Kainan University began life as the Kainan Commercial & Technical
High School, which was founded in 1917 and soon earned the reputation of being
the finest commercial and technical high school in Taiwan. It was not until
January 1990, however, that the dream of our alumni for Kainan to be upgraded
to a university began to be realized, with the establishment of a preparatory
committee for the Kainan Institute of Technology.
Since March 16, 2000, when our university received official
sanction, students have enrolled in ever-increasing numbers. In our first year,
the university consisted of seven departments and some 600 students who began
their freshmen year with us. On April 13, 2006, Kainan received official
accreditation as a full university. Today thousands of students are currently
enrolled and can choose courses from sixteen different departments. Taiwan is
starting to see the high value of a Kainan education as our graduates enter the
workforce, and we are proud to have blossomed into a fully accredited
university with limitless prospects. Once a small technical school, today we
boast faculty and visiting students from all over the world, an office for
international programs, and relationships with prestigious schools abroad, as
well as a vast and beautiful campus. Kainan University has come a long way
since 1917 and promises to continue its rapid development as a world-class
academic institution.
The highlights of Higher Education Sprout Project of Kainan University in 2019 are shown as below:
Sub-project A Progressing the system of ensuring the quality in teaching: In this project, we focus on the enhancement of student learning effectiveness. To
achieve the objective, we provide some useful actions to enhance teaching
innovation and students’ employability and cross-boundary ability. For teaching
innovation enhancement, PBL (Problem-Based Learning) and multiple innovative
teaching models are implemented. Teacher groups are also organized for valuable
teaching experience discussion and sharing. In addition, teachers observe each
other's lessons or demonstrate teaching activities. The teaching results
presentation conference has been organized. For students’ employability and
cross-boundary ability improvement, we provide forward-looking practical programs
and invite practical professional teachers for collaborative teaching. We also
provide practical corporate visits. In addition, professional licenses regarding
computer software application technician and global English testing are
provided. To overview the construction of students’ core ability and
employability ability, we build an Assurance of Leaning system to present
students’ core abilities graphically, and let they understand their core
abilities in courses, representative jobs, licenses, and national exams. Learning
portfolio including international exchange and essential extracurricular
activities are also provided for multi-dimensional development. In project A,
we trigger students' learning motivation and willingness, so as to enhance
students' learning effectiveness and build great learning habit.
Sub-project B Progressive enhancing the Internet-based learning system: The rapid advancement of mobile technology has given rise to educational applications of augmented reality (AR). Kainan University AR English Learning APP, Live Campus, was launched to improve the motivation of the students and to expand learning opportunities while making them enjoy AR applications. At the end of 2019, a total of 15 marker-based AR English learning points were set up around Kainan campus on such topics as bus station, convenience store, food court, etc. The results from 127 user experience questionnaires, allowing a quick assessment of the user interest and collected in the summer of 2019, showed that the majority of students were satisfied with learning English in real life context by using Live Campus AR Learning APP, and they wanted to use the APP in future English learning.
Sub-project C Strengthen the function of tutors and improve students' basic literacy ability
1. Promote the dual tutor system for freshmen and sophomore classes to give students more comprehensive care.
2. Promote the use of the new version of the alumni questionnaire survey system and encourage all colleges and departments to strengthen alumni links.
Sub-Project D Management and Development of Internship to Promote the Employability of Students
D-1 Build and Maintain the System of Internship
In 2019, the number of interns abroad who have been visited by teachers in charge were 3 students, the number of local interns were 106 students. According to the questionnaires that were presented as Likert Scale and were from the interns who have submitted them, the extent of satisfaction reached 4.3 and 86% of positive response has been provided.
D-2 Evaluation the Performance of Internship
The percentage of faculties that have held the committee of internship were 100% in 2019. And the percentage of students who have done an internship were 68%. Besides, there were 12 explanation sessions and 5 presentations of internship in the same year.
Sub-project E Progressing the institution of starting a business: In order to enhance the entrepreneurial ecosystem of KNU, the “Startup Base” was established in March 2018 as a platform for incubating and accelerating entrepreneurship of faculties and students in KNU. We provide related facilities and space at Startup Base, such as 3D printers, showcases, booths, maker space, and creative bazaars, etc., supplemented by counseling and incubating services for all startup teams.
In 2019, there were 25 students came and asked for display booths, 2 startup teams held promotion and exhibitions, 3 undergraduates requested assistance in starting their businesses at our Startup Base. Meanwhile, we also hosted 4 creative bazaars for facilities and students to have more opportunities for publicity and expose their crafts and ideas and we attracted 437 people to participate our activities.
To enable KNU students to have more fundamental knowledge of entrepreneurship, we integrated the teaching resources and promoted entrepreneurship courses. In 2019, we hosted 6 related courses (the average teaching evaluation reached 4.58 and the responded rate was 70.67%) with 203 students taking courses. We also invited 2 industrial experts for team teaching to lecture and share their related entrepreneurial experiences to our students.
In addition to the integration of resources within KNU, we also tried to link external entrepreneurial resources actively. We invited 6 entrepreneurs come to have a talk at our Startup Base to help our students realize more practical experiences of running a business and stimulate their entrepreneurial ideas. The average of the satisfaction survey of these talks is 4.58 and the responded rate was 92.5%. Feedbacks from participants have been positive, as they were eager to have more discussions with our speakers after talks. In this project, we also hold two national startup competitions every year. In the year of 2019, there were 52 teams participated, with a growth rate of 126.08%, to assist our interior startup team to identify their competitors and to verify their entrepreneurial ideas.
Sub-Project F Develop the Smart Campus and Optimize the Infrastructure
Two classrooms have been built with the energy-saving smart model that can automatically turn on and off the energy to reduce the unnecessary use. In addition, the courses about network security, which included Linux practice, Openstack Cloud Computing, Hyper-V virtualization, Social engineering and against Malicious Email and Cyber attack etc., have been offered in 2019, so there were totally 239 course hours and involved 174 staffs and students.
Sub-project H Developing the characteristics of learning to use:
In the 1072 and 1081 semesters, KNU has set up seven interdisciplinary courses and held several related meetings and activities, with a total of 102 students taking classes. In addition, a total of 24 programming courses were offered at the undergraduate level, and a total of 2295 students participated in the courses.
Sub-Project I Strengthen the Institution Research and the Administrative Efficiency of Projects
I-1 Implement the Institution Research to Assist the Development Plan
In 2019, 10 cases of institution research have been carried out. On the 6 November 2019, the professor Wang, Bao-Jin of Chung Yuan Christian University who is expert in the area of institution research was invited to give a lecture for the theme “Building the system of institution research based on the effect of learning of students”.
I-2 Operate the administrative office for projects
As necessary, the daily routine administrative affairs have been implemented. The routine meetings of 2019 that were mainly focused on the schedule of projects have been held as planned.
I-3 Open the information of operational plan
In 2019, the financial information of directors have been opened. Altogether with other relative information can be found at the website as below: https://account.knu.edu.tw/p/412-1049-83.php?Lang=zh-tw
I-4 Strengthen the specialized classroom and resources for faculties and colleges.
There were 12 specialized courses have been supported by the improvement of the hardware of relative specialized classrooms and resources. According to the questionnaires that were presented as Likert Scale and were from the students who have submitted them, 91% of positive response has been provided.