Based on the efforts of past decades, CCU pursues to be a future learning university, a next living laboratory, as well as a university as an incorporation, which have been highlighted in its midterm development blueprint. Corresponding to the four dimensions outlined by the Ministry of Education, the university has proposed 22 action plans as its Phase-II Sprout Project. Performances in 2022 are summarized below.
Future learning university with vibes of problem solving and design thinking
Creative instruction, which used to be interest-driven, now turns into subject-based. Such change helps develop pedagogy of multi-assessment, problem-solving, and technology-orientation, and also helps integrate resources to improve teaching quality. In 2022, we effectively ran a total of 10 teaching communities. By the end of the fifth year of the Sprout Project, we’ve generated 149 e-course materials, and the approval rate of the Ministry’s instruction projects reached 63%, higher than the nationwide average. In addition, previous TEAL classrooms were upgraded to provide real-time and interactive functions, with an overall of 164 copies of course materials newly developed for the past 5 years.
Design thinking is prevailing and gradually introduced into classrooms in recent years. Faculties of Science College lead a team composed of students from other colleges to explore solutions to practical issues, whose innovations have won them a total of 2 gold and 3 silver medals in iGEM contests as of 2022. Our student USR teams are also practitioners of PBL mode – particularly on place. For example, students from the Education College and Management College teamed up and volunteered to go into elders’ communities and tribes to work out modern marketing mode and help residents acquainted with home economy.
To cultivate interdisciplinary talents, we are planning the Eighth College aiming for prospective students with leaderships and global visions. By recruiting those who either have decided to follow their passions or want to discover new ones, the Eighth College will set an example of interdisciplinary undergraduate education for future creative programs.
Our creative instruction is also applied in the international context. We experiment a Doctoral college, similar to the European interdisciplinary cultivation mode, to attract research and industry-oriented talents. So far we have recruited 10 international teachers, 2 professors and 8 postdocs from Japan, Russia and other countries. We particularly put efforts in India and, through our Taiwan-India Joint Research Center on AI, has reached certain projects with Indian Institutes of Technology – Ropar, including a dual doctoral degree, and signed a collaboration MOU with renowned enterprises TATA and Tech Mahindra, NASSCOM, as well as co-hosted education unions with several institutions, among which are CSEND, ECPAT, and Mahidol U. of Thailand.
Next living laboratory for burgeoning coding education and AI application
To integrate coding instruction with conventional courses on non-CSIE professions is anything but a pushover. The common education center offers fundamental logic and programming training as the stepping stone for college-specific professions, whereas the IT Office facilitates campus-wide software development and hardware buildups, and supports the Engineering College to host programing certificate contests. Besides, faculties can also join a teaching community to share ideas and get advices on programming application in instruction. This framework evidenced fruitful development, as the College of Law now has a new AI related law program, and faculties of the Dept. of Psychology hold an AI workshop and apply computing to analysis and case studies. According to one of MOE’s education policies, the ratio of undergraduate students having taken programming related courses shall grow to 50% in 3 years, and we’ve accomplished the goal by hitting 82.86% as of 2022.
Such cross-professional collaboration has set ground for 5 future living labs where faculties and students of their conventional training can now experiment with AI tools. These 5 sites include:
1) AI Restaurant – Located on the 3rd floor of the Main Library, it’s designed to automate from ushering to meal delivering, with aid of AI facial recognition, cloud computing, digital payment system, and more importantly, precision of robots’ body movements.
2) Future Trading Center – The Management College introduced interactive tools and virtual software to familiarize students with real-world stock market functioning.
3) AI Court – Our faculties of Law School collect and analyze car accident cases in an effort to determine key factors and design a prediction model for future lawsuit application.
4) Cultural Preserve Database – By analyzing calligraphy and cultural relics through AI recognition, our faculties can now restore ancient characters and control robotic arms to simulate calligraphy artworks; such recognition technique is also used to develop an app so that the public can then access Cuo’s ancient medicinal knowledge.
5) Smart Learning Mode – In this experiment, researchers extensively collect data on young children’s reading capabilities so as to design a herald mechanism assisting teachers and parents to evaluate children’s learning performance.
The 5 experimental living labs are accompanied with an online security platform, which is responsible for scanning vicious web assaults, as well as an analysis platform for labor force trends.
University as an Inc. with local commitment and global perspective
CCU is committed to sustaining its neighbors by sharing academic and research benefits. As of 2022 we have grown 6 ventures with year-by-year increase in technology transfer royalty. Faculties team up to serve and counsel 70 local industries. We also started talks with Chia-Yi Christian Hospital to build a digital dental living lab in campus, and founded a biophotonic alliance with 16 companies incorporated and 2 research projects signed. Interdisciplinary students joint with faculties form USR teams to explore low-carbon emission and water purification technology with bamboo and proved the bamboo circular technology to be promising in aquaculture and farming industries. This practice complies with the SDG #6 “clean water and sanitation” of UN and has potential of being promoted in Southern East Asian countries. The Management College were devoted to bolstering small coffee farmers in Alisan rural area with modern e-commerce knowledge. Our Start-up Land counselors also incubated 136 teams since establishment, among which 23 ventures were successfully founded.
With coming of the second phase project, we will commit ourselves to more robust international cooperation, creative pedagogy, and more intimate industry relationships to comply with the SDGs.