Tokyo's Kokugakuin University will introduce artificial intelligence (AI) on a trial basis to help set the acceptance line for candidates sitting its entrance test next spring, it has been learned. The university, located in the capital's Shibuya Ward, says it will be the first time in Japan for an institution to bring in AI to set the passing score for its entrance exam. In recent years university entrance exams have become diversified in form and schedule. Starting this fiscal year, the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology tightened subsidies for private universities in major city regions whose rolls of first-year students exceeded their enrollment limits. This means that universities' finances take a hit whether they have too many students or rolls well below their official capacity, and it is becoming harder, therefore, for the institutions to set their acceptance lines. In June this year, the university started joint research with an information technology company on introducing AI to set the passing line. Based on entrance exam data for the past five years, it developed a system that could compare and analyze personal data such as the high schools examinees attended, other universities they intended to apply to, and their scores for each subject, together with the data of students who actually entered the institution. It was said that the passing line could be set more accurately with AI than with a human setting. Once the acceptance line for the entrance exam next spring has been determined by AI, officials plan to further inspect it and make a final decision. "We had relied on gut feeling and experience to set the passing line, and so by making it scientific we will be able to secure a stable number of entrants," a representative of the university's admissions division said.
Tokyo’s Kokugakuin University plans to use AI to set its acceptance line for candidates sitting its entrance exam in Spring 2017. The university will be using a machine learning system developed by the Japanese company Softbank Robotics Corp. and Japan’s National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science & Technology.