The 144th Installment
Development of Videoconferencing System and Remote Teaching

by Shuichi Oikawa,
Professor

The COVID-19 pandemic has increased the need to avoid close-contact settings in crowded and closed spaces to prevent the spread of infection, and consequently, made remote lectures a common practice in universities and graduate schools. For that purpose, videoconferencing systems such as Google Meet, Microsoft Teams and Zoom are being used.

Since these systems run on an ordinary personal computer, there is no need for preparing special equipment. Of course, when multiple people are participating from a single location, it is better to use a special microphone designed for videoconferencing as it makes their voice heard more clearly. However, as web conferencing becomes more common, the performance of PC’s built-in microphones has improved enough to capture distinctly a few participants’ voices. Now anyone can use videoconferencing system as it is accessible not only through PCs but also through tablets and smartphones.
　
It can be said that because videoconferencing systems had been available on PCs, tablets and smartphones before 2020, when the pandemic broke out, it was possible to prepare and implement remote lectures at universities, as well as telework and remote meetings in corporations, in a relatively short period of time, without the need to incur significant costs.

Then, what if a similar emergency had occurred in 2010? That might have happened as new influenza epidemics in 2009 and 2010 caused universities to take special measures for entrance exams and other activities.

Around 2010, the only videoconferencing system that could run on an ordinary PC was Skype, if I remember right. Only group audio calls were available. According to Wikipedia, a group video call function was added in January 2011. Although Skype was used for some small-group meetings, most of the time the system called Polycom was used for discussions with a certain number of participants viewing a shared PC screen.

Polycom is a dedicated teleconferencing system connected to a high-performance microphone and camera. Costing as much as a server of some kind, it seemed to be a luxury system that only big-budget university labs could afford (since such labs usually had a lot of collaborative research meetings).

Despite such a high price, and despite the fact that the inter-university network is faster than the networks connected to private homes, conferencing using the video feature was not as stable as one may imagine, with dropped connections and choppy sound. As a result, even when Polycom was available, people often chose to meet in person when time permitted.

Under such circumstances around 2010, it would have been difficult to provide simultaneous interactive on-line remote lectures. Even if the transmitter could use Polycom, the receiver, or students, could not. In fact, it was impossible to create a multipoint connection that would allow all students to participate in a class.

A possible alternative would have been a combination of video-streaming lectures and Skype conversations, but it is doubtful that Skype at that time could handle such large group conversations as in lectures. Even if it had been possible, both teachers and students would have had to get used to audio-only communication.

Although AIIT has been recording and distributing all its lectures since its foundation in 2006, this alone has not enabled simultaneous interactive remote lectures. The AIIT did not begin blended learning, which combines in-person lectures with recorded lectures until 2014, when the LMS was widely available.

The COVID-19 pandemic, which began in 2020, has changed the way classes are conducted at this Institute. Remote lectures were positioned as an alternative to the Akihabara satellite classrooms, and HyFlex lectures were introduced as a combined format of face-to-face and remote lectures.

With HyFlex Lectures, students can choose to attend lectures in person in the classroom or remotely from a convenient location, depending on their individual circumstances. The benefits of distance learning are significant because it is difficult for students to get to school in time for the 6th period, which starts at 6:30 p.m., and not to get home late, as the 7th period ends at 9:40 p.m.

On the other hand, face-to-face learning provides opportunities to deepen the interactions between teachers and students. Therefore, we believe that it is beneficial for students to be able to choose between in-person or remote lectures.