Automation in Education, Training, and Learning Systems

The information and communications technology (ICT) revolution which began in the latter part of the twentieth century has brought great changes to education and learning. The spread of the Internet has made information ubiquitous, changing the emphasis of education from the transmission and acquisition of knowledge to knowledge creation, and shifting the focus from large-scale lecture-type lessons to learner-centered education, project-based learning, and active leaning. Since the perspective for discussions of education systems is moving from instructors to learners, in place of education systems we adopt the expression education/learning systems. When considering the automation of education/learning systems, along with the impact of information and communications technology (ITC), the effects of educational psychology and educational technology cannot be ignored. This field overall is referred to as instructional design (ID). This chapter examines the history and present conditions of automation in education/learning systems from the perspectives of ICT and ID (Fig. 63.1). The following sections describe trends of education/learning methods, learning management system (LMS) tools/functions, open and flexible learning and massive open online courses (MOOC), learning analytics research for educational digital transformation (DX), and applicability of artificial intelligence (AI) and advanced technologies. An example section from the field of “business producers in future-oriented business strategy innovation” education/learning program is applying new educational methods to combine project-based learning and active learning. The example final section concludes with a summary of future issues concerning conceptual design and required specifications of “hybrid learning platform” which handles with both face-to-face and online educational technologies, and flexibly combining both synchronous and asynchronous learning, even in the case of distance learning via online communication.