“manaba”, a cloud-based collaborative learning system developed and managed by ASAHI Net, Inc., was implemented by a leading business school in Tokyo.

Hitotsubashi University Graduate School of International Corporate Strategy (“Hitotsubashi ICS” – Tokyo, Japan) is a world class graduate school that aims to develop global business professionals that contribute to the global society. The program combines “the best of two world” as its mission and offers various business programs, including a full-time MBA program called International Business Strategy (“IBS”). The program is conducted in English and gathers students from over 20 countries.

manaba has been implemented as the platform that supports all the classes offered at Hitotsubashi ICS. In the IBS program, professors encourage students to review the course materials before each class by posting the schedule, reading materials, and assignments. Before the class, they pose questions to students to answer in manaba, and have them discuss the topic in class based on the opinions they originally submitted. After the classes are over, faculty provides the summary of the class and follow-up materials promoting them to reflect on their learning. Due to the success of this implementation, Hitotsubashi ICS decided to expand the use of manaba to other programs starting this April. manaba is also used as a platform for faculty to share their course information with each other to avoid using the same case studies and themes, and to improve the quality of the entire school by strengthening the ties across departments.

Hitotsubashi ICS