APRU (Association of Pacific Rim Universities) is a large education and research network with about 60 member universities around the world, and it is working to improve the quality of its researchers by offering free graduate-level classes among its member universities. Universiti Malaya, to which I belong, is also a member institution, and I was invited by a Unit next to mine to participate “as a student” in the “Global Health Ethics” course offered by the University of Southern California (USC), another member university.

Just a week ago, I finished all the classes and all the assignments for this three-month course, and today I received my Certificate of Participation. It was my first experience as a student in a long time, and it was interesting. The participants were about 60, including many grad students from HKUST (Hong Kong University of Science and Technology) as well as USC students this time among the APRU participating universities. The three hours of class each week was a fair amount of work, but I learned a lot from the young people.

Especially since all lectures were fully online and the participants were from all over the world, the course administrators did a very good job of keeping us focused so that we would not get bored. We not only read the assigned papers individually in advance, but also critiqued them with each other on the board, and this activity was recorded as a grade point. A lot of ingenuity was also put into the group work. I first thought, “How can we give a 10-minute presentation without ever meeting in real life?” But it went well. The final assignment was an ambitious one, in which the participants were asked to form a different group and make a 12-minute video clip on a theme related to medical ethics. I wondered if we could do it spending only 4 days, but again, we all worked together and came up with a good outcome. (See our Youtube video clip below on “Telehealth consultation and ethical issues in Malaysia.)

I am going to try using some of the good stuff I learned here to our Unit’s newly designed grad-level course named “Master of Digital Health,” which is fully online. I am thankful for APRU and USC!

I was also very interested in HKUST, which is also one of the top-ranked universities in the world, because of the excellence of its young students. I would like to visit the campus sometime soon and do some joint research or educational projects. Well everybody, thank you all for your hard work!

APRU（Association of Pacific Rim University）という、世界の約60大学が加盟する大きな教育・研究ネットワークがありますが、そこでは加盟大学間で大学院レベルのクラスを無償提供し、研究者の質向上を目指す取り組みが行われています。私が所属するUniversiti Malayaも所属機関なのですが、隣のUnitから誘われて、同じくメンバー大学のUSC（University of Southern California）が提供する「グローバルヘルス倫理」コースに「生徒として」参加しました。

つい先日に、3か月に及ぶ全クラスと全課題の提出が終わり、参加証明書が今日送られてきました。久しぶりの生徒としての経験はとても面白かった。60名程度の参加者。APRU参加大学のうち、今回は本校のUSCの生徒はもちろんのこと、HKUST（Hong Kong University of Science and Technology）の生徒たちも多く参加していて、議論が楽しかった。毎週3時間のクラスはそれなりに大変でしたが、若者たちから多くを学べました。

特に、すべての講義がフルオンラインであり、参加者が世界中から集まっているため、飽きないように集中させる工夫がとてもよくできていました。個人で課題論文を事前に読むだけでなく、互いで掲示板で批評するところも成績ポイントとして計上。グループワークも多くの工夫がされていました。「一度もリアルに会わずに10分のプレゼンできんのか？」と思いましたが、ちゃんと皆でオンラインで集まって議論して資料を作り、全員でプレゼンしました。最後の課題は、そことは異なるグループをつくり、12分程度の「医療倫理に関するテーマの動画」を作らせるという野心的なもので、4日でできんのか？と思いましたが、ここでも皆が協力していいものができました。（下にあるのが完成作品で、テーマは「マレーシアの遠隔医療とその課題」。）

いまUMの我々eHealth Unitで新しく「デジタルヘルス修士号」コースを作っており、これも完全オンライン。今回学んだことを今後いろいろと活用できたらな、と考えています。

当たり前なんですけど、世界横断的に、「優秀なやつは優秀」なのだなと、改めて痛感した次第。HKUSTも世界大学ランキング上位常連校ですが、若い諸君が優秀で、とても興味を持ちました。早い時期にキャンパスを訪れて、共同研究か教育事業をやりたいなと思います。みなさん、お疲れ様！