- Innovative Curriculum Framework
The Department uses its best efforts to boost an innovative curriculum framework, including new courses, micro-learning course programs, and short-term practicing workshops. The new curricula help all curricula in response to the latest international trends. The micro-learning course programs provide modularized curricula related to specific topics to upgrade students’ willingness to attend courses. The short-term practicing workshops introduce real issues through courses shared by teachers from the relevant industries in order to improve students’ practicing abilities through “learning by doing”.
- New Curricula
In response to the rapid development of applications related to big data, AI, and machine learning, the Department provides additional big data and information security curricula. Meanwhile, the Department has also re-organized the program design curricula, e.g. the addition of optional courses including “JAVA program design”, “mobile device program design”, “Python program design”, and changed “Internet program design” from an optional course into a required one. Recently, the Department also worked with the Department of Computer Science & Engineering, YZU to organize the “Ministry of Education-Funded College/University AI Curricula”.
- Micro-Learning Course Programs
Differing from traditional curricula/course programs which require more credits and higher admission thresholds, the micro-learning course programs, based on the concept of “modularization”, aim to provide students with more diversified optional courses. Recently, the Department has organized the “data analytic micro-learning program” and “information security micro-learning program” as optional courses available to students since the school year of 2018. Students may be conferred a micro-learning course program diploma as long as they complete 9 credits, as the Department wishes to encourage students to engage in inter-disciplinary learning to improve their future employment competitiveness.
- Short-Term Practicing Workshops
In consideration of the rapidly changeable new technologies, usually students would have trouble in dealing with their routine curricula. The Department promotes short-term practicing workshops after school (holidays or nighttime), e.g. AI, social media analysis, and information security in order to better students’ understanding about the application of new technologies. The workshops are implemented in the form of lessons taught by teachers from the industries, in order to train students’ abilities in learning voluntarily and solving problems through “learning by doing”.
- Practical Training
Practical training is identified as one of the curriculum features for the Department’s undergraduates. Students shall engage in practical training in the relevant industries for one year from the second semester of the junior year until the first semester of the senior year or follow the Department’s teachers to engage in special study projects. It has been more than 23 years since the Department implemented the practical training system, which has also been valued by the industries. It not only has received enthusiastic responses from the industries, but also enables students to learn valuable experience and practical knowledge from learning by doing. The results achieved for the most recent three years (2016~2018) are stated as below: A majority of students have been engaged in practicing outside the school, i.e. 50~55%, and 2.25~2.98 employment opportunities per student. 58~61% of the students practiced work in a Top 1000 enterprise (e.g. ASE, HTC, Inventec, GIGABYTE, FET and Far Eastern Int'l Bank, et al). Additionally, in order to ensure the quality of practicing, and verify the working environment, work type, and learning adaption of the practicing students, the Department set up the practicing visit system, under which teachers may have a face-to-face interview with company supervisors to verify the difficulties suffered by the students and their work performance.