Carry out Service Philosophy and Promote Undergraduate Teaching Informatization and Network Construc

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Journal of Information Technology and Application in Education Volume 4, 2015 doi: 10.14355/jitae.2015.04.011

Carry out Service Philosophy and Promote Undergraduate Teaching Informatization and Network Construction Gang Ding, Yanyu Cheng, Yuan Gao, Lihong Wei Teaching Affairs Office, Harbin Institute of Technology, 150001, Harbin, Heilongjiang Dinggang@hit.edu.cn Abstract To strengthen and increase teaching and serving work efficiency is the mainline and the comprehensive and deep integration of teaching philosophy into information and network technology is the method. To drive and increase teaching level and talent cultivation quality as the core and root duty, we launch the construction of the undergraduate teaching administration and service platform, and the construction of the network courses management and service platform. At the aspect of the teaching administration and service platform construction, we need to hackle our teaching work comprehensively first, and then integrate sorts of teaching administration and service work flow into the construction of the platform. At the aspect of network course management and service platform construction, courses are the core contents, which should be built according to the MOOC mode, and operate on the platform according to SPOC mode. Through platform construction, undergraduate teaching work is promoted in connotation development and leap frog development.

Key Words Teaching Service; Informatization; Network

Introduction Higher education informatization is an important part of Chinese education informatization [1]. The core content of higher education informatization is the informatization and network of the teaching administration service and course management service work. Recent years, as WEB2.0, artificial intelligence, Cloud Computing and Big Data developing rapidly, network online-teaching burst as a new education mode. Right now, there are network course platforms all over the campus nearly in worldwide first-class universities and key universities in China. It is a general trend that information and network technology supports traditional teaching. The advantage of network online teaching is to make full use of new technology, get over time and space barriers, make the teaching and learning process flexible and interactive, and make the presentation of teaching materials more and more flexible and vivid. Universities that launch network teaching can post teaching information, course materials and homework to the internet, greatly increase teaching efficiency. More importantly, online education provides a brand-new knowledge diffusion mode and learning method, shifting from a traditional and passive learning to an active, explorative, cooperative learning around rich resources, truly implementing the philosophy of students oriented. Meanwhile, online education makes use of big data analysis technology to mine and analyze data towards each student during each link in their learning process, makes teachers know well about the learning situation of each student and provide instructions and feedbacks in time, and can also distill education law from education big data, continuously improving course teaching contents and teaching link design, and teaching students in accordance with their aptitude. Since the year of 2012, “Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs)� has sprung up as a new mode of online education all over the world. [2] On one hand traditional higher education faces tremendous challenge and impact, on the other hand, precious choices are provided to the shifting of education philosophy and re-examining education informatization. Undergraduate education is the first theme of talent education work of Harbin Institute of Technology. Harbin Institute of Technology always pays great attention on undergraduate teaching work. Recent years, we continuously promote teaching and examination reforms. For example, undergraduate transcripts are marked according to 100 scale system, accumulation examination, open experiment management, learning based on projects, and etc. The work above cannot live

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without the deep integration of advanced and scientific education philosophy, management mechanism, and information technology. We can say that just because undergraduate teaching reform is continuously deepening development, Harbin Institute of Technology should build a set of teaching administration and service platform and network course service platform to provide continuous information technology support to increase talent cultivation quality.

Problems and Analysis within Current Undergraduate Teaching Administration System The undergraduate teaching administration system has been used for over 10 years of history since the beginning of its construction by Harbin Institute of Technology, experiencing several development stages - from DOS system to Windows system, standalone machine to Local Area Network, and then to the internet. The platform implements the informatization of our undergraduate teaching administration basically with relatively low input, through 10 years of construction. However, as we establish the elite education philosophy and the new talent cultivation target that is the cultivation of “research, personalization, elite” talents, our undergraduate teaching reform is progressing towards a deeper level. While a long and united scientific planning is lacking in this progress, our current undergraduate teaching administration system cannot satisfy the demands of teaching and examination reform, improving talent cultivation quality, and providing excellent service. Also as system scale and data size are increasing, the problems mentioned above will present a more and more serious trend: Lack Integration of Teaching Administration System into Education Philosophy At the beginning of the construction of the current used undergraduate teaching administration system, we lack adequate consideration of its sustainable development and the system didn’t take full advantage of its role of “carrier of education philosophy”. To carry out the philosophy of “elite education” and implement the cultivation target of undergraduate top innovation talents, according to the “Twelfth Five-Year” planning about undergraduate teaching work, we require implement “personalization cultivation, flexible management” during the talent cultivation process. So we need to implement the informatization of teaching and learning situation analysis, teaching process alert, and process elimination. However, relevant function modules are lacking in current systems. The contradiction between inflexibility of the current system and talent cultivation modes diversity becomes prominent day by day.

Weak Service-Consciousness Certain work flows are not optimized in our current teaching administration system, making teachers and students have difficulties in accessing service of high quality and efficiency. For example, if students want transcripts and other certificates, they have to go to undergraduate college office to get payment bill which is generated one by one from our staff’s handwork., then students take the bills to financial department, wait in line and pay the bill, and finally go back to undergraduate college office to get the transcripts and certificates. The low work efficiency leads to a waste of manpower and time. During the period of picking out courses, there is great network press and it is difficult for students to pick out courses. With a limited course resource, part of students cannot have the choice to pick out the courses they like.

Inadequate Support for Teaching Method and Examination Method Teaching method and examination method reform cannot exist without the support of teaching administration system. At this aspect, the support provided by our current system seems behind. For example, recent years, our university promotes learning based on projects, engineering leading talent cultivation planning, which cannot be reflected and implemented in current teaching administration systems. Also at the aspect of course service platform building and the application of mobile interconnection technology, we are still on a lower level.

Difficulty in System Interconnection and Data Sharing Our undergraduate teaching administration system is built and ready to upgrade anytime for work arrangement and adjustment. We didn’t make a one-time purchase or build a tremendous system because of the limitation of financial and human resources, but according to the work demands we developed separate sub-systems again and

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again. Finally the current undergraduate teaching administration system came out. Although each sub-system can satisfy relevant work demands in time with a low development cost, each sub-system was built from the view of considering its own work demand, the whole situation of the teaching work was not considered into the construction. As a result the overall style of the system cannot be united and afterwards maintenance work went more and more difficult. Without united planning and overall design, there is difficulty within data transfer and information sharing among sub-systems (such as course-arrangement system, experiment course and physical training systems, physical training transcripts system, and evaluation system).

Planning and Construction of Undergraduate Teaching Administration and Service Platform and Web Course Service Platform It is no wonder current undergraduate teaching informatization level and consciousness of serving teachers and students remains to increase. To build first-class university over the world, we have to stand from the view of scientific development. With a systematic and sustainable development conception, we integrate our excellent achievements from teaching reforms recent years. We should plan and construct unified software and hardware, provide scientific and high-efficient information management method for undergraduate administrative staff, and provide high-level teaching information service for all teachers and students. We should also solve current issues and increase teaching administration work efficiency and service level fundamentally. After the construction of the new system platform is finished, it will be closely combined with our unified portal authentication and other internal systems. The new system platform will implement “high-level, humanity, one-stop” information administration and service, provide high-level information service for undergraduate teaching administration and teacher-student as a starting point, reach the requirements for “advanced concepts, cutting edge technology, efficient operation, decent interface, reasonable workflow, well equipped functions, convenient to use, flexible setup, variable reports and statements, secure data, reliable maintenance”, and provide stable credible technology platform for our university to rapidly develop and teaching reform to go furthest. Meanwhile, through the construction of network course service platform and the popularizing of online-teaching, time and space barriers are broken down and a highly-efficient and stable platform is provided to the communication between students and teachers. Not only teaching effects can be improved, but also teaching process management can be enhanced.

Not only students’ demand on self-studying can be satisfied, but also its quality can be monitored by management section. Finally, through the construction and application of these two platforms, university level and talent cultivation quality can be increased.

In order to achieve the targets above, Harbin Institute of Technology launched the construction of undergraduate teaching administration service platform (new version) and network course service platform from the year of 2013.

The function of the new platforms can be divided into two parts, shown as below specifically: 1.

Teaching administration and service platform

Teaching administration and teacher-student teaching work as the main line, mainly involved personnel include undergraduate college and department teaching administration staff (including supervision experts, and etc.), teachers, and students. It will comprehensively realize information management.

2.

Course management and service platform

The main recipients of the service are teachers and students, and the core of the service surrounds courses to realize course resources and teaching processes informatization. Combined with MOOC philosophy, we construct network course resources accordingly. Network course management and service platform mainly opens to our own teacher-student, so we cannot say it is large scale. The requirements for the software and hardware of the platform are not as high as those of various MOOC platforms widely used currently. Thus we make use network course management and service platform to play the role of SPOC (Small Private online course)[4], face our teacher-student to assist teaching and learning, improve teaching method (for example, bring in Flipped Classroom and other teaching methods), and increase teaching level and talent cultivation quality.

Meanwhile, courses operate on the platform of SPOC, but they are built according to MOOC mode. As a result if the platform runs normally and perfectly, we can gradually push the courses onto appropriate MOOC platform for access.

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The undergraduate administration and service platform and the network course service platform built right now will be put into use in 2014 fall semester. During the construction process, according to the thought of constructing and using, we have put “undergraduates’ transcripts self-help prints system” into use. Students select wanted certificates online, pay relevant fees through “alipay”, and get the certificates after then. The self-help system greatly saves time, human resources and material resources, and improves service quality and increases work efficiency. The system gets good evaluations from students, teachers and staff.

From the use of “undergraduate transcripts self-help print system”, teachers and students have great demands on the high-efficient service of excellent quality based on informatization and network, however, the current work flow and informatization level and network construction cannot well satisfy teachers and students’ demands. The solution to the contradiction relies on the construction of undergraduate teaching administration and service platform, and the network course service platform.

To relieve network pressure during the period of picking out courses, and ensure the security and reliability of the system, our university has enhanced the input at the aspect of the hardware. Harbin Institute of Technology undergraduate teaching administration and service platform and network courses service platform adopt a combined mode of C/S and B/S. Relying on campus network, two platforms interconnect and communicate, and share data. Undergraduate teaching administration and service platform mainly faces to teaching administration staff, teachers and students, including teaching plans, academic credential, course registration, course arrangement, examinations, academic affairs dispatch, transcripts, practical teaching, teaching evaluation, and many other sub-systems. Teaching administration and service work rums full information technology. Network course service platform surrounds “courses” as the core, saves all kinds of teaching materials and resources of the courses, and implements interactive network teaching. The overall structure of the teaching administration service platform and network course service platform is shown as the picture below.

FIG.1 PLATFORM OVERALL STRUCTURE

Requirements for the operation performance of the platform system: 1.

Teaching administration service platform should allow at least satisfy 500 users to visit at the same time.

Through setting up separate web entrance to pick out courses and load balancing method, even when students pick out courses and teachers enter course marks at peak times, at least 1000 users can visit the platform system at the same time. These massive visits require system to give fast response.

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2.

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Network course service platform should allow at least 1000 users to visit at the same time.

500 users can watch videos and class materials online fluently.

Conclusions Improving the quality of talent cultivation is the root duty of universities. The deep integration of education into information and network technology is to increase teaching administration work efficiency, improve teaching service work quality and level, improve the informatization and network construction of teaching resources, and finally increase talents cultivation quality. Therefore, we will further give an impetus to the construction of undergraduate teaching administration and service platform and network course service platform. Through increasing teaching administration service level and work efficiency, and promoting teaching and learning. Finally, we reach the target of increasing teaching quality and talent cultivation quality.

REFERENCES

[1]

Niaodong Feng, Yaqiang Cui, Qi Yu. New beginning, new issues, and new ideas of higher education informatization [J].

The Chinese Journal of ICT in Education, 2013(24).

[2]

Xuesong Feng, Qiong Wang, Xiaoming Li. Peking University first MOOCs construction process and key link – Experience of Peking University open network course construction work team [J]. The Chinese Journal of ICT in Education, 2014(2).

[3]

Yu Zhou, Jingyao Qi. Teaching reform and education innovation within a global perspective view, 2013(3).

[4]

Yeqin Kang. The “post –MOOC” era of online education – SPOC Interpretation [J]. Tsinghua University Education Research,2014(1).

Gang Ding, male, Place of Birth: Qingdao Shandong, deputy director of Teaching Affairs Office Harbin Institute of Technology, associate professor, PHD degree, cell phone: 13946092735, email: dinggang@hit.edu.cn Yanyu Cheng, male, Place of Birth: Tonghe Heilongjiang, section chief of Teaching Affairs Office Harbin Institute of Technology, Master degree Yuan Gao, female, Place of Birth: Harbin Heilongjiang, Staff of Teaching Affairs Office Harbin Institute of Technology, Master degree Lihong Wei, female, Place of Birth: Jiamusi Heilongjiang, Staff of Teaching Affairs Office Harbin Institute of Technology, Master degree

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