Tokyo Institute of Technology: Tokyo Tech relaunches four newly revised MOOCs on edX

Tokyo Tech’s Online Education Development Office, which is part of the Center for Innovative Teaching and Learning, has launched four newly revised massive open online courses (MOOCs) on the edX platform. The courses were revised by staff, instructors, and teaching assistants (TAs). The TAs working on the course were partially supported by the Graduate Student Assistant (GSA)outer project.

The updated Science, Engineering, AI & Data Ethicsouter course was released on May 12, 2021. This online course was originally offered from June 2017 with materials and lectures in Japanese. It covers various topics such as ethical thinking in engineering, the seven-step method for ethical decision making, and recently added AI and data ethics lectures. The major change in this updated course is that the lecture videos that were originally recorded in Japanese have been dubbed into English using the Google text to speech Application Programming Interface (API). A paper on how the lectures were dubbed in English will be presented at the Japan Society for Engineering Education hybrid conference in an international symposiumouter on September 9, 2021. Moreover, the videos in the AI & Data Ethics section have been updated and a new lecture on AI for Social Good has been added.

The second course that was re-released was Introduction to Electrical and Electronic Engineeringouter on May 19, 2021. This online course introduces various fields in electrical engineering including electromagnetic applications, electronics materials, electronic devices, and wireless communication. Sakura Ookayama, an original trademarked anime character and a virtual learning assistant, also supports learners by asking graduate TAs basic questions about electrical engineering, which are then answered in the video lectures. In this course, all lecture videos that were originally delivered in Japanese have also been dubbed into English using the Google text to speech API.

The Basic Japanese Civil Lawouter course was revised and restarted on May 26, 2021. This course covers the legal system and basic concepts of Japanese law including contracts, family disputes, labor issues, and other topics from the perspective of Japanese law. Sakura Ookayama also appears in this course to support the instructor and help the learners. The major change in this course is that contents regarding new law amendments have been updated up to March 2021.

The updated Introduction to Business Architectureouter course was made available online from June 9, 2021. In this course, the representative methodology called DEMO, or Design & Engineering Methodology for Organizations, in Enterprise Ontology is introduced. With the help of added case studies, learners gain a better understanding of the concept and learn how to apply it to the targeted systems. In this revised course, DEMO-3 nomenclature is mainly used throughout the course. The new nomenclature, DEMO-4, is also introduced for learners who are interested in the new methodology which accompanies a newly revised textbook on enterprise ontology. A special lecture about self-initiation using the DEMO system has also been added to this course.