UpDate - Vol. 11, No. 10, Page 6
November 7, 1991
East meets West; Japanese, U.D. scholars team-teach via computer
By Sue Swyers Moncure

     Instead of the traditional, "Please, hand in your homework
assignments," some Delaware faculty members ask their students to
send their assignments via computer.
     And, Fred Stiner, associate professor of accounting, goes
further: He uses a computer to correct assignments, sent in by
accounting students on the other side of the world. They attend
Chuo-Gakuin University in Chiba, Japan, where they are taught by
Ichiro Shiina, an associate professor of accounting there.
     Recently, Shiina and his wife, Kazuko, briefly visited Newark,
and the two professors communicated face to face about their mutual
class.
     "It all began at an International Accounting Conference in
Kyoto where I first became acquainted with Ichiro," Stiner
recalled. "He came to the University of Delaware as a visiting
scholar in 1988-89, and he, my wife  Susan Stiner who is an
assistant professor of accounting at Villanova University  and I
co-authored a book entitled The Accounting Profession in America,
which has been published in Japan in Japanese, much of it
translated by Kazuko, making it a two-family affair."
     According to Shiina, Japanese education is undergoing a period
of change. Curricula used to be dictated centrally by the Ministry
of Education, but now, universities and colleges are separate
entities, responsible for their own educational programs.
     "Japan is facing some of the same problems we face in the
United States, with a shrinking student population, which they
refer to as the 'academic winter,'" Stiner said.
     Shiina said Japan emphasizes international education, and
universities in his country actively seek students from other Asian
nations, including Taiwan and South Korea, to counteract dropping
enrollment.
     As a part of the internationalization process, Chuo Gakuin
University joined Japan's BITNET Association of 31 universities,
which is part of a global network linking 1,000 universities
worldwide, including the University of Delaware.
     According to Stiner, "We think of Japan as ahead of our
country in the use of computers, but our students are more
comfortable with computers and more computer-literate at an earlier
age. One of the objects of the educational reform movement in Japan
was to give students practical computer education."
     In the field of accounting, Japanese professors emphasize
principles and theories, but there is a need for pragmatic courses
that prepare students to work in the field, Stiner said.
     To help implement reform, Shiina and both Stiners developed an
experimental class in accounting, "Reading Foreign Source
Material," using The Accounting Profession in America, as a
textbook. The course, which has seven juniors and seniors enrolled,
began in April 1991 and runs until next March.
     "This is probably the first Japanese accounting class to
receive direct instruction from teachers abroad using electronic
mail," Stiner said.
     American accounting differs from Japanese, Shinna said, and
Japanese students are very interested in learning American
accounting methodology, and having input from American professors
who are familiar with the language and terminology, as well as
accounting principles, is desirable.
     The course gives an overview of accounting, then covers
accounting in the United States, the Japanese accounting
profession, a summary of accounting regulation and a review of the
material covered in the course.