CASTALIA FORMS PARTNERSHIP WITH MATTERMOST; LAUNCHES ONLINE CHATTING SERVICE SYSTEM DEDICATED TO EDUCATIONAL USE

Feasibility study of remote teaching with real-time use of text/audio/video begins at Joetsu University of Education

 

Castalia Co., Ltd. (CEO: Satoshi Yamawaki; registered main office: Nagano Prefecture, Japan; main office: Tokyo, Japan) formed
partnership with Mattermost Inc. (CEO: Ian Tien; headquarters: Palo Alto, CA, U.S.A.) for the education-exclusive use of Mattermost,
the company's online chatting service for enterprises. Castalia will act as the reseller of Mattermost and license it to domestic
educational institutions and other educational uses. In addition, Castalia will also launch a feasibility study simulating remote teaching
sessions at universities as a joint project with Professor Yasumasa Omori of Joetsu University of Education, a national university in
Niigata Prefecture.

 

Along with the launch of the feasibility study, Castalia will also provide free-of-charge trials of the new service.
The service is scheduled to go into full-fledged launch in June 2020.

 

Name of dedicated website: educhat
www.educhat.online

 

◉About Mattermost
Mattermost is an online chatting and messaging service for enterprises. It is developed and distributed by Mattermost Inc. based
in the U.S. The service spurs an increase in internal communications and at the same time facilitate remote work. Its open-source
project is simultaneously in progress and it has also been used around the globe as a free server software.

Mattermost has been introduced in public institutions such as the U.S. Social Security Adminstration, world-renowned corporations
such as Samsung and Bristol-Myers Scribb to name a few. As for educational use, National University of Singapore and University
of British Columbia, Canada are some of the institutions that have introduced Mattermost. Mattermost is made more affordable
for educational institutions compared to other services.
https://mattermost.com/

 

Mattermost interfaces (c) Mattermost Inc.

 

◉Optimized for educational use
Mattermost has functions and features tailored to the Japanese educational market.

(1) Channel restrictions
You can limit the authority to create groups called "channels" so that students cannot create them on their own. This function is
not available on the free-of-charge, open-source version.

(2) Online lecturing
BigBlueButton, an open-source online lecturing system, will be connected to Mattermost so that it can be used easily. Based on the
audio/video streaming of lectures, the lecturers can answer questions from the students using the chatting function, handwrite
explanations using the whiteboard function, and automatically record the audio/video.

 

Lecture interface using BigBlueButton

 

 

(3) Special pricing for educational use
Educational institutions certified by Japan's Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology (MEXT) are eligible
for a special educational rate. License purchasing is only for the faculty and staffs, and free-of-charge for students. this enables the
introduction of chatting and messaging functions at a very low cost.

 

(4) Payment in Japanese yen
Payment is available in Japanese yen with the preferred payment method. For prices and conditions, please feel free to contact us
through our website:
www.educhat.online

 

◉Feasibility at Joetsu University of Education
A feasibility study will take place as a joint project with Professor Yasuhiro Omori at Joetsu University of Education. We will study
on the educational methods through synchronized and non-synchronized chatting, the students' mindset on participation, as well
as develop a new educational method unique to online lectures.
Joetsu University of Education has already introduced Castalia's online learning platform "Goocus" as the LMS (learning
management system) of the entire university and are capable to cater to on-demand online education. From now on we will look
into how to maximize Mattermost functions in real-time online education by studying the server loads and network circumstances.

 

◉About Castalia Co., Ltd.
Castalia Co., Ltd. reinvents learning under the slogan of “find solutions to social problems with the fusion of education and IT”.
We develop mobile learning platform “Goocus” and supply it to corporations and educational institutions. In addition, we
collaborate with Shingakukai, an educational conglomerate that operates mainly in Nagano Prefecture, for the curriculum design
at Code Academy High School (http://code.ac.jp), Japan’s first extensive correspondence high school that sets programming
(coding) as mandatory subject.
https://castalia.co.jp/en/