Higher Education SPROUT Project

Implementation Results of Higher Education Sprout Project 2019

Our University uses basic education and CDIO + Design Thinking teaching methods to cultivate T-shaped talents with solid foundations and practical abilities. Through the colleges and General Education Center, together with cooperation between different colleges and university-level academic reforms, π-shaped talents with interdisciplinary and multiple expertise are cultivated. The iSchool further develops students' abilities in artificial intelligence, aesthetic design, humanistic and social innovation, business models, and provide interdisciplinary design college that cooperates with industries, and social innovation college that provides social topics to train ㄤ-shaped students to become capable of innovative talents needed for industrial upgrading and social transformation.

The implementation results in 2019 are as follows:

1.Implement teaching innovation and improve teaching quality

Create six fields of the iSchool, and offer innovative tools and application capabilities required for industrial upgrading and social transformation.

• In the 2019 academic year, the iSchool was established focusing on the three major development directions of "universal teaching", "field characteristics" and "industry-academia cooperation", providing students with innovative tools for future digital upgrading and transformation, application capabilities and practical fields, thus supporting the innovative tool learning resources required by CDIO courses, and allowing students to enhance the completion of integrated theory and practical topics through topic-based learning. Fields include AIoT, Smart City, Industrial AI, RoSoCoop, Commerce Innovations, Financial Innovation, and Programming & Cloud, etc.

Introducing AWS cloud computing courses and learning resources to guide students to comprehend cloud applications and services through practical courses, and train students to develop and expand cloud professional service capabilities.

• Joined the AWS Educate and Academy Program in the 2018 academic year. Our teachers and students can use the cloud computing resources and related course materials provided by the AWS platform, as well as free online courses and online practice exercises. Cooperate with AWS and eCloudvalley to organize AWS workshops and courses, and assist teachers and students of our University to obtain professional-level solution architect, assistant-level developer, and assistant-level system administrator licenses, etc.

Set up interdisciplinary industrial design projects (D. Project), which are provided by the industries, and train students to have the practical ability to integrate theory and practice.

• Combining the concept of design thinking with CDIO, with "Writing the 70th Anniversary Publication of Far East Machinery" as the main theme of the course, students formed interdisciplinary teams. Starting from understanding Far East Machinery, through interviews with Far East Machinery and various business units in order to understand the historical evolution of Far East Machinery, its products and services, publications were produced after discussions with the Far East Machinery team to generate creative ideas and implementations. In addition, students also assisted in the transformation of the Far East Machinery Factory, sorted out historical relics and industrial machinery, designed an interactive space, combined industrial technologies, multimedia, AR, VR and other information technologies to introduce the past, present and future of Far East Machinery from the global industrial and Taiwan industrial development trends.

Integrate innovation and entrepreneurship learning resources and practices, with professional guidance systems, to strengthen business model verifications and entrepreneurial practice cases.

• From CDIO learned from practice, coupled with interdisciplinary learning creative tools and design thinking training, curriculum reforms and integration of learning fields are carried out. Incorporating d.School to cultivate entrepreneurial teams’ abilities to identify and to solve problems, we introduce corporate resources, social practice fields, and Inno Maker space to accelerate the product output of entrepreneurial teams through the real-time entrepreneurial guidance system.

Organize the 2019 Teacher Training Camp to improve teaching together and to find the joy and passion for teaching.

• Organize the Teacher Training Camp and other teacher teaching growth activities to help new teachers quickly understand the innovative teaching model promoted by the University. The course content includes innovative teaching cooperation and practice, the application of multiple assessments in teaching, teaching technology platforms, etc., to enhance teachers’ innovative teaching capabilities.

2.Develop university characteristics

Cooperate with internationally renowned universities to run courses and set up 2+2 international special classes to enhance the international competitiveness of Feng Chia University and lead the University to achieve excellence in global teaching and research.

• The University’s International College cooperates with internationally renowned world’s top 100 universities, including Purdue University, California State University San Jose campus in the United States, and Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology in Australia. These universities not only have professional strengths in line with global development trends and great advantages in employment, but their locations must also be highly affirmed and respected in terms of the living environment, cultural education, employment opportunities, and friendliness to international students.

Focus on the seven areas of the strength of the University and develop the characteristics of research and industry-academia cooperation at Feng Chia University.

• The International Industry-Academia Alliance of Feng Chia University participated in the 2019 Hannover Industrial Exhibition for the first time, displaying three dazzling achievements of industry-academia cooperation, including "Using virtual and real integration technology to detect leather defects", "Film heating technology" and "Stretchable film strain sensing”. In addition to attracting international partners through the exhibition, it also promoted the potential technologies of Feng Chia University to the world.

3.Improve the publicity of higher education

Use university affairs research analysis and feedback to implement rolling university affairs resource allocation and investment, and strengthen the self-continuous improvement mechanism of university affairs.

• In order to strengthen the operation of university affairs research, the efficiency of the university affairs system is continuously improved by providing more multiple IR database data and the university affairs research analysis materials. The model constructed through data collection and analysis application reveals correct and complete information in a timely manner. Therefore, three data sources including quantitative university affairs performance indicators, university affairs research database and university affairs research results are integrated to form a "university affairs data cloud platform" to provide inquiry and tracking of quantitative performance indicators, analysis of university affairs research issues, and reference for university affairs development decisions.

Formulate assistance mechanisms for the disadvantaged to effectively promote social mobility.

• Establish guidance mechanisms for disadvantaged students. Life mentors, learning mentors, or university social workers jointly find out the reasons for students’ plight and assist students in completing their studies. Establish LINE@ group online dialogue in order to extensively assist disadvantaged students, respect, and protect student privacy. Integrate multiple learning resources in the University to provide academic work guidance mechanisms and remedial teaching measures to reduce the doubt of disadvantaged students being labeled. Thus allow disadvantaged students to have more diverse life plans, and encourage outstanding students to participate in training courses such as overseas study and internship to broaden students’ vision and future development.

4.Fulfill social responsibility

Introducing University powers, the s.School starts from the spirit of local creativity and cultivates students' abilities to face real society and solve real problems through participation, understanding, analysis, design, practice and other modules.

• In order to focus on the implementation abilities of the University’s social responsibility, and effectively link the research and development direction of the academics and industries, the themes of special courses and external resources, 8 practical fields and support systems are planned, including i-Night Market, Smart Village, Green Earth, Care & Aging-in-place, Social Value Entrepreneurship, Education Alliance, Sharing Economy, Practice-led Research.

Highlights of the implementation of Higher Education Sprout Project 2019

Ju-Chuan Wu, CEO of the d.School, was selected as a teacher of AWS Educate

• Amazon Web Services (AWS), the world's largest cloud computing service provider, announced on April 30, 2019, the list of Ambassadors for the first AWS Educate Cloud Ambassador Program. A total of 189 teachers were admitted globally and only 7 teachers in Taiwan. One of them was Ju-Chuan Wu, the CEO of the d.School of Feng Chia University.
• Chief Executive Wu said that in response to the development trend of the digital economy, cloud services and the demand for talents, the d.School started in the second semester of the 2017 academic year to cooperate with eCloudvalley Digital Technology Co., Ltd. to offer AWS series of courses and applied for membership of AWS Academy in November 2018 to provide AWS-related educational resources for teachers and students on campus. At the same time, teachers and students of our University were coached for professional licenses related to AWS cloud services. These licenses were also reported as the most valuable licenses by Forbes Magazine.

Caption: Ju-Chuan Wu, CEO of d.School at Feng Chia University (third from right), was selected as the first Global AWS Educate Cloud Ambassador (Photo/provided by d.School).

Freshmen of Feng Chia University Aerospace Department built an electric car to achieve the second-best record in the country

• The electric vehicle team "Feng Chia Unicorn", which composed of freshmen from the Department of Aerospace and System Engineering of our University, participated in the 2nd National Electric Vehicle Innovation Design and Implementation Competition 2019 hosted by the College of Engineering of National Cheng Kung University on June 29 and 30, and won the first place in "Subitem Route 1", the third place in "Route 3", the second place in the overall results, and was awarded a prize of NT$40,000.

Caption: An electric vehicle team composed of freshmen from the Department of Aerospace and System Engineering of Feng Chia University, hand-made all-carbon-fiber car body, and won excellent results in the 2nd National Electric Vehicle Innovation Design and Implementation Competition. (Photo/provided by the Department of Aerospace and Systems Engineering)

Feng Chia University Information and Electrical Engineering Team participated in the FIRA Robot World Cup Competition and won the runner-up award

• The 2019 FIRA (Federation of International Robot-Sports Association) Robot World Cup Competition was held at the Changwon International Convention and Exhibition Center in South Korea from August 12 to 16, 2019, attracting nearly a thousand people to compete from all over the world. Feng Chia University and the Central Taiwan Science Park Bureau jointly formed the team "FCU-CTSP" and performed well in the "Humanoid Robot Soccer Second Challenge" and won the runner-up. Under the guidance of teacher Chih-En Kuo from the Department of Automatic Control Engineering, the five students of our University competed with national players from Korea, Malaysia, and Mexico. After five rounds of the competition, the team finally won the second place.

Caption: The Feng Chia University team participated in the Robot World Cup Competition and won the runner-up award. (Photo/provided by the College of Information and Electrical Engineering)

The College of Information and Electrical Engineering participated in the Intelligent IoT Project Competition and won the silver medal and 2 excellence awards

• The teachers and students of the College of Information and Electrical Engineering of Feng Chia University participated in the "Intelligent IoT Project Competition" organized by the Ministry of Education. The teams of the Department of Electronic Engineering, the Department of Automatic Control Engineering, and the Department of Information Engineering won the silver medal and 2 excellence awards.
• Our University is actively creating an Artificial Intelligence and Internet of Things Lab (AIoT Lab) to allow students to learn the skills needed in future career to cope with the rapid development and change of the era. Outstanding results have been achieved in this competition sponsored by the Ministry of Education and it should help our students to have more confidence.

Caption: Students from the Department of Electronic Engineering of Feng Chia University participated in the "Intelligent IoT Project Competition" organized by the Ministry of Education and won the Silver Award in the "Automotive Electronics or Transportation Application Group". (Photo/provided by the College of Information and Electrical Engineering)

The first USR University Citizens Selection 　 Feng Chia University ranked the first among private universities

• CommonWealth Magazine conducted the "CW USR University Citizen Selection" for the first time this year, examining the social responsibilities of universities based on three dimensions: university governance, teaching environment, and social participation. Feng Chia University ranked first among private universities with "innovative teaching, and integration of learning and application". President Bing-Jean Lee of our University was invited to attend the award ceremony on September 5.
• President Bing-Jean Lee said at the ceremony, “ Feng Chia University is a student-oriented university. On the one hand, we introduce MIT's topic-based teaching to cultivate students' integration of professional knowledge and practical ability. On the other hand, we actively establish industry-academia alliances with enterprises including Merry Electronics, Jabil Green Point, Taishin Bank, etc., from the establishment of on-campus laboratories to the provision of internships and employment opportunities for students, creating various cooperation opportunities for different enterprises.”

Caption: Feng Chia University ranked the first private university in the "CW USR University Citizen Selection". (Photo/provided by the University Secretariat)

Feng Chia students participated in the "Digital Tech Summit 2019" at the Nuremberg Technology Incubation Center in Germany and won the runner-up in the Hackathon

• The Nuremberg Technology Incubation Center in Germany hosted a three-day "Digital Tech Summit 2019" from October 11 to 13. The event was divided into digital technology forums and Hackathons, attracting more than 800 industry professionals and students from around the world. Our University was the only Asian university to participate in the Hackathon and won the runner-up award with an impressive performance.
• The three students participating in the competition expressed that they were very happy to have the opportunity to participate in the competition abroad. They were very thankful for the training and guidance by the teachers before the competition, which helped them to get along with other players of different nationalities and different professional fields, and to expand their international outlook. More possibilities were also created by solving problems with enterprises together.

Caption: Feng Chia University students went to Germany to participate in the "Digital Tech Summit 2019" hosted by the Nuremberg Technology Incubation Center from October 11 to 13, and achieved good results in the Hackathon. (Photo/provided by our University’s Global Village Service Center)

Feng Chia students won third place in the International ICT Innovative Services Awards. Only 5% were awarded!

• The students of Feng Chia University formed an inter-departmental team. On November 2, they participated in the "International ICT Innovative Services Awards". The competition attracts more than 800 teams every year, and the award rate is only 5%. It is the most challenging competing platform nationally in which lots of communication talents are competing every year. Our students won third place in the AWS Cloud Technology Trend Application Group with the theme of "One Person Farmland".
• The team is formed by students from the "Humanities and Technology" course offered by the d.School. The course is based on the theme of the intelligent cloud and uses Amazon Web Services (AWS) as a practical platform. The team Unicorn, composed of 6 students with the theme of "One Person Farmland" combining AWS cloud applications, improved the pain points of Taiwan's current aging agricultural population and demonstrated the integration of IoT sensors and cloud computing functions at the competition venue, which was favored by the judges and won the third place.

Caption: The Unicorn team won third place in the AWS Cloud Technology Trend Application Group. (Photo/provided by the d.School)