This study aims to explore the obstacles to curriculum sharing activities among universities, which have been recently attracting attention as a strategy for overcoming the university financial crisis and educational innovation. To this end, eight con...
This study aims to explore the obstacles to curriculum sharing activities among universities, which have been recently attracting attention as a strategy for overcoming the university financial crisis and educational innovation. To this end, eight consortia participating in the 'Digital New Technology Human Resource Development Innovation Sharing University Project' ('COSS Project'), which focuses on curriculum sharing activities, were set as the subjects of the study. First, the business plans for the first and second years of the eight consortia were used to analyze their joint curriculum operation plans and academic system improvement performance, and interviews were conducted with the heads of the academic affairs teams of the eight consortia to understand the results in more depth.
The analysis of the eight consortiums' plans showed that, first, the homogeneity of the participating universities, not just the characteristics of individual universities, has a significant impact on curriculum sharing among universities. Second, among the types of joint curriculum operation, joint operation of microdegree courses, credit transfer and credit accreditation, credit exchange systems, and intensive programs were found to have higher performance. This suggests that the lesser the need to change the existing academic system, the easier it is to gather opinions on campus and the more likely it is to encourage students to take courses at other universities. These findings were reinforced by the results of the interviews with the heads of academic affairs teams, which revealed that in addition to factors at the level of the higher education system, higher education system, and policy, there are many factors at the level of individual universities that make it difficult to improve the academic system. These findings suggest that there are a number of new issues that need to be addressed at the university and government levels to promote shared activities among universities.