School-Enterprise Cooperation in Excellent Engineer Education and Training Program at UESTC

Ting Zhong＊, Guobin Zhu

Abstract: School of Information and Software Engineering at University of Electronic Science and Technology of China (abbreviated hereafter as “SISE”) joined Excellent Engineer Education and Training Program launched by Ministry of Education of China in 2011. This paper discussed nine models of school-enterprise cooperation practiced at SISE since 2011. The school-enterprise cooperation model effectively broadens the students' horizons and improves the students' practical ability and has been recognized by academic circles.

Key words: school-enterprise cooperation; co-cultivation;Engineer Education and Training

1 Introduction

Excellent Engineer Education and Training Program(abbreviated hereafter as “Excellence Program”) is a major reform project which was launched by Ministry of Education of China. The program was specified in “Outline of National Medium and Long-Term Education Reform and Development Plan(2010—2020)” and “Outline of National Medium and Long-Term Talent Development Plan(2010—2020)”.Major initiative for this program is to promote China’s status as one of the leading countries for engineering education. The program aims to cultivate various types of high-quality engineering and technical personnel who has innovative ability and can adapt to the needs of rapid economic and social development in China.The Program gives guidance to improve quality of engineering education and it puts special focus on the roles that enterprises take in software engineer training and education at universities.

School of Information and Software Engineering(abbreviated hereafter as “SISE”) of UESTC joined Excellence Program in 2011.Since then, SISE of UESTC started to pay more attention to engineering education and established a school-enterprise cocultivation mechanism. SISE and cooperating enterprises work together to formulate training objectives, build the curriculum and teaching content and reform training process and evaluation system based on the guiding principles of complementary advantages, mutual benefit and collaborative innovation. The parallelization of cutoff pair interactions is mature on CPUs, and typically employs a voxel-based method.

2 School-Enterprise Cooperation Model

In 2011, SISE took part in Excellence Program and recruited 500 students for the program. Until December 2016, more than 2,700 students have participated in Excellence Program at SISE of UESTC. Following basic principles in Excellence Program such as“Guidance from Industry” “School-enterprise Cocultivation” and “More Adaptive and Diversified Form of Cooperation”, SISE constantly enriches the content and expands the form of cooperation with enterprises.Integrating internal and external resources, SISE proposed nine models of school-enterprise cooperation.These models will be discussed in detail.

2.1 Expert lectures

Enterprise senior management personnel, senior engineering and technical personnel and academic experts were invited to give lectures on corporate culture, employment philosophy, cutting-edge technology and other related topics for undergraduates and graduate students. SISE invited experts like Dr.Joseph Salvo who is the director of GE Industrial Internet Alliance and Dr. Yuqin Fu who is an IBM outstanding engineer. These experts gave lectures to students on cutting-edge technology, engineering applications, enterprise management and so on.

2.2 Enterprise cooperation courses

Teaching plan of SISE requires that students must take enterprise cooperation courses. Credits gained by learning enterprise cooperation courses are compulsory.SISE develops various enterprise curriculums for students of different directions. Enterprise courses help students to understand the process of enterprise product development better and to know how to apply knowledge learned in class to the development of enterprise products. SISE invited experts with rich experience in software engineering and management to teach enterprise cooperation courses and thus enlarge the team of teachers.

2.3 Enterprise virtual classes

SISE and enterprise jointly set up corporate-sponsored virtual classes. Students voluntarily register for virtual class and enterprise experts determine the course list. Each virtual class can accommodate at most 40 students. Taking the needs of both students and enterprises into consideration, SISE and enterprises work together to make virtual class training programs.Enterprise engineering experts act as class tutor and each virtual class a SISE teacher is assigned as teaching assistant. Activities are held for the students according to enterprises’ specialty. For instance, Wiener Class opens an IT related Japanese language course and Changhong Eagle Class holds brainstorming activities and corporate culture related lectures.

So far, our college has established virtual classes with three companies. They are Sichuan Changhong,Qingniu software and Wiener software. More than 300 students were trained in these virtual classes.

2.4 Engineering practice education center

Enterprises help SISE to establish Engineering practice education centers on their premise off campus. The main responsibility of education center is to arrange trainings and internships for SISE students. Some education centers open courses according to the needs of the enterprises and it is a way to train their future engineers. Enterprises and SISE work together to formulate teaching objectives and plans to develop curriculum and teaching content to evaluate students.Now SISE has established more than 100 education centers with enterprises such as IBM, Changhong,Qingniu. Education centers with IBM, Sichuan Changhong and China Software and Technology Services Co., Ltd. are based on National Engineering Practice Education Centers. Education centers with Chengdu Santai Holding Co., Ltd., Chengdu Wiener Software Co., Ltd. and Beijing Dongfang Tong Technology Co., Ltd. are Sichuan Provincial Engineering Practice Education Centers.

2.5 Engineering practical training bases on campus

By building the enterprise working environment on campus and providing students with training projects,enterprises help SISE to train students in engineering practical training bases on campus. By deploying hardware and software from enterprises in engineering practical training bases on campus, enterprise-related development environment is simulated. With the guidance of enterprise engineers, training bases help students to understand the company's products and to know development process better. Students’ horizon is expanded through this kind of on-campus training.

2.6 Joint laboratory

SISE and enterprises cooperate to build joint laboratories that are co-managed by responsible persons from both sides. SISE and enterprises work together to formulate laboratory engineering training programs and extracurricular practice program. More attention is paid to student engineering practice ability training and the focus is on undergraduate engineering practice education. Until now, SISE has established joint laboratories with seven companies, such as TI,Changhong, Qingniu, Dongfang Tong and so on.

2.7 Scientif c and technological cooperation

SISE and enterprises cooperate on various types of scientific and technological research and development projects. SISE helps enterprises to make technological breakthrough and enterprises help SISE to build talent education platforms. SISE has cooperated project with enterprises such as Chengdu Railway Bureau, Daqing Jinqiao and Sichuan Changhong in recent years.

2.8 Scientif c and technological competition

SISE creates a good atmosphere for students to participate in scientific and technological competition.Students are encouraged to actively participate in scientific and technological competitions held by wellknown enterprises at home and abroad. Through these competitions, students’ knowledge is tested and teamwork spirit is trained. SISE also organizes students to participate in corporate-sponsored competitions. The enterprises select competition theme and direction for corporate-sponsored competitions. SISE and enterprise will review the theme and direction together. SISE holds corporate-sponsored competitions every year with Changhong, Dongfang Tong and other enterprises,almost covering all the students on campus.

2.9 Academic exchange of teachers

Young teachers of SISE go to relevant enterprises for project cooperation and help the enterprises to solve problems encountered in software development process.

3 Conclusion

The school-enterprise cooperation model has been recognized by academic circles. SISE started to cooperate with enterprises in 2013 and now has established sustainable cooperation with more than 300 enterprises. SISE has received a number of awards for engineering talent education reform, such as“ Ministry of Education-IBM 2013 Best Engineering Personnel Training Reform Award”“Ministry of Education-IBM University cooperation project 20 anniversary special commemorative award” and“ Ministry of Education-Autodesk integrated engineering and industry cooperation reform project”. The co-cultivation model also effectively broadens the students’ horizons and improves the students’ practical ability. From 2013 to 2015, students completed 365 innovative projects,established 6 start-up companies, received 56 awards of national and international corporate competitions, won 116 rewards of school-level enterprise competition,published 42 papers.

Ting Zhongreceived the Ph.D.degree, in University of Electronic Science and Technology of China in 2009; Associate Professor at School of Information and Software Engineering at University of Electronic Science and Technology of China; Her research interest includes deep learning and network protocols.

Guobin Zhureceived the Ph.D.degree in, University of Electronic Science and Technology of China in 2014; he is the deputy secretary of the party committee, School of Information and Software Engineering, UESTC. His research interests include network security and applied cryptography.