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2020.04.09|最終更新日:2020.07.24|

【IMPORTANT】Announcement of the Temporary Transition to Distance Education

Dear Students,

The continuing spread of the new coronavirus, which shows no signs of slowing, has impelled the Japanese government to issue a warning to its people about the potential for an infection explosion; the Prime Minister is about to announce a state of emergency. With the first day of class already delayed, I am deeply aware that you are concerned about your student life on a daily basis.

At Reitaku University, while working to ward off the risk of infection to our students, faculty and staff members at this difficult time, we have also held a series of meetings to discuss the best way to deliver our academic courses that usually consist of lectures and assignments. The decision has been taken to implement online, distance classes until such time as we can be completely sure that your health and safety will not be compromised by any risk of infection on campus.

All students are currently prohibited from entering the university’s premises. This ban will continue in effect until the university can ensure the safety of its students taking part in activities on campus, i.e. when the threat the Covid-19 infection has passed. Therefore, students cannot enter the campus for classes during the current semester until this happens. So we ask that, in the meantime, you take your university courses online while you confined at home or in the dormitory, etc. (We will inform you later about the date when the ban on entering the university premises is to be lifted, and when face-to-face classes can resume. Before deciding on this date, we will carefully review several factors, including the safety of the campus and transportation facilities for those living far from it).

Although we find ourselves in uniquely challenging times, let us not stop our learning here and work hard together, come what may, to go through with and complete the classes of the first semester.

Suminori Tokunaga, Ph. D.
Reitaku University

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We are working on the University Contingency Plan Making Team organized by and consisted of the faculty and staff members for the infection control measures against novice coronavirus. On behalf of the university president, let us inform you of the preparation necessary for the classes of this semester. This is an extremely important notice so please read the following carefully.

A big change, a complete transition to the online, distance classroom is waiting for you. The more detailed information of this transition, in a letter form, will be surface mailed to your parents/guardians later. The following is the information needed to be known for the moment. Please begin preparation.

1. Preparation of the personal computer or other devises necessary for the online learning
2. Preparation for the network environment with sufficient frequency band
3. Installation of the necessary software and setting

The above-mentioned information is indispensable for you to complete a course via the distance classroom. A brief explanation for each item follows:

1. You can attend a course via a smart phone, but it is difficult on the smart phone to read materials presented, listen, watch and take part in the online classroom, and write reports on assignments. We advise you strongly to get ready for attending the online classroom, by making a personal computer with keyboard connected or tablet available for you to use prior to the beginning of the first class. We will let you know later about the specs and functions of personal computer we recommend.

2. Be ready for the distance learning through preparing, as much as possible, a network environment with no limit for the communication data capacity. It will be very difficult to attend and properly learn from the online distance classroom if you only have a limited network environment.

3. Operation of the distance learning system requires various kinds of software and services. We will make available later the manual explaining the details of the distant learning, but please make sure that you have the tools necessary before the online distance education starts. Following is the outlines of the tools needed.

・Zoom (a tele conference system. After installation, complete the user registration using the mail address with the domain of @reitaku.jp. In order to confirm your attendance, you need to get access to the Zoom with the mail address with the domain of @reitaku.jp)
・G Suite (All kinds of services supplied by Google. At Reitaku University you will use Gmail, Google Classroom, Google Drive, Hangouts Chat, Hangouts Meet, among others. To use these services you have to login using the account with the domain, @reitaku.jp. You can register several accounts with Google and switch these accounts anytime you want to. Please get used to the account switching.)
・Moodle (Class management system. Almost all the materials for classes will be delivered to you and assignments should be submitted through either Moodle or Google Classroom of the G Suite, according to the lectures you take.) 
・Office 365 (You can use Microsoft software including Word, Excel, PowerPoint free of charge. Word, Excel, PowerPoint are all indispensable to complete your assignments. For those students who have not confirmed your accounts, please do so by way of either reading the “The Use of Office 365,” a manual in the Website of the Information Education Center, Reitaku University (There is a link in http://cite.reitaku-u.ac.jp/news/2016-05-19/139) after getting access to the university network via VPN, or reading the printed version of the manual which will later be surface mailed to you and confirming the accounts, thus installing Office 365. You can install it to up to five computers and keep using it until you graduate from Reitaku University.)  

Finally, the preparation of the above-mentioned items 1 and 2 will incur you unexpected expenditure for the purchase of the devices, change of the communication capacity limits, subscription of the Wi-Fi service, etc. After a series of deliberations as to the ways to deliver the courses towards the goal of graduation within four years of schooling, we have come to the conclusion that there are no other options left except for the online distance education.

The Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports and Technology and communication service providers etc. are currently working out the measures to lessen the costs for implementing the distance education. We would you to check your email as often as possible, because we will be sharing with you the information regarding the measures to decrease the financial burden to you.

We will keep distributing the important information to the domain, @reitaku.jp. We, the faculty and staff members of the university are going to prepare for the online education so that we can offer you high quality of distance classroom as much as possible.

Shoju Chiba (Dean of the Faculty of Foreign Studies)
Leader
Contingency plan making team, Reitaku University

*For those who want to ask questions regarding this message, please use the question form in the university website https://www.reitaku-u.ac.jp/info_contact.html
* The same message can be found in the university’s website.

With the transition to the distance educaiton, the schedule of the new academic year has been changed. Please refer to the following schedules.

The new schedule for the current students can be found in the following URL.  
https://www.reitaku-u.ac.jp/2020/04/07/73598