EBS to Set limits On Access to New CSAT Course Web Site

“Peak time access to the CSAT course web site will be limited to high school students and CSAT takers for the time being, said President Koh of the Education Broadcasting System (EBS). “It will be open to everybody as soon as the site is fully operational.”

The EBS will launch a pilot site at www.ebsi.co.kr on March 26 and begin to solicit members starting the following day. Existing EBS members should be registered for the site to view courses online.

The first broadcasting of courses is scheduled for April 1, 2:40 a.m. Four basic and advanced courses of three categories on Language, Math, and Foreign Language will be broadcasted via satellite and cable (EBS Plus 1). The courses will be immediately available online at the web site.

About 40 basic and advanced courses will go online by April 15, followed by another 12 courses by late April. The EBS will air intermediate courses starting in February of next year.

Courses on Law and Society, Economy and Geography, and World Geography, the three social science subjects, will start on April 15.

The course books will be available at bookstores nationwide starting March 27. Textbooks for Career Research and Second Foreign Language, the two subjects which are in low demand, will be available in PDF online. Intermediate course books are identical to those used in broadcast courses that have been underway since February.

In an EBS survey of 523 high school students and 542 parents, 50.9 percent of high school third-graders said they will view courses online between 11:00 p.m. and 12:00 p.m. As for first and second graders, a majority of them, 41.7 percent of first graders and 41.8 percent of second graders, said they will watch the course between 10:00 p.m. and 11:00 p.m.

As for their preference for mediums, about 59.9 percent said they will prefer watching intermediate and advanced courses online to on TV, while 34.8 percent said they favor TV. About 6.3 percent said they will use both mediums.

About 89.7 percent said they would watch the courses at home while 8.6 percent said they will do so at school. Based on this finding, the EBS has increased its server capacity by 20 percent exclusively for downloads.

The respondents show the strongest interest in Math courses (30 percent), followed by Language (25.2 percent), Foreign Language (18.7 percent), Social Sciences (16.1 percent), Science (5.9 percent), and others (4.1 percent).

Cram schools’ use of EBS course books will cause a dispute over copyrights. The EBS won’t take issue with their use of EBS books for their own courses. However, any re-editing or reproduction of EBS course books is banned by law. Screening EBS TV/Web courses at cram schools is a breach of copyrights.

“We will start our own investigations and press charges against cram schools which illegally use EBS courses,” said an EBS executive.

Seong-Chul Hong sungchul@donga.com