Japanese university uses cellphones to monitor attendance

For once, the Japanese have come up with a method of keeping an eye on students in schools that doesn't involve RFID tags. This time, cellphones are being used to enforce attendance rules, which can affect grades at Japanese universities. Aomori University has students send an email from their mobile phone to a college administrator containing a number shown to them by their teacher at the beginning of class. School administrators then send replies to five to ten students who've claimed attendance, who must then stand up and give their names in the classroom. Administrators hope to reduce the workload of teachers, and also hope the system "encourages students to study and deepen their knowledge." We hate to break it to them, but that latter goal may be a wee bit of a stretch.

[Via Smartmobs]

[VK @ Dec 19th 2005 1:23AM]

So, what if a student doesn't have a mobile phone?
Come on... it's possible right? :D

[Kevin @ Dec 19th 2005 1:23AM]

That method still seems tedious to me. What if they had a little bluetooth terminal (ala the bluetooth terminals in the UK that will send a song sample to your phone) at the entrance to the classroom where you have to quickly send a packet, or code via bluetooth to it. or what if the teacher doesnt give the assignment or next test date, they have to log into the bluetooth terminal and identify themselves via a student number or something? Seems like it could still be streamlined more with little cost.

[Sepuku @ Dec 19th 2005 1:23AM]

In related news..... suicide rate amongst Japanese youth is still the highest in the world. Given the nature of this article, does this surprise anyone?

[met @ Dec 19th 2005 1:23AM]

Why can't you just swipe a card or something? Would it be too costly to set up? Tell visa to install the swipe part :) they'll do it so that all students will have atleast a visa credit card :)

[DanAmpX @ Dec 19th 2005 1:23AM]

The card swiping method was used at a high school I went to in LA county, but it only lasted a few weeks, it was great though and I'm pretty confident that could be perfected.

[Awesom-o @ Dec 19th 2005 1:23AM]

How 'bout you just don't make attendance mandatory. I go to UCSB, and our attendance rate is extremely high from what I can tell. If you don't go to class, you don't get good notes, and you don't see the examples, and you don't participate in discussions. Then, you fail the tests.

I don't see what the problem is. Attendance isn't mandatory, and I'm always in class, as are 95% of my classmates.

[met @ Dec 19th 2005 1:23AM]

Awesom-o ... usually the techies don't have a say in such things... somebody wants something - we make it for them :)
Your question would start up a new discussion ..

[logicnazi @ Dec 19th 2005 1:23AM]

I think this demonstrates a fundamental flaw in the japanese education system. An emphasis on form, procedure and memorization rather than actual learning.

I mean why would you *ever* want to make attendence part of grades. If you can accomplish the same level of output why should you be punished for not attending class. In fact since classes often give little hints about what is on tests getting the same grade without attendence actually means you have MORE understanding.

Besides, this can both reduce the burden on the university (less people mean less space taken up..though u usually need a full room the first week) and provide a usefull feedback mechanism to the professor (if not alot of people are showing up you might want to change something..though it isn't perfect).

Sure in HS one might argue that the students don't have the judgement to realize that attending class is in their long term interest. However, in college if the students don't yet have this ability it is time for them to learn. After all one day they will be expected to get things done in a job and it is best if they can get them done without daily oversight and checkups (not to mention the rest of the stuff in their life).

My experience going to a school that essentially never required attendence as well as in conversations with people who went to places like Cambridge or Oxford is that the education recieved is just as good and the students are often more able to take initiative and work on their own.

[Foof @ Dec 19th 2005 1:23AM]

So what keeps you from texting your friends who are out of class with the number so they can send it back to the administrators, and if the school replies asking them to stand up, have them text you back and have you stand up for them?

Or hell, why not get another phone (aren't they 50 cents each in Japan?) and give it to your non-hookey-playing friend to do all of it for you?

This is nothing more than a twisted modification of standard roll call, which students have been bypassing the same way for years.

[Matthew @ Dec 19th 2005 1:23AM]

#8, its all about discipline. Which is something Americans don't have. Plus you are assuming that the only ones you skip class are those that know everything already.


#9, obviously you didnt RTFA. It says a random 5-10 have to stand up in class.

[Foof @ Dec 19th 2005 1:23AM]

#10, If that's obvious to you, I kindly suggest that you need to work on your powers of deduction! ;)

It's endemic in large Asian classrooms, particularly in Japan and South Korea, where students skip class, and have their friends call out their names during roll.

Having someone else stand up and say "here," ALREADY HAPPENS, even when the prof calls full roll. Doing so because of a text message doesn't change the accomplice-scheme at all.

In many cases, the same student even calls out attendance for several friends during the same roll call. The students' apathy for attendance is often matched only by the professors'.

[Foof @ Dec 19th 2005 1:23AM]

#10, also since it baffles me that you would be so quick to cry "RTFA" when you clearly didn't even read my post before replying, did you not notice that the very first point I made in my comment was regarding having an accomplice stand up to take an absent student's roll if called?

In fact, the entire point of my post was that this already happens - people stand in and stand up for absentees when called - and the cell-phone scheme as described in the article doesn't change it at all.

[Foof @ Dec 19th 2005 1:23AM]

#10, also since it baffles me that you would be so quick to cry "RTFA" when you clearly didn't even read my post before replying, did you not notice that the very first point I made in my comment was regarding having an accomplice stand up to take an absent student's roll if called?

In fact, the entire point of my post was that this already happens - people stand in and stand up for absentees when called - and the cell-phone scheme as described in the article doesn't change it at all.

[Awesom-o @ Dec 19th 2005 1:23AM]

Wow. Personal attacks on Americans. No offense, but there are a lot of brains at American universities, and they don't come out of no discipline. Rules, regulations, and proper form aren't always the best learning environment.

Here's a novel idea, how about having teachers who are great and interesting, that the students ACTUALLY WANT TO GO TO CLASS. That's how it is for me. I have great teachers, and I hate missing school. There are MANY AMERICANS believe it or not, that feel the same way I do. My classes are PACKED every day. We are fighting tooth and nail for spots, and the teachers will often drop students without thinking if they are not there. They want teachers in their classes who WANT to be there. Those are the students who deserve to get the spots.

Honestly, if you need technology policing students, those students shouldn't be there in the first place. By the time you hit university, you shoould want to go there, instead of wasting your parents money to skip class.

Let them skip class. It just makes the students who want to be there look better anyway...

[Awesom-o @ Dec 19th 2005 1:23AM]

Edit on my previous post. I swear it's not a product of my undisciplined American English classes. :)

I meant to say "They want STUDENTS in their classes who WANT to be there."

Not teachers...

[James @ Dec 19th 2005 1:23AM]

Sorry, but I haven't seen people actually STAND up for roll since I was in grade school. Hell, professors rarely take roll by name anymore because classes are so large.

If students have to stand up and identify themselves, that will resolve the problem of having friends say "HERE" for them.

If anything this will get those students who don't make it to class because of not enough sleep or didn't finish homework, in class, and the ones who don't give a shit, well, it's not going to do anything at all.

[Foof @ Dec 19th 2005 1:23AM]

16

Seriously, it doesn't. If you sit in one of these typical Asian country classes, it's totally different from any grade/high/college experience you've had in the US. First, they're huge (that's a lot like US schools). Second, profs don't really care to take roll - they're there to lecture.

It goes without saying that they rarely know faces/names for any of the students in their class. Think about it - if they did, roll call would be fast and effortless. But the profs don't know the students, and there are too many. Which is why they're going through this crazy complicated system to take some representative sample of the class every day.

Besides, profs often don't even look up during roll call, and the same student standing up two or even three times is seriously not going to get noticed. This is NOT a typical American classroom environment here, guys.

[Demando @ Dec 19th 2005 1:23AM]

I don't get the attendance/learning relation. Just because I'm sit down inside classroom doesn't mean I'm giving a shit to the teacher. At my uni, a lot of times I was attending to classes, but my palmtop and one or another magazine were too. So what would be the point in making me be all time at classes? I'll pay as much attention to the damn teacher as if I was in the upper roof point laser at who passes on the street. 'Nuff said.

[Mike @ Dec 19th 2005 1:23AM]

My Advanced Web Development teacher has no problem calling students that are more than an 2 hours late (we have 4 hour classes) After you get to class he has a rule, if your phone goes off in class, you bring pizza the next class. So far we have only had one phone go off, but that's all it takes.