President Yamagiwa invites two overseas winners of the MOOC presentation competition to Kyoto University (27 January-2 February 2016)

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President Juichi Yamagiwa invited two winners of the MOOC (massive open online courses) presentation competition to visit the university. The President's course, entitled "Evolution of the Human Sociality", was delivered in English and distributed worldwide on the internet.

In the competition, the applicants submitted essays based on the President's lecture series. The essays were assessed from various aspects, including the uniqueness and creativity of their approach and the originality of their ideas. As a result of the two-stage selection process by the committee, four students were chosen to advance to the final stage on 9 December 2015 at Shiran Kaikan. They made their video-presentations in an online event entitled "President's MOOC 'Evolution of the Human Sociality' Live!". Two students with the most excellent achievements were selected as final winners.

The two winners stayed in Japan from 27 January through 2 February 2016, while they met President Yamagiwa, teaching staff, and other students studying primatology. During their stay, they also made poster presentations based on the essays they had submitted at the Primates Conference at the Japan Monkey Center.

One of the winners, Ms Rachel Ahn, a high school student from South Korea, said, "Though I had little knowledge of primatology before taking this course, now I aspire to study further on the social structure of primates after listening to the lectures by President Yamagiwa and visiting Kyoto University".

Looking back at the experience throughout the stay, Mr Gaspard van Hamme, another winner and a field guide from South Africa, said, "When I visited the Primate Research Institute, I experienced cutting-edge research experiments first-hand, which I had seen on TV. That was far more than I had expected. If Kyoto University delivers another lecture course related to primatology, I will definitely take it".

President Yamagiwa presented a certificate of honor and commemorative gifts to them at the meeting on 28 January.

Kyoto University will continue delivering online lectures to the world via edX.

President Yamagiwa

Selection committee members: (from left) President Juichi Yamagiwa, Professor Naoko Tosa of the Center for the Promotion for Excellence in Higher Education, Vice President of Education Services at edX Kathy Pugh, Assistant to the Executive Vice-President and Director of the Center for the Promotion of Excellence in Higher Education Toru Iiyoshi, Professor Satoshi Hirata of the Wild Life Research Center

Meeting with President Yamagiwa

Visiting the Primate Research Institute

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