Academic Life Club

<Purpose of Academic Life Club>

The Academic Life Club is a special interest group of researchers who belong to the Japanese Society for Artificial Intelligence (JSAI). The club discusses important issues related to research activities from a researcher's point of view; for example, what a researcher community should be and its desirable commitment to the society at large.

Recently in Japan, there are various problems regarding career paths of researchers: An increasing number of postdoctoral researchers have difficulties in getting next jobs. Sometimes they may face a real research environment different from what they have been envisioning. That is why we researchers should be more conscious of our future research environment and/or individual research goal.

One of our project is to provide researchers with a board game, called Happy Academic Life 2006, as an easy-to-understand learning material for researchers and students. Though the board game, hopefully many (potential) researchers would learn about research careers and be more conscious of their own career paths and research activities.

Hiroshi YAMAKAWA (Representative),
      Ryutaro ICHISE, Masayuki OHTA, Yoshikiyo KATO, Hiroko SHOJI, and Yutaka MATSUO

<Happy Academic Life 2006>

We, Academic Life Club have developed Happy Academic Life 2006, an educational board game that allows you to experience the career of a researcher.

In order to survive in the academic world, a researcher needs an ability to design a career path according to their field. For helping younger researchers acquire this ability, we have developed this learning material in a 20th anniversary project of the Japanese Society for Artificial Intelligence (JSAI).

This game has been completed and distributed to all the JSAI members as an appendix to the 20th anniversary issue of the Journal of Japanese Society for Artificial Intelligence dated May 1, 2006, gaining popularity.

Related information on this game (in Japanese):

• FAQ
• Overview supplement (pps)(pdf)
• NII press release "An introduction to an educational board game for career design for IT researchers" (in Japanese)
• Covered by the various media, including Asahi Shimbun and The Mainichi Newspapers.

<How to Get the Game>

Because this educational game has been created under the 20th anniversary project of the Japanese Society for Artificial Intelligence (JSAI), anyone who wants to get one is recommended to join the JSAI first. You can sign up online to join it immediately and will receive a copy of this game as well as six journals a year.

Alternatively, by purchasing a back issue of the JSAI Journal (Vol. 21, No. 3) from Ohmsha, nonmembers of the JSAI can get a copy of this game, which is included as an appendix of the issue. Residents in Japan can visit its Web site and fill in the order form as follows (Note: this page is in Japanese):
  *Order: The JSAI Journal Vol. 21, No. 3
  *Correspondence column: I want a copy of the game.
Residents outside Japan can contact Ohmsha's Sales Division at chokuhan@ohmsha.co.jp. A copy of the journal costs JPY 2,500.

If you are living or staying in Japan and buy a copy of this back issue (Vol. 21, No. 3) at your nearest bookstore (including university co-ops), you can get a copy of the game at your request. The journal includes the instructions on how to get one, which you can follow to proceed.

For more information on how to get the game, contact us at info-.