Hanyang University, which is responding preemptively to changes in university education due to the advent of the post-COVID era and the acceleration of digital innovation, is opening a new horizon for remote education innovation. The President of Hanyang University Kim Woo-seung said, "Changing the content, method and the environment are innovations in education during the 4th industrial revolution" and stressed, "Changes to the education environment are possible with financial investment, but changes in the educational content and methods require a strategic commitment together with all of the school members' efforts."

In line with this, Hanyang University's Innovative Higher Education Foundation developed "HY-LIVE," an education system based on telepresence, to prepare for the post-COVID era. They are also continuing to innovate global education beyond Korea with "advanced lecture room LIVE+" that enables both online and offline lectures simultaneously. 

Hanyang University presented an innovative example of education by offering HY-LIVE courses that allow interactive teaching in real-time for online lectures using telepresence technology. "HY-LIVE" is a new lecturing method that allows hologram offline and online classes by using a 5G telepresence video conference system which is a combination of display technology (AR/VR/MR) and internet technology that creates the illusion that they are facing one another in real life.

Hanyang University benchmarked the concept of "Professor Avatar" when they visited Monterrey Tech and Georgia Tech in 2018, and a year after in 2019 developed "HY-LIVE," a hologram lecture using telepresence, which drew the attention of Korea and other leading overseas universities. In 2019, several universities including Monterrey Institute of Technology and Higher Education, Uganda's Parliament, Thailand's Education Minister, Saudi Arabia's Electronical Engineering University, and AACSB of the International Business Council visited Hanyang University for benchmarking purposes. In Korea, a "HY-LIVE Consortium" was formed, centering on Hanyang University with 7 different universities to start artificial intelligence courses together from 2021. 

"HY-LIVE" has a big difference from the previous online lectures. Unlike other online lectures reviewed to have less communication than offline lectures, students of the HY-LIVE consortium can communicate actively during class while sitting in remote lecture rooms on a different campus and taking a professor's live hologram lectures. Instead of just sitting in the studio and sharing knowledge through the camera, professors can hold real-time discussions, quizzes, and presentation classes with students in remote lecture rooms from a different campus and even from different universities through a screen that is connected to the studio. In addition,  external experts such as enterprise workers or executives, can be invited to classes using 5G, a next-generation mobile communication technology. Company experts don't have to visit the campus since they can hold real-time lectures through HY-LIVE, thus industry-academia cooperative education can be carried out with ease.

President Kim Woo-seung said, "We will connect experts in real-time to explain actual development cases to the students, and they can also evaluate students in the lecture room."  He stressed, "We can provide quality classes for large lectures regardless of the number of students if advanced lectures are used."

In particular, HY-LIVE is useful when there are not enough professors for a large number of students as artificial intelligence(AI) courses allow multiple large-scale lectures to be held in one lecture room. Popular lectures by renowned professors can be offered to many students and can be used more effectively in the current situation where social distancing is required to prevent the spread of COVID-19.

In addition, when exporting HY-LIVE overseas, students can take lectures from diverse countries. Hence, the Higher Education Innovation Division will continue to strive to form a consortium with overseas universities.

The "LIVE+: Advanced Lecture Room" is a hybrid lecture room unique to Hanyang University that enables online and offline classes to be held simultaneously. While most universities offered contactless lectures using real-time video conferencing tools, Hanyang University offered both in-person lectures and contactless classes simultaneously through advanced LIVE+ in response to COVID-19. The LIVE+ advanced lecture room is equipped with a real-time video and video recording support system with enhanced functionality and usability such as a teacher tracking camera, high-quality sound equipment, and monitoring display, allowing both online and offline classes to be held at the same time. 

By applying a real-time class system that combines online and offline classes, instead of just sticking online classes due to COVID-19, Hanyang University has gradually improved the quality of classes while meeting the students' demands.

In July and November 2020, Hanyang University held two competitions for colleges in the university, and now 30 classrooms have been established as LIVE+ classrooms. From the second semester of 2020, the school has used about 10% of all classes. Hanyang University aims to accommodate 30% of 63 departments in 16 colleges in LIVE+  in 2021.  

Yang Joo-sung, the director of the Hanyang University Higher Education Innovation Foundation, said, "The project to build the advanced lecture room, LIVE+, which is a part of the university innovation support project, is meaningful as it increased the convenience for students and professors and was established through a systematic master plan." The Hanyang University Higher Education Innovation Foundation also plans to promote an "online learning center" that can create synergy with LIVE+ so that the students can attend online classes conveniently and safely during COVID-19 in a diversified education environment. 

In addition to the aforementioned various educational innovations, Hanyang University is taking the lead in sharing online lecture content to realize "Sharing Education" for the post-COVID era. Hanyang University has been leading online lecture sharing projects with prominent domestic and foreign universities since 2007, and this sufficient experience has been the driving force behind Hanyang University’s growth as a leading university for online lectures in Korea.

A representative example is the Credit Exchange e-Learning Consortium, the project to provide students with various courses by sharing Hanyang University's advanced e-learning courses with other universities. Hanyang University has provided lectures to 30,000 people, signing consortium agreements with 46 universities in Korea. In addition, Hanyang University is also operating several courses on K-MOOC and overseas MOOC platforms. Social innovation classes reviving Hanyang University's founding philosophy, as well as Korean language courses in high demand for foreign students, have been continuously updated on FutureLearn, an overseas MOOC platform.

At the end of 2020, Hanyang University started a match-up project with the University Distance Education Center to provide online Hanyang University's courses to more universities and companies. Hanyang University will play various roles, including being a hub leading the innovation of university classes in the Seoul metropolitan region to prepare for future education in the digital-transition era, along with improving the quality of distance lectures.