Permalink : http://hdl.handle.net/2115/50969

JaLCDOI : 10.14943/58919

KEYWORDS : omnibus course;conceptual network;visualization;students' response

Most universities in Japan conduct course evaluation as part of the faculty development program, and many methods to improve course content have been proposed. However, few studies discuss the improvement of omnibus courses. In this paper, we suggest a new method to improve omnibus courses, especially their consistency and relevance. We designed an omnibus course named "Clean Energy Business and Social Acceptance," which consisted of six serial lectures, each conducted by a different lecturer. Prior to the running of the course, we interviewed the lecturers and formulated a conceptual network with regard to the course content. The conceptual network helped lecturers grasp the course content and facilitated the improvement in relations among lectures. At the end of each lecture, we collected students' responses including some keywords pertaining to topics they were interested in. We integrated these keywords into another conceptual network and then examined the consistency and relevance of the lectures. The measures of network analysis were used to compare the keyword network with that of the previous year's course, with regard to which no conceptual network was formulated before the course and no interviews were conducted. The comparison revealed the effectiveness of our method.