technical Director of the GLOSAS/JAPAN, responsible for using advanced
computers, telecommunications, systems analysis, and simulation technology to
seek solutions to world wide problems. Among his over 150 related scientific
papers are many presentations, for example, to the Summer Computer Simulation
Conferences which he created and named. He is a member of various scientific
and professional groups, such as Chemists Club (New York, NY); Columbia
University Seminar on Computer, Man and Society (New York, NY); Fulbright
Association (Washington, D.C.); International Center for Integrative Studies
(ICIS) (New York, NY); Pan Pacific Association of Input-Output Studies (Tokyo,
Japan); Society of Satellite Professionals International (Washington, D.C.);
etc., and is now completing a technical book in the area of his profession.
Harold C. Lyon
Harold C. Lyon, Jr., a C. Edward Koop Scholar, is on the faculties of
Pathology, Community and Family Medicine and the Program in Medical Informa-
tion Science at Dartmouth Medical School. In 1993, a Fulbright Senior
Professor at the University of Munich, Germany. He is author of a proposal to
a multi-cultural strategy for medical education, including East-West bridges
with computer educational technology. For the past six years he has been
pioneering in the development of interactive media programs, including
designing and evaluating the PlanAlyzer Program, a Macintosh-based expert
system for teaching medical students diagnosis of chest pain and anemia. He
has also received international awards for his work in producing videodisc
technology for patient education, including for example the Blue Ribbon for
the best medical entry at the 1991 American Film and Video Festival. Before
going to Dartmouth he served eight years as Director of Education for the
Gifted at the U.S. Department of Education, and as Associate U.S. Commissioner
for Educational Technology, during which time he was Project Officer for the
development of Sesame Street. He has also taught at Georgetown University,
Antioch College at the University of Massachusetts.
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* Takeshi Utsumi, Ph.D. *
* President, Global University in the U.S.A. (GU/USA) *
* A Divisional Activity of GLOSAS/USA *
* (GLObal Systems Analysis and Simulation Association in the U.S.A.) *
* 43-23 Colden Street, Flushing, NY 11355-3998, U.S.A. *
* Phone: 718-939-0928; EIES: 492 or TAK; *
* SprintMail: TUTSUMI/GU.USA/ASSOCIATES.TNET *
* INTERNET: utsumi@columbia.edu *
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