On Monday, March 15, 2021, NIC-Japan hosted its FY2020 webinar titled "Current situation of foreign qualification screening process at Kyoto University, focusing on verification of educational record and qualifications of applicants from China and others." The webinar was opened to faculty and staff members of NIAD-QE and was attended by 36 participants. Professor Liyou Han, an Associate Professor at Institute for Liberal Arts and Sciences, Kyoto University was invited to give a lecture on the functions of Admissions Assistance Office (AAO). AAO was established in 2010 at Kyoto University to facilitate application process for graduates of overseas universities wishing to study at Kyoto University as a research student or regular graduate student.

The first half of the webinar described the history of the establishment of AAO and the functions of the office. Professor Han went over the problems of fake certificates and academic fraud existing at the launch of AAO, the issues surrounding application procedures arising from the complexity of the higher education system of China, and the issue of insufficient information available in China concerning ways to apply for graduate studies in Japan. He also described the role AAO plays in the matching of supervisors and applicants . Through screen sharing of the system developed by AAO, the second half of the webinar provided a look at the items checked for eligibility screening and steps of the screening process, as well as some examples of suggestions and additional information AAO provides to prospective supervisors of applicants.

In addition, it was pointed out that the AAO system originally developed for applicants from China, Taiwan and Hong Kong has recently been extended to accept AAO applications from all other countries. The question and answer session led to active discussion, covering topics such as the costs and issues of implementing the system across the entire campus, verification process at AAO, and actions taken against problems involving agents.