One of the primary purposes of higher education is to prepare students to meet the demands of an ever-changing society. This means not only equipping them with tangible skills that are in high demand in today’s industries, but also immersing them in a learning culture that reflects the values and processes of the day–ways of thinking and seeing the world that, when placed in a societal context, lead to great personal and professional enrichment. As society changes, university academic programs must be continually revised to reflect current learning needs. The Internet has had a profound impact on social and economic patterns, creating new demands that must be considered in the development of academic programs. As demand shifts away from well-defined specialties and toward skills that cannot be easily replaced by automation, these programs could use a thoughtful refresh. Other chapters in this handbook describe how the mediums through which education is delivered are becoming a mix of physical and digital; this chapter seeks to illustrate how the content of academic programs themselves should change in a similar way.

While the impact of the Internet is undoubtedly global, higher education is generally administered independently by each nation-state in accordance with its own history, culture, and resources. This has led to different approaches to developing academic programs suitable for the digital age. This chapter will highlight China’s recent approaches to developing academic programs in the digital age. We chose China because the country has clearly articulated its plans for academic program reform, because it is relatively far along in the reform process, and because of the authors’ area of expertise. While there is no one-size-fits-all strategy for higher education, we hope that this deep dive into China's program development will prove useful to the global community.

The first section of this chapter provides an overview of the Chinese higher education system and defines key terms. The second section will describe the new requirements for academic program reform in the digital age and how China has chosen to implement such reform. The third section will provide further reflections on China’s implementation and explore generalizable strategies for systematically rebuilding academic programs. We hope that this chapter will serve as a reference for university leaders, organizers, and researchers as they develop their academic programs in the digital age.

3.1 Key Definitions and Overview of the Chinese Higher Education System

In this section, we will provide a brief overview of the Chinese higher education system, including recent policy initiatives like the “Four New” construct for universities and the “Vocational Education Action Plan” for vocational institutions. While the granular details of Chinese national education policy may not be directly applicable to the development of other academic programs worldwide, we hope the content here conveys some focus areas to consider prioritizing and provides the necessary context for understanding the academic program reforms described in the next section.

3.1.1 The Role of the Academic Program

While the general concept of an academic program has been alluded to above, we take some space here to elaborate on what such programs consist of. An academic program is the combination of courses and related requirements that a student must complete in order to receive the higher education degree they are pursuing. This can include not only curriculum systems, but also evaluation standards, capstone projects, work experiences, regulations, and the management personnel and faculty members involved with the student’s path through higher education. From a societal standpoint, academic programs exist to cultivate qualified graduates that can adapt to social needs and are equipped to engage in a specific profession after graduation. Historically, such programs have cultivated specialized talents that address our modern society’s wide spectrum of needs—they help cultivate the next generation of electricians, filmmakers, chemists, politicians, etc. Increasingly, such programs emphasize interdisciplinary and innovative thinking over pure specialization, as those are traits expected of the next generation of professionals.

The “development of academic programs” is an umbrella term we use to describe the reforming and rebuilding of academic programs in response to societal changes brought on by factors like scientific discoveries, the adoption of new technologies, and evolving cultural norms. Developing academic programs is both a science and an art—a good program should incorporate insights from empirical research, like that described in this chapter, while still being tailored to the unique needs of the community of learners that it serves. Much of the design and implementation of academic programs need to actively adapt to changes in national strategy, target the frontiers of professional development, and align with the general trend of global higher education development.

3.1.2 Interdisciplinary Revolution in the Digital Age

In most current societies, digital technologies have become a ubiquitous factor in almost everyone’s lives. The combination of modern science and technology with evolving professional fields has brought significant changes to traditional concepts of academic programs and disciplines, strengthening the interaction between disciplines. Reconstructing new disciplinary relationships from our old ways has become an important proposition in current education reform at universities. Historically, academic programs have been divided by discipline, with a heavy emphasis on the student developing specialized skills for a particular industry. We argue that the efficiency brought on by automation-related technologies has shifted the set of skills in high demand from more specialized industry expertise to more cross-disciplinary expertise. This may not apply in every case, but the advantages of emphasizing more “blended” disciplines in academic programs appear compelling.

In other chapters, we discussed the term “blended learning” in reference to the mediums of education—combining physical and virtual learning experiences into a distinctly hybrid one. Here, we introduce the idea of blending academic programs. This blending refers not to the medium, but to the subject matter being taught and learned. For example, instead of separate course paths for architecture and urban planning, a blending academic program might include more pathways that incorporate both fields or individual courses that address the intersection between the two. Academic programs can include both blended learning and blended subjects; in fact, we argue that both approaches should be employed when designing the higher education model of the future.

3.1.3 Overview of the Chinese Higher Education System

To provide some context, we will provide a brief overview of the Chinese higher education system here—including some recent national objectives—before discussing the implementations of academic program reform the country in the digital age has tried in the next section.

The current higher education model in China is composed of institutions of various types and levels, including universities and vocational colleges. These universities and colleges undertake the mission of cultivating professional talents—students attend these institutions to complete their studies in a specific academic program. These academic programs were constructed with several considerations in mind, including the requirements of division of labor in society, changing employment trends, and achieving some level of well-roundedness within each degree. After participating in their academic program, individuals are ideally able to competently enter a relevant profession and continue to meet the requirements of that profession well into the future.

At the turn of the century, China began exploring its approach to higher education in earnest. “The construction of a powerful country in higher education” has been the theme of the International Forum on Higher Education hosted by the China Higher Education Association for four consecutive years since 2009. In 2015, the “Overall Scheme to Promote the Construction of World-class Universities and Disciplines” issued by the State Council of China proposed that by the middle of the twenty-first century, the number and strength of China’s world-class universities and disciplines should be at the forefront of the world. This scheme provides a clear timetable for the Chinese strategy of “constructing a powerful country in higher education” and illustrates the high priority the nation is placing on higher education reform.

The Ministry of Education of the People’s Republic of China issued “Opinions of the Ministry of Education on Accelerating the Construction of High-level Undergraduate Education and Comprehensively Improving the Ability to Cultivate Talents” on September 17, 2018. The opinions proposed that to implement the “Double Ten-Thousand Plan” for the construction of world-class disciplines, academic programs are the basis of talent cultivation as well as the pillars of the construction of world-class undergraduate education and top talent cultivation. To build these world-class disciplines that meet society’s emerging needs, the Ministry of Education will construct 10,000 national world-class academic programs and 10,000 provincial ones to lead and support high-level undergraduate education”.

Academic Program Specialty Catalogs

In the talent cultivation system of its higher education model, China has established a series of catalogs for academic programs according to the country’s social needs and continuously revises these catalogs as needed. The catalogs serve to guide different colleges and universities in designing programs that suit both their institution and the broader educational development goals of the nation. For example, undergraduate universities set up their academic programs based on the Undergraduate Specialty Catalogue of Higher Education issued by the national government, which includes fields of academic study, academic programs, and specialties. The 2020 edition of this catalog has a total of 12 disciplines: philosophy, economics, law, education, literature, history, science, engineering, agriculture, medicine, management, and art. Under each disciplinary category, there are special categories, and under those are academic programs. Overall, the edition listed 93 specialty categories and 703 academic programs. Vocational colleges set up their academic programs based on the Specialties Catalogue of Vocational Education, which divides academic programs into three levels: program, major, and specialized direction. The institutions for cultivating postgraduates (including graduate and doctoral students) set up their academic programs according to the Training and Degree-Granting Academic Catalog, which contains disciplinary categories, first-tier disciplines, and second-tier disciplines. Together, these catalogs guide Chinese institutions of higher education, leading to a national system with a fairly high level of standardization. Within each university, the more granular facets of academic program development are delegated to sub-organizations like colleges, departments, or research institutions.

Disciplines of Focus—the “Four New” Framework

On top of understanding the catalog system of academic programs in China, it’s helpful to be familiar with the “Four New” framework that describes the nation’s disciplines of focus in the current era. On October 17, 2018, the Ministry of Education of China decided to implement the “Six Excellence and One Top-notch” 2.0 Plan, which aims to improve the ability of universities to serve economic and social development by targeting seven specific fields. The plan includes “2.0 plans” for excellent education and training in the fields of engineering, medicine, agriculture and forestry, teaching, law, journalism, and fundamental disciplines—the last four are sometimes grouped together and referred to as the “new liberal arts”. Thus, this series of 2.0 plans can be broken down using the “Four New” construct, with the four fields being engineering, medicine, agriculture, and liberal arts. The relevant administrators of the Ministry of Education view engineering as the country’s critical power, medicine as the country’s health, agricultural science as the country’s growth force, and liberal arts as the country’s soft power (Wu 2020). Thus, the goal of building “a powerful country in higher education” will be realized through these Four New constructs. Next, we will briefly introduce each of the Four New.

The construct of “new engineering” is in a “pioneer” position in the Four New strategy. Relevant universities in China jointly issued Beijing guidelines for new engineering principles, emphasizing the need to explore “new opportunities brought by the new industrial revolution, the new needs of the country, and the new development of engineering education”. Additionally, the guidelines also proposed constructing a new engineering education system, attaching importance to craftsmanship, and implementing the international concept of certification for engineering education. In addition, the guidelines urged upgrading and reforming existing engineering academic programs and the deployment of emerging engineering programs—paying attention to both cutting-edge and less popular specialties. Universities are encouraged to explore new practice patterns for university-enterprise alliances and interdisciplinary platforms and promote the internationalization of engineering education. In alignment with the Belt and Road Initiative, China looks to build a strategic partnership of national engineering universities along the route and jointly build an engineering education community that will usher in a new round of scientific, technological, and industrial transformation.

The second of the Four New is medicine. China's new medical education aims to serve the modern health care and improve the quality of health care. Medical education is an important foundation for health care and essential to a powerful and healthy country. The construction of new medical education needs to emphasize the integration of science and industry. The outbreak of COVID-19 can be regarded as the “trigger” that is driving structural changes in the healthcare industry, and it is also a “challenge” to the current “habituation” of the healthcare industry. Medical education plays two important roles in the national strategy and structural system. The first is that it serves the construction of a “Healthy China” and the second is that it drives the innovation of medical science and technology. New medical education has to adapt to the multidisciplinary trend of medicine and set up emerging specialties like intelligent medicine, translational medicine, and precision medicine that are conducive to the cultivation of interdisciplinary talents. It also needs to strengthen the cultivation of medical professionals that have expertise in the whole life cycle and the holistic process of health. Lastly, it is also necessary to coordinate between the decisive forces of the market and government regulation to build dynamic and scientific control mechanisms for the professional coordination of medical talent.

As for the construction of “emerging agricultural education”, Chinese agriculture-related universities and agricultural experts put forth in the “Anji Consensus” that China’s emerging agricultural education has four development tasks: winning the battle against poverty, implementing a rural revitalization strategy, promoting the construction of ecological civilization, and building a beautiful and happy China”. To strengthen the construction of new agriculture, new countryside, new farmers, and new ecology, the country must develop emerging agricultural education. The missions of emerging agricultural education can be encompassed by the following four aspects. First, it aims to transform and upgrade the agricultural, industrial, production, and management systems and improve education on these systems. Second, it focuses on product development and innovation management as it relates to the new countryside. Third, it attaches importance to cultivating qualified new farmers who have mastered modern technology and knowledge to become the creators and defenders of the new countryside. Fourth, emerging agricultural education contributes to constructing the governance system of water, forest, field, lake, and grass with a notion of “lucid waters and lush mountains being invaluable assets”. Beijing guidelines further clarified the main areas of emerging agricultural education construction, emphasizing the innovation of concepts and the optimization and reform of academic programs. These guidelines are promoting significant changes in the structure of higher agricultural and forestry education in China, including the establishment of a three-level accreditation system, and clarified standards for related academic programs.

The construct of “new liberal arts” is necessary for informing China’s disciplinary system, academic system, and discourse system. The new liberal arts pay attention not only to excellent traditional culture, but also to the integration and development of both Chinese and foreign cultures, thus contributing to China’s wisdom, solutions, and strength as it helps build humanity’s collective global future. It is also necessary to promote the integration of philosophy and social sciences with new scientific, technological, and industrial transformations. The nation’s leaders hope that this holistic approach to philosophy and social science in the new digital will foster a new and exciting Chinese liberal arts culture that becomes highly respected in the world.

In the construction of this “Four New”, Chinese universities advocate exploring information technology tools in the development of teaching methods. With the help of “Internet + ” (Internet integration into traditional industries), big data, and artificial intelligence, universities incorporate new technologies into the development of not only engineering education, but medical, agricultural, and liberal arts education as well. As we have seen in other chapters of this handbook, universities have been initiating a student-centered teaching reconstruction by deeply integrating online and offline teaching into a blended hybrid experience. In the following section, we will highlight some ways that Chinese institutions of higher education have also been developing academic programs within the Four New framework.

Vocational Education Action Plan

Running parallel to the Four New framework is China’s efforts to reform its vocational higher education offerings. In 2020, China’s Ministry of Education and other departments jointly promulgated the “Vocational Education Action Plan for Enhancing Quality and Cultivating Excellence (2020—2023)”, which designed 10 tasks and 27 measures for the development of vocational education. These objectives include fostering virtue through education, promoting and coordinating the development of vocational education, improving the institutional system that serves lifelong learning for all, deepening industry-education integration and university-enterprise cooperation in vocational education, and improving the examination and enrollment systems in vocational education. The action plan also proposed some specific actions. For example, it suggested that the governance of vocational education should be improved, and the reform of “three educational aspects” (i.e., the quality of teachers, learning materials, and pedagogy) must be implemented. Additionally, it also incorporated points about international cooperation and the improvement of innovative abilities.

Notably, the Vocational Education Action Plan said that institutions should “actively adapt to the requirements of the scientific and technological revolution and industrial revolution, upgrade traditional academic programs with ‘information technology+ ’, and develop merged academic programs derived from the digital economy promptly. Vocational schools are encouraged to reform the model of talent cultivation through modern information technology to meet the diverse learning needs of students. It also urges to build a new form of education that is based on ‘Internet + ’ and ‘Intelligence + ’ and promote the reform and innovation of education and teaching”.

In addition to the Vocational Education Action Plan, recent revisions to the vocational education specialties catalog also reflect trends in the nation’s approach to vocational education. In 2021, the Ministry of Education of China conducted a comprehensive revision of the specialties catalog and issued the “Specialties Catalogue of Vocational Education (2021)” which mirrors the specialties catalog for undergraduate programs at universities in structure. The catalog is broken down into disciplines, specialty categories within disciplines, and academic programs within specialty categories. It constructed academic programs at different levels, including secondary vocational education, higher vocational education, and undergraduate higher vocational education, with a total of 19 disciplinary categories, 97 specialty categories, and 1349 academic programs. Among the academic programs, there are 358 specialties for secondary vocational education, 744 for higher vocational education, and 247 for undergraduate higher vocational education. The construction and adjustment of these vocational academic programs focused on connecting industries and occupations, prioritizing innovation to keep pace with the times, and promoting industry-education integration. It also sought to incorporate principles of the new economy, new technology, new business models, and new occupations.

Examining the adjustments to the specialties catalog of vocational education generally reveals the following focus areas:

  1. (1)

    Modern service industry: supply chain operations, intelligent logistics, digital design, intelligent manufacturing, infant care, smart health care, modern housekeeping, winter sports, cave maintenance, temple protection, mitigation of occupational hazards, etc.

  2. (2)

    Construction infrastructure: 5G mobile communication, industrial internet, intelligent transportation, intelligent water conservancy, hydropower engineering, distributed generation and intelligent microgrid technology, high-speed railway trains, new energy vehicles, etc.

  3. (3)

    Industrial digitization and information security: big data, cloud computing, artificial intelligence, embedded technology, integrated circuits, information security technology, cryptography, bio-information, etc.

  4. (4)

    Rural revitalization and food security: modern agricultural economics, new rural economic organization, leisure agricultural business, forage production, intelligent livestock breeding, grain storage, transportation, and quality safety,

  5. (5)

    Sustainability and environmental protection: green and low-carbon technology, new energy material application, ecological preservation, intelligent monitoring and protection of water environments, ecological environment restoration, marine engineering, etc.

  6. (6)

    National governance emergency management: emergency rescue technology, intelligent security monitoring, digital security technology, smart community management, etc.

  7. (7)

    Emerging businesses: cultural tourism, prefabricated buildings, blockchain engineering, customized travel management and services, guesthouse operations, e-commerce, all-media advertising and marketing, webcasting, etc.

A Case Study 3.1

Certificate Program of Worldwide Blended Classroom for Logic

In January 2021, the Logic Center of the School of Humanities of Tsinghua University in China released the “English-only Certificate Program of Worldwide Blended Classroom for Logic”, which consists of four logic courses jointly taught by a group of four professors from the School of Humanities of Tsinghua University, including “Logic, Language and Philosophy”, “Modal Logic and Its Application”, “Basic Theory of Logic” and “Logic, Computation, and Games”. This program is the first global blended classroom certificate program launched by Tsinghua University, whose goal is to target high-quality international students and attract more students to pay attention to Tsinghua Logic and Tsinghua Humanities, starting from East Asia and Southeast Asia. All courses are taught in English, with Logic as the core, including such basic disciplines as Philosophy, Mathematics, Linguistics, Computer Science, and Cognitive Science. It not only cultivates students’ basic thinking abilities but also fosters their broad interdisciplinary horizons and innovative spirits. This certificate program is not only open to students at Tsinghua University but also to students from universities in the Global MOOC Alliance, such as St. Petersburg University in Russia, Nanyang Technological University in Singapore, and other world-class universities. Each course in the program will employ a blended teaching method to introduce high-quality college students at home and abroad into Tsinghua University classrooms through online teaching, which builds a global classroom and enhances students’ international communication and understanding. Students can participate in courses through synchronized or asynchronized online learning. After completing all four courses and passing the examination, they can obtain the project certificate. Tsinghua University is expecting to launch a number of certificate programs for the global blended classroom and MOOC certificate programs. By sharing high-quality educational resources and strengthening international exchanges and cooperation, Tsinghua University will respond to global challenges with an open mind and promote higher education innovation.

3.2 China’s Academic Program Reform in the Digital Age

The development of high-quality academic programs is not only the foundation of survival for higher education institutions but also part of their responsibility and mission in the digital age. After entering the information age, nuanced academic programs have become increasingly abundant, and more importance is attached to academic program construction, with specialties becoming more open and blended than before. This section aims to explore these changes to academic program reform in the context of the Chinese higher education system and national objectives described in the previous section, with particular attention paid to how programs are shifting from rigid specialties to inter-disciplines.

3.2.1 From Specialist to Interdisciplinary Talents

In the information age, the attributes of academic programs are changing. In the past, programs aimed to cultivate specialist talents, focusing on developing the unique abilities and skills associated with specific professional fields. But now, they attach more importance to the comprehensive abilities that will be increasingly prevalent in future society. Professional and cultural trends suggest that more and more attention should be paid to the complementarity between different professionals and the position of professional talents in the entire talent system. In the digital age, there is far more cross-pollination and communication between specialties and the boundaries of specialties are being expanded and continuously enriched. Cooperation between industrial sectors, enterprises, and foreign institutions is also far more common than before and often requires different skill sets than what previous generations are familiar with. To feed this shift, Chinese higher education institutions have taken a number of measures. They are taking full advantage of the Internet in breaking the boundaries between different disciplines and academic programs, in conjunction with the implementation of blended learning mediums that seek to combine the best of in-person and digital platforms and pedagogies. Students are also being encouraged to choose cross-major courses and work on cross-major and cross-school learning and research teams to improve their overall professional competence.

In addition to meeting society’s demand for more cross-disciplinary talent, these new cross-discipline approach also alleviates some of the growing pains associated with rapid and radical academic program reform. A problem faced by many universities in practice is that they are often confronted with the inadequacy of teaching resources, teachers, and experimental facilities when constructing new academic programs. Another prominent problem is that many newly constructed programs have no special features. The development of academic programs will be subject to many constraints if it relies solely on the strengths of different specialties and pure addition rather than a combination. Therefore, it is necessary for talent cultivation and disciplinary development to establish an open, collaborative, and shared training path for modern professional talents. The practice of incorporating cross-disciplines into academic paths ought to help not only students but program architects and administrators as they adapt their university's resources to meet this new challenge in a timely manner.

Adjusting Academic Program Structure

The combination of modern and traditional technologies in our current moment has given birth to many emerging industries and sectors. The Ministry of Education of China pays much attention to these shifting winds and seeks to adjust program categories and academic programs options accordingly, removing outdated programs and adding new programs. In 2017, the Chinese government issued the “Opinions on Deepening the Reform of the Education System and Mechanism” (No. 46 [2017] of the General Office of the State Council), proposing to “establish and improve a dynamic adjustment mechanism for disciplines and academic programs”. Since then, the Chinese system has been looking to dynamically adjust its overall academic program offerings accordingly. For example, the Ministry of Education of China listed 37 new, emerging academic programs in the “Undergraduate Specialty Catalogue of Higher Institutions” in 2021. That year, universities added 2,046 recorded academic programs that had already existed in the original specialty catalog and 177 newly approved programs that had not been recorded in the original specialty catalog. Ninety-three academic programs were adjusted for degree-granting categories or years of study, and 518 majors were canceled.

When we look at what programs are being added, we see that the country is paying more and more attention to the cultivation of specialized talents in the field of modern science and technology and the integration of science and technology with new academic programs is a top priority. Among the 37 emerging programs, 14 have been added to the engineering category. The top five programs are artificial intelligence, intelligent manufacturing engineering, data science and big data technology, big data management and application, and robotics engineering. Furthermore, more than 130 higher education institutions have set up artificial intelligence programs as well as other emerging interdisciplinary programs that incorporate novel science and technology. On the other hand, some universities have gradually reduced or canceled academic programs such as public affairs management, information management, and information systems. However, we also see from 2020 additions to the catalog that new programs from other disciplines are also being included. That year, the specialty category with the largest number of newly-added academic programs was foreign language and literature, with a total of 40 new programs, accounting for 21.2% of the total number of academic programs. New programs were also added in public security, automation, traditional Chinese medicine, management science and engineering, public management, music, and dance. This suggests a desire to expand the breadth of offerings available to students while retaining a focus on the “Four New” core disciplines of engineering, medicine, agriculture, and liberal arts.

Structural adjustments to academic program offerings should follow a common understanding of exactly what the word “new” means. First, it is necessary to establish a new type of thinking pattern for academic program construction that avoids falling into our previous understanding of existing programs and focuses on the transformation and upgrading of traditional specialties. Second, “new” means breaking old thinking patterns to understand the technological revolution and its impact on the industry. Third, “new” means emphasizing the connection between different programs, starting with the relationship between specialty categories and between different programs—looking at these intersections optimizes the specialty setting, reduces narrowness, and enhances integration.

As mentioned in previous chapters, the blended teaching model—that is, the practice of combining physical and digital teaching mediums—has become an important form of education and teaching in the digital age. A similar “blended” thinking pattern can and should be adopted in the restructuring of specialties. While the general trend is towards cross-disciplines, the need for specialized talents in niche industries must be considered and preserved during program restructuring. The goal is not to erase narrow expertise entirely, but to infuse interdisciplinary education into every student's academic programming so that they have a broader set of skills to apply to their future profession(s) of choice, however, niche those careers may be.

Other considerations when adjusting the overall systematic structure of academic programs are the demands of the times, the demands of current industries, feasibility, specialty coverage and continuity, school conditions, faculty member input, recent innovations, and the country’s development strategies. Incorporating all these variables into broad academic program structure changes can help reduce short-sightedness and arbitrary decisions throughout the reform process.

Establishing Quality Standards of Academic Programs

In addition to having the right composition of academic program offerings, it is crucial to create systems that promote and evaluate the quality standards of such programs. Different countries have varying degrees of centralization and standardization when it comes to this objective. For example, in the United States, private institutions of higher education have much autonomy over dictating how these quality standards are drawn and assessed; their model is on the decentralized end of the spectrum. In China, the system is more centralized, with more guidelines and requirements provided by national government agencies. Here, we continue our focus on the Chinese system and the quality standards for academic programs established there.

China’s reasoning behind having uniform quality standards has much to do with trying to even out extreme disparities in the quality of education at different individual institutions. Suppose the development goals of academic programs and disciplines are designed and implemented solely by each university's own program development management groups. It is argued that such a system could be too susceptible to restrictions stemming from each institution's operational conditions. Therefore, to mitigate this factor, it is common practice in modern Chinese academic program development for the Ministry of Education to establish guidelines for program construction and conduct regular assessments and evaluations of adherence to these guidelines through specialized audit groups.

In 2013, the Ministry of Education of China launched the development of “National Standards for the Teaching Quality of Undergraduate Specialties in Higher Education Institutions”, which covers 92 undergraduate specialty categories and 587 undergraduate academic programs in the catalog of undergraduate specialties in higher education institutions. In the development of academic program standards, it adhered to the values of unity and change, foundation and excellence, and qualitative and quantitative research. The document highlights the bottom line of running sustainable academic programs and encouraging innovation in program construction. In 2018, China officially released quality standards of specialties, which stipulate basic principles for the running of specific academic programs. These standards include specialty scope, training objectives, talent specifications, faculty members, teaching conditions, quality assurance, and assessment. The Ministry of Education hoped that these standards would establish uniform “rules” for universities, while still providing some “room” for them to engage in free development.

Accreditations and certifications are a large part of how the quality standards of academic programs are assessed and described. As part of establishing standardized accreditations, the Ministry of Education has launched various professional certifications in industries like engineering, medicine, and teaching. For example, China’s engineering education certification began in 2006. By the end of 2019, 1,353 academic programs in 241 colleges and universities in China had obtained the engineering education certification, which includes 21 engineering disciplines. In 2008, the Ministry of Education and the former Ministry of Health jointly promulgated the “Standards of Undergraduate Medical Education—Clinical Medicine (Trial)” and established the Working Committee for the Accreditation of Medical Education or MOE. By the end of 2019, the Working Committee had completed on-site inspections of the accreditation of 106 medical education institutions, accounting for 76.3% of all accredited institutions. In October 2017, the Ministry of Education officially issued the “Implementation Measures of Teachers’ Professional Accreditation in Colleges and Universities (Interim)”, which included implementation methods and a three-level tier of certification standards for preschool education, primary education, and secondary education. Professional accreditation standards for vocational and technical normal education and special education were issued in October 2019. By the end of 2019, more than 4,000 academic programs for higher normal education in China have undergone first-level monitoring, and there are 188 programs with second-level accreditation. Moreover, 26 pre-pilot specialties have been re-evaluated according to second-level accreditation standards, and 6 normal programs have received third-level certification.

Since 2015, the Ministry of Education of China has also advocated exploring how to establish a novel credit recognition mechanism—one that emphasizes the capacity of using online curriculum resources to achieve credit recognition while still adhering to robust quality standards. Researchers have also begun to investigate how to optimize intercollegiate credit recognition while following quality standards. Some universities have established credit recognition mechanisms for courses from national, high-quality resource platforms. For example, the China University of Geosciences encourages students to take elective courses through course platforms like Gaoxiaobang, Zhihuishu, CNMOOC, and Chaoxing Erya Platform. The credits in these online platforms can be recognized after the university provides confirmation. Tianjin Medical University recognizes the credits of the courses offered by the Coursera online courses and by 985 colleges in the Ai Course Network.

In a related example, China Pharmaceutical University proposed strengthening its resource construction through the establishment of university-level alliances, online platforms, and university-enterprise cooperation. To do this, the university has been relying on support from government policy, industry institutions, and news media. Critically, the success of the initiative and others like it depends on improvements to the mechanisms of credit and certificate attainment for MOOC-based academic programs. As academic programs become increasingly blended in both teaching medium and discipline, we expect that credit recognition mechanisms will become increasingly standardized, more collaborative across institutions, and reflect students’ interdisciplinary expertise rather than the narrow expertise of traditional accreditations.

At present, the Ministry of Education of China maintains an Education Steering Committee for Academic Program to carry out theoretical and practical research on best practices in undergraduate professional education. The committee provides specific guidance on academic program construction, teaching material construction, curriculum construction, teaching laboratory construction, and teaching reform. It also formulates specialty norms and education quality standards and guides undergraduate education evaluation. Moreover, it strengthens and guides teachers' training and organizes professional academic seminars for teachers to learn from information exchanges and international communications. The guidance provided by the committee has become more flexible, adapting along with the rest of the industry. Annual face-to-face meetings gradually became a combination of online and offline meetings that take place more regularly. In this way, the scope and benefits of this guidance have become wider, as there is more participation from all players involved in the development of academic programs. Additionally, students themselves have had more opportunities to provide their input and actively participate in the discussions surrounding academic program reform.

Composition of Course Credits Within Academic Programs

So far, we have discussed the macro-level structure and quality standards China is trying to achieve with its modern academic program development. Here, we describe trends in how course credits are distributed within an academic program. To meet the graduation requirements for a certain academic program, the enrolled student needs to obtain certain credits. Recently, higher education institutions have been rethinking this credit composition to allow for more cross-discipline study in students’ course selection. Previously, credit requirements at Chinese institutions included three main buckets: “public courses”, “professional basic courses”, and “professional essential courses”. This has gradually shifted to a composition of “public platform courses”, “quality development courses”, “basic and core courses”, and “independent development courses”. The net effect of this shift is that the proportion of credits allocated for independent development courses has increased.

This trend has been aided by the construction and development of online teaching resources, which has allowed the conditions for cross-discipline and cross-university courses to become more mature. Research shows that since 2012, the forms of credit recognition have become more diversified after China carried out the construction of MOOC resources. Some universities have tried recognizing credits of MOOC platform courses that are no longer limited to the courses offered at their own institution. Some universities have also begun to recognize credits from their ally universities or other universities in the area. As a result of this maturation of technology-enabled cross-university and cross-discipline diffusion, credit recognition from some universities has become more flexible. Credit composition now reflects the trend of “quality over quantity”, emphasizing the formation of students’ core competence and intellectual exploration over pure technical skill.

This trend in credit composition has extended to more profession-based institutions of higher learning as well. In the past decade, Chinese universities have paid attention to their professional education programs and adjusted the proportion of professional credits in their programs. For example, Tsinghua University and the China University of Mining and Technology historically have very different credit compositions in their respective academic programs. As a top comprehensive university, Tsinghua University has a higher proportion of credits in cultural courses and basic knowledge courses while China University of Mining and Technology’s namesake disciplines have aligned with a higher proportion of credits in engineering technology courses, professional knowledge courses, and independent development courses. However, with the development of online and blended educational resources like MOOCs, some scholars suggest that universities are now able to diversify and enrich course composition in profession-based academic programs too. Instead of being limited by faculty members, universities can jump out of their habitual and stereotyped ways of thinking to design profession-based academic programs that meet the holistic needs of their high-quality talents. For example, it may be possible for the China University of Mining and Technology to start offering its students more cultural and social science courses by leveraging new technologies and collaborative practices with other institutions. Diversifying credit composition at these professional education institutions is a key aspect of integrated cross-disciplines into the lifeblood of higher education.

Adjusting Teaching and Learning Methods

As already mentioned, new pedagogies that leverage modern technology have contributed greatly to the proliferation of academic program reform that promotes cross-disciplines. These new platforms, tools, and models come with new learning methods that fundamentally change the way education is conducted. Course models like MOOC require a radical departure from traditional in-person, lecture, and assessment-based college courses. The impacts of these new learning methods are discussed throughout this handbook, but here we hone in on how they have affected the development of China’s academic programs.

At the beginning of the century, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) initiated the trend toward more collaborative and online education through its Open Course Ware Movement (MIT OCW-Open Course Ware), which opened its curriculum resources to countries around the world. Since then, countries around the world latched onto this principle of constructing open educational resources. The first attempt at online course development in China was organized by Nanjing Normal University in 2001. However, due to the limitations of technology and management platforms of the time, those courses mainly presented teaching and learning materials in the form of static pages. In 2003, the Ministry of Education of China launched the construction of high-quality courses for teaching quality and reform projects in colleges and universities. In 2011, it also initiated the construction of national high-quality open courses, this time including video open courses and resource-sharing courses. In 2015, it once again renewed its efforts to construct and identify national high-quality online open courses. By 2019, having learned from all these previous iterations, the Ministry issued its opinions regarding the implementation of national world-class undergraduate courses. They outlined a plan to start building out national world-class courses that are online (MOOCs), offline, and blended in nature; they also expressed interest in more experimental options, like courses that incorporate virtual simulation and social practice courses. As we have seen, the medium of education is highly tied to the content of education, so these new formats will play an influential role in how students experience their academic programs moving forward.

Research on the Quality of Blended Teaching and Learning Methods

As part of the switch towards more blended teaching and learning methods, research is being done globally and within China to investigate the quality of such forms of education. Since 2013, Central China Normal University has been supporting research that explores blended learning practices. In the early stages of blended learning uptake, universities found that the overall situation of curriculum education remained relatively the same, but the new style affected different groups differently. Plenty of learning resources were provided, but there was much room for quality improvement. Students in those early programs often completed their tasks but lacked a certain proactiveness and excitement about their education. The operation inside the physical classroom was functional, but the network platform's supportive role was insufficient. To some degree, these problems still persist in more current blended learning practices. Therefore, universities are trying to strengthen course resource construction, implementation conditions, the nature of some curricula, learning adaptability, etc.

Since then, as the methods and technologies matured, studies have identified some favorable impacts of blended teaching and learning and some inconsistencies that remain. Jinzhou Medical University found that students’ language competence and communication abilities were improved after the blended teaching method was employed in the teaching of sectional anatomy—communication between teachers and students was also enhanced. However, students' autonomous learning and management abilities were inconsistent. By comparing studies on blended teaching in both China and abroad, the research team of Beijing Normal University found that it is necessary to strengthen research and practice on the blended teaching model, teaching ability and training, teachers' professional development, evaluation, and learning analysis.

Other areas of research have included: the relationship between teacher-student and student–student communication, learners’ use of online resources, and the impact of interface design and content design on the learner. Furthermore, many teaching support platforms employed in the blended teaching model have been joint projects between universities and enterprises that also utilize research studies to examine the efficacy of their platforms and approaches. The Jilin Institute of Chemical Technology has found that different teaching models can be constructed to improve the teaching effect after the use of learning support platforms. Shangqiu Vocational and Technical College has explored how vocational colleges adapt to blended learning needs and build blended learning spaces. Jiangsu Vocational and Technical College of Architecture has explored how to use the “superstar” mobile learning platform for blended teaching. The upshot is that the move towards blended learning and teaching methods is being supported and informed by rigorous research efforts, rather than arbitrary hunches about what constitutes the best learning environment or an overreliance on traditional methods.

Innovation and Entrepreneurship Education

Another aspect of modern academic program development is the emphasis on innovation and entrepreneurship education, which is by definition a cross-discipline pursuit. Innovation and entrepreneurship go hand in hand, with innovation providing the creative fuel and entrepreneurship providing the confidence and practical knowledge to develop a great idea into fruition. Thus, innovation education in colleges and universities cannot be separated from professional education. Instead, universities should integrate innovation education with professional education and promote a combination of creativity, critical thinking, and entrepreneurial spirit in their academic programs.

Many leading educational institutions around the globe have established entrepreneurship centers in hopes of cultivating the conditions for innovative ideas and bringing them to life. Since 2014, China has participated in this trend by trying to strengthen college students’ innovation and entrepreneurial abilities. China has specially designed training courses for teachers on the topic and has also released corresponding online courses. Additionally, universities have built up a number of innovation and entrepreneurship courses for satisfying the needs of different college students and established ways of sharing these courses with other institutions. Similar to its other initiatives, China has advocated for a coordinated implementation of standardized training objectives for innovation and entrepreneurship at colleges and universities.

One example of the cultivation of innovative and entrepreneurial students can be found at Sichuan University, where special attention is paid to the interdisciplinary nature of arts, science, engineering, and medicine. The university has not only designed some interdisciplinary courses that reflect innovation at the intersections of content areas but has set up interdisciplinary research teams that focus on complex societal problems that are not confined to a single discipline. The university has also established an international course week, where experts and scholars from high-level universities around the world provide students mentorship and exposure to the global context of innovation and entrepreneurship. Another example is found at Nanjing Normal University, where students are encouraged to obtain innovation credits by designing a credit plan for comprehensive practical courses. In addition to dedicated programs for innovation and entrepreneurship, much can be gained from infusing these principles into courses from all fields—this will help blend innovative spirit into whatever subject matter students have chosen to study based on their interests and talents.

Educational researchers and practitioners have also found that in order to accelerate innovation and entrepreneurship education in higher education institutions, the medium of information transfer should gradually transition from paper materials to the internet. The reason for this is that the internet helps build university-enterprise cooperation and diffusion of creative practices that foster innovation and excitement.

“1 + X” Certificate System—Pilot Program in Vocational Education

Reforms that emphasize interdisciplinary talents over specialist ones are also being tested in vocational education institutions. Recently, a pilot program called the “1 + X” was launched in vocational colleges and application-oriented undergraduate colleges. The “1” refers to the student’s main academic certificate; the “X” refers to several vocational skill-level certificates. The academic programs involved in the pilot program need to implement teaching and training models such as the flipped classroom, blended teaching, and integration of theory and practice. The goals of this pilot program include promoting the diversification of academic program offerings, encouraging graduates of vocational colleges to adapt to the changing needs of their jobs, making their professional certificates more powerful and multi-faceted, enhancing their professional adaptability, enhancing their innovation and entrepreneurship abilities, and promoting high-quality employment of vocational college graduates.

3.2.2 From Independent to Collaborative Higher Education

In this part, we elaborate on the impact of collaboration between education institutions on academic program development. In traditional models of professional education, more rigid distinctions are drawn between colleges and universities; such distinctions often reflect different levels and types of education. Under that model, universities would often improve their educational quality through their internal administration, changes to faculty structure, and in-house adjustments to academic programs. However, in the digital age, higher education institutions have initiated collaborative initiatives that connect academic programs from different universities. This is especially true in China, given the public and nationalized nature of its higher education system.

Establishment of Curriculum Sharing Alliances

If universities rely solely on resources and courses of their own, they tend to limit the scope of their talent cultivation. When they participate extensively in the building of high-quality online open course resources and other collaborative initiatives with other institutions, learners obtain access to more high-quality resources and opportunities for growth. These connections strengthen the co-construction and sharing of resources among different universities and academic programs, leading to sustained alliances in the long term. In April of 2013, higher education institutions in the East and West of China established the “Course Sharing Alliance” to realize the sharing of high-quality curriculum resources through online courses. The impact has been profound—in 2019, 27.6 million people from 2,200 colleges and universities earned credits by taking courses from the Alliance. Such prolific sharing enables students to access courses in fields from subject matter experts they wouldn’t otherwise be able to, contributing greatly to the blended nature of their course composition.

The “2011 Plan” and Collaborative Innovation Centers

In addition to curriculum-sharing alliances, Chinese universities have participated in the building of shared, collaborative innovation centers. In 2011, the Chinese Ministry of Education and the Ministry of Finance jointly launched a plan to improve the innovation capacity of colleges and universities—the “2011 Plan”. Led by higher education institutions and with the help of scientific research institutes, industrial enterprises, local governments, and other advantageous resources, this plan aims to promote innovation and research through “collaborative innovation centers”. It serves the country’s domestic innovation needs and its desire to participate in international competition on research frontiers in major fields. By 2020, 38 new national collaborative innovation centers and 125 new provincial collaborative innovation centers were built; in total, over 1000 provincial collaborative innovation centers have been established nationwide.

Establishing Regional Academic Communities for Professional Development

In addition to the collaborative innovation centers from the 2011 Plan, another type of academic collective being formed in China are regional academic communities. One example of this can be seen in the Jiangsu Province of China. Under the direct guidance of the province’s Education Department, Jiangsu established its Education Technology Research Association for Higher Education Institutions—an academic community for developing informative teaching research, practice, and talent cultivation in the province. The association has wide participation from universities in the province. It organizes relevant academic exchange activities every year to study the reform of modern education and teaching practices in higher education. Additionally, it has built a secondary community for professional construction, teaching reform, resource construction, network application, vocational education, and social services. This type of hub enables collaborative professional development from neighboring institutions that will ultimately benefit administrators, faculty, staff, and students.

Collaboration During Times of Crisis

The benefits of collaborative higher education become highly evident when the system is tested by unforeseen and unprecedented challenges. The global outbreak of COVID-19 in the spring of 2020 presented perhaps the largest test that higher education systems have faced in recent history. It triggered massive switches to online teaching throughout the globe and many universities took the opportunity to explore online teaching models in earnest. China and many other countries that were forced to test out new online and hybrid models out of necessity experienced a renaissance of education reform. In China, this renaissance was aided by coordinated efforts between institutions to tackle the problem together. The Ministry of Education’s Teaching Guidance Subcommittee of Educational Technology Specialty in Colleges and Universities, together with relevant experts and scholars in China's colleges and universities, worked together to disseminate relevant wisdom about new ways of conducting education. They have given nearly 50 non-profit lectures for teachers in colleges and universities. The contents are quite diverse, covering topics like blended teaching, teaching design, organization and implementation of teaching activities, and teaching evaluation.

Individual universities have also taken initiative to organize collaborative efforts during this challenging time. For example, the Institute of Educational Technology of Tsinghua University organized experts from different disciplines across the country to conduct a large-scale survey on the current situation of blended teaching in vocational education and carried out several large-scale online lectures and forums on the topic that were attended by over one million audience members. Beijing Normal University, Jiangnan University, East China Normal University, Central China Normal University, South China Normal University, and Nanjing Normal University have also designed various activities for groups inside and outside of their respective schools to help teachers and students adapt to the sudden change of teaching environment and conditions.

3.3 General Strategies for Systemic Reconstruction of Academic Programs

In the previous section, we dove into specific approaches and initiatives China has implemented in its recent academic program development. In this section, we will provide general strategies for systematically reconstructing academic programs that are inspired by and expand upon the Chinese strategies previously discussed.

3.3.1 Trends in Higher Education Program Development

Professional talent training aims to meet social development needs and provide high-quality professional talents for society. Under the background of globalization, social development has crossed national borders, reflecting the coexistence and inclusiveness of cultures and the realistic demands of increasing common ground while reserving differences. According to the overall development and future trend of the world, professional settings and talent training should be in line with the trend of the times and promote the common progress of human society. A professional setting and talent cultivation program needs to break the inherent barriers, emphasize students’ professional capabilities in modern society, and be able to adjust themselves in time to adapt to dynamic social development. For example, specialties in vocational education are constructed mainly based on the requirements of industries and the future development of society. The new technologies in the digital age and their combination with industries make the demand for different jobs in different industries much clearer, which requires students to have professional skills in specific occupations and the ability to transfer their knowledge positively.

The design of the professional talent training program needs to reflect the appropriate orientation of academic program development, which is, in turn, reflected in the process of talent cultivation.

Blended Teaching and Learning Methods

Given the heavy exploration of this topic elsewhere in the chapter and handbook, we include this trend here mainly to serve as a reminder rather than a place for elaboration. Blended teaching methods have been proven effective, and ought to be incorporated into academic programs of the future when feasible and appropriate.

Cross-Disciplines and Interdisciplinary Talent Cultivation

Like the previous trend, we include this here to serve as a reminder of a major shift we have covered extensively throughout the chapter.

Internationalization and Globalization

Alongside many other fields, higher education has become increasingly globalized. In large part due to the application of modern information technology, the interdependence of global higher education has become stronger and stronger. The international flow of talents and resources in the field of higher education has generally accelerated, promoting changes in the fundamental structure of higher education in various countries. This increased contact has led to symbiotic cooperation and relationships, as well as healthy competition among global higher education institutions.

To understand the advantages and disadvantages of certain academic programs in the global landscape, it is necessary to design such programs with the context of globalization in mind. Gaining this understanding of how a nation's academic programs are positioned in a global context is beneficial for not only learning from the approaches of other nations but for contributing the nation's unique culture to international higher education development. Achieving this awareness of the global context can take many forms, including the establishment of programs that allow international scholars and professionals to interface with students through presentations, workshops, research projects, field trips, and more.

Emphasis on Science and Technology Innovation

As evidenced by the government guidelines of the previous section, this trend is especially prevalent in China, where fields like artificial intelligence and engineering are given elevated priority status. However, the trend has also taken root to varying degrees in most nations, as new scientific discoveries and technological inventions dramatically transform how societies function and are governed.

This trend toward an emphasis on science and technology innovation attaches great importance to the integration of STEM principles in academic programs and the development of skills that are not discipline-specific like creative problem-solving. Higher education institutions should help students understand modern trends in scientific research and industrial development through teaching methods that include experiential learning. Through participating in scientific research, students can begin to understand the knowledge landscape and gaps in current industries, the evolution of industries over time, integration between theory and application, and pioneering frontiers of cutting-edge experimentation. In this way, they can not only optimize their professional learning about science and technology but also practice transferrable skills that are conducive to innovative thinking. In our modern world, this level of science and technology innovation literacy is beneficial to students of all disciplines, not just those in academic programs related to hard science or engineering.

It is worth noting that this trend can also be seen as a call to action to ensure that the value of non-STEM fields is preserved in the next generation of academic programs and not overshadowed by the massive excitement surrounding new science and technology innovations. In the same way, that science and technology literacy can benefit students focused on liberal arts disciplines, liberal arts literacy also benefits students in STEM-oriented academic programs. Both scenarios enable a valuable blending of disciplines that will cultivate more well-rounded and profession-ready graduates.

Diversification Within Uniformity

This is another trend that is perhaps more prevalent in China's strategy than in other nations but provides a useful perspective for the global community to consider when developing their own higher education academic program standards. In the national standards for the teaching quality that the Chinese Ministry of Education released in 2018, there was a stated desire to strike a balance between “rules” and “room”—that is, enough standardization enforced by the Ministry’s rules while saving some room for individual institutions to creatively structure their programs to their unique needs. Striking an appropriate balance between national—or even international—uniformity and cultivating diversity of academic programs and institutions is a difficult conundrum that all higher education systems must grapple with. Providing individual institutions, the autonomy to experiment with their academic programs often results in innovative teaching and learning models, like MIT’s Open Course Ware Movement. On the other hand, establishing uniform standards for academic programs across institutions levels the playing field provides a common language for program development and lends itself to intercollegiate collaboration due to the presence of shared constraints.

Cultivating Information Technology Literacy

In the digital age, being able to understand and use information technology is a crucial skill set for students to develop. Students' competence in information technology is reflected in the following aspects:

  1. (1)

    Foundational information technology competence: Students should internalize basic knowledge about information technology, master common information terminals, be able to use professional software relevant to their field(s), and learn to employ information technology to acquire professional skills.

  2. (2)

    Information proficiency: Students should be able to apply information tools to collect, evaluate, and use effective and accurate information; they should also be able to put forth their own thoughts and suggestions upon digesting information about a certain topic.

  3. (3)

    Critical thinking, problem-solving, and decision-making: Students should be able to use appropriate digital resources and information tools to aid in conducting research, managing projects, solving problems, and making effective decisions founded on critical thinking.

  4. (4)

    Cooperation and communication: Students should be able to use digital media environments to communicate respectfully and effectively with peers and mentors across different learning settings. Such communication can be for an individual or collaborative learning moments.

  5. (5)

    Innovation and reform: With the help of information technology, students should be capable of carrying out creative professional activities according to the characteristics of their academic programs, including the generation of new ideas and potential solutions to existing problems in the world.

  6. (6)

    Social responsibility: Students should be able to better understand human, cultural, and social issues through their use of information technology. Furthermore, they should conduct themselves responsibly, and online in ways that comply with legal and ethical standards.

Open Education and Collaboration Between Universities

After the open education movements of courses in the United States and other countries, the research and construction of online courses in colleges and universities have gradually been upgraded from university-level research projects to national research projects. Online courses in universities are becoming the main channel for sharing global educational resources. Educators in many countries have participated in researching and constructing online courses, making it an international collaboration. This collective effort promotes the reproduction and development of knowledge, the reuse of resources between modern universities, as well as the coordination between different academic programs. The openness of modern professional education resources and curriculum sharing among higher education institutions is a top priority. There are various ways to enhance the coordination between different academic programs, including building a suitable learning support system or platform, establishing a curriculum management system that combines private and open courses, and designing a management process to govern private and open courses.

Collaboration Between Education Institutions and Industries

Nowadays, academia is greatly linked to the market and industries. It is of great necessity to strengthen students’ connections with industries and employers. To achieve this, education institutions should consider creating spaces and tools like professional virtual-real integration laboratories, virtual factories, virtual teaching, and research rooms, and virtual simulations of inter-school collaboration for students to gain exposure to the nature of different industries of interest. This can be combined with traditional methods of industry exposure like internships or day trips to shadow professionals in their jobs. Adding blended medium options for this exploration offers more flexibility for off-campus teachers and enterprise personnel to instruct students, makes such experiences more accessible to schools geographically isolated from some industries and promotes more convenient school-enterprise cooperation. Moreover, industry-university-research collaborative innovation centers can be constructed through cooperation among universities and between universities and enterprises to expand professional teaching outside of the walls of individual universities. The alignment and collaboration of these major institutions allow a more seamless transition for students upon graduation and assist with matching the reforms of academic programming to the current demands of industry and society.

New Systems and Methods for Academic Program Evaluation in the Digital Age

The new academic program reforms triggered by all these prevalent trends will reshape higher education significantly. The systems and methods for tracking the efficacy of these changes and evaluating the success of academic programs must modernize alongside the programs themselves. Research must be done on how to construct “institutional guarantee systems” that provide mechanisms for evaluating the development of an academic program itself and the cultivation of high-quality talents through the program.

The following aspects should be represented in the institutional guarantee systems:

  1. (1)

    It must check that the development mission of academic programs and talent training objectives are aligned with the overall development orientation of the university, the nation, and/or the international community.

  2. (2)

    It must formulate and monitor the enforcement of policies related to blended teaching and establish leadership and implementation groups for ensuring such blended practices are incorporated into program construction.

  3. (3)

    It should promote cross-department and other cross-cutting discussions across academic institutions to ensure that disciplines are being blended in logical ways for students to develop interdisciplinary, high-demand skills.

  4. (4)

    It should establish a monitoring and management mechanism for the quality of professional talent training that considers student learning achievement, employment after graduation, and student health and satisfaction, among other metrics.

  5. (5)

    It should iterate courses and other pieces of academic programming based on previous feedback on the quality and usefulness of such programming.

In regards to the last point, feedback on the quality of student learning and ultimate employment can be obtained immediately and regularly with the help of the internet and big data technology. Based on the statistics and analysis of big data and information, industry development trends and demands can be analyzed and predicted along with other channels of feedback, allowing for timely adjustments that optimize the benefits and relevance of the academic program.

A Case Study

Reconstruction of Academic Programs in the Digital Age

In order to adapt to the development requirements of the digital age, a university in Shandong, China, has reconstructed the undergraduate training program in mining engineering.

Part 1: In School Training Phase

【Talent Training Objectives】

  1. 1.

    Knowledge Objectives (it is better to increase professional knowledge of informatization)

    • Master the basic knowledge of information technology.

    • Master the basic knowledge of information technology application in mining engineering.

  2. 2.

    Ability Objectives (it is better to increase the information ability)

  1. 2.1.

    Information literacy and autonomic learning

    • Master the ability to judge when and through what network channels to discover, collect and optimize the information and understand the latest developments in mining engineering.

    • Have strong abilities in information analysis and processing as well as analogy learning and can quickly master new mining engineering technology. (Note: Information analysis: information classification, synthesis, error checking, and evaluation; information processing: information sorting and retrieval, organization and expression, storage and transformation, control and transmission, etc.)

    • Have the ability to effectively use information technology to carry out a variety of blended learning methods such as “network-based collaborative learning” and “research-based learning”.

  2. 2.2.

    Effective Communication

    • Have the ability to transfer information through information multimedia and use technical language to communicate in a cross-cultural environment.

    • Have the capability to discover and flexibly apply a variety of communication media to improve communication efficiency in cross-campus, cross-city, and cross-country environments.

  3. 2.3

    Possess good informatization professional ethics, reflecting responsibilities for occupational, societal, and environmental aspects.

    • Comply with information technology standards, information security standards, and occupational safety standards, and assume relevant security responsibilities.

【Curriculum System】

  1. 1.

    Curriculum setting

  1. 1.1.

    Course teaching content:

    In order to adapt to the digital transformation of the mining industry, it is necessary to sort out all professional courses and analyze whether to increase the teaching contents of cultivating informatization ability.

  2. 1.2

    Course teaching method:

    The characteristics of all professional courses are analyzed, and the blended teaching method is determined for different types of courses.

Part 2: In Enterprise Training Phase

  1. (1)

    Arrangements for project training and learning

    The network-based research teaching will be carried out by project teams. It is suggested to modify the assessment method of this teaching period as follows: periodic work report (online submission) + online discussion participation + real scenario examination.

  2. (2)

    Arrangements for practical training of enterprise projects

    It is suggested to modify the assessment method of this teaching period as follows: project design of mining engineering practice (which can be completed through network collaboration) + project implementation effect.

  3. (3)

    Arrangements for Graduation Thesis

    At this stage, it is recommended to modify the instruction process to online guidance of dissertation + traditional face-to-face defense.

3.3.2 Summary of Actionable Strategy Suggestions

  1. (1)

    Implement blended teaching and learning mediums

  2. (2)

    Prioritize blending disciplines in academic programs

  3. (3)

    Learn from the international higher education context

  4. (4)

    Be competitive in emerging fields of science and technology innovation while preserving the advantages of developing non-STEM disciplines

  5. (5)

    Enforce standardization while allowing room for diversification to breed creative education innovations

  6. (6)

    Cultivate students’ information technology literacy and digital citizenship

  7. (7)

    Participate in open education and collaboration between universities; promote curriculum sharing and collaborative innovation and research centers

  8. (8)

    Create channels between education institutions and industries to give students exposure and improve education and market alignment

  9. (9)

    Implement modern methods of evaluating academic programs and providing an “institutional guarantee” of high quality

A Case Study 3.2

Grass-Root Teaching Organizations for Promoting Teaching Ability

In 2021, the Jiangsu Education Department in China issued the “Guiding Opinions of the Jiangsu Education Department on Strengthening the Construction of Grass-root Teaching Organizations in Universities to Promote Teaching Ability”, requiring universities to make “a long-term plan and a top-level design” for teachers’ teaching ability improvement. A “Grassroots teaching organization” is regarded as a third-level organization together with universities and departments. It reflects the specific requirements and process of professional talent training and serves the real needs of modern professional talent cultivation. Grass-root teaching organizations in universities with no specified forms are constructed on the basis of the requirements of the Ministry of Education of China on the quality of undergraduate talent training and the construction of virtual teaching and research rooms. It is necessary to “explore the new path and mechanism for the construction of grass-root teaching organizations in universities, promote the construction of relevant functional departments for teachers’ teaching ability improvement, improve teaching standards and teaching skills, reform teaching evaluations, enhance teaching motivation, and further improve teaching quality evaluation as well as guarantee and provide incentive mechanisms, and continuous improvement mechanism”. Additionally, “open and diverse new grass-root teaching organizations should be established, including “teaching workshops, lectures by famous teachers, teaching diagnosis” and so on. A number of training rooms for improving the teaching ability of college teachers are constructed, such as “microteaching classrooms, teaching study rooms, teaching consulting rooms”, etc., to support teachers’ growth in professional abilities. Finally, with the help of the practical exploration of grass-root teaching organizations, teachers are able to “carry out various forms of online and offline blended teaching, virtual simulation experimental teaching, and promote the deep integration of modern information technology and education and teaching” in the process of professional talent cultivation.

A Case Study 3.3

Systemic Reconstruction of Academic Programs with Information Technology in Central China Normal University

Central China Normal University has regarded “education informatization” as its development strategy. Based on demonstration projects of the Ministry of Education in China in terms of information-based pilot universities, it, with a five-year exploration and practice, has built an appropriate new talent training system in the digital age, which is student-centered and emphasizes connection, sharing, independence, and openness. The new system pays much attention to the reconstruction of teaching concepts, the reorganization of teaching resources, the innovation of teaching methods, the reform of teaching evaluations, and the construction of teaching culture. To be specific, this university has conducted the reform in the following eight aspects. It revised the talent training programs to build a student-centered talent training model; it reconstructed the teaching environment to realize the deep integration of virtual and real spaces; it carried out advanced training programs to improve teachers’ information-based teaching ability; it enriched digital teaching resources to provide a more open education service; it reformed teaching methods and promoted blended classroom teaching; it reformed evaluation methods and carried out a comprehensive evaluation on the basis of data; it optimized management services and built a new ecology of education; it set up teaching festivals to construct teaching cultures. Central China Normal University has fully and deeply integrated information technology into the whole process of talent cultivation, which has effectively solved three problems. First, with the help of information technology, a student-centered talent cultivation system of higher education has been established in the digital by systematically reshaping the teaching environment, contents, methods, evaluation, etc. Second, big data and other technologies have been employed to share high-quality resources and innovate teaching methods, which ensures the implementation of large-scale teaching and provides personalized resources for students according to their differences. Thus, the contradiction between massiveness and individualization in teaching activities has been solved. Third, the teaching culture in which colleges and universities attach great importance to teaching and advocate innovation in the digital age has formed, and a good atmosphere in which teachers are both interested and talented at teaching and education has been created. (see Chap. 6 “Exemplars of Typical Practices in Blended Learning” for details).

Foreign studies:

Boyer Commission on Educating Undergraduates in the Research University released “Reinventing Undergraduate Education: A Blueprint for America’ Research Universities” in 1998, followed by a group of researchers published “Reinventing Undergraduate Education: Three Years After the Boyer Report” in 2001(Kenny et al. 2001). Both of them analyzed how research universities view undergraduate education. Harvard University, Stanford University, The Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), and other universities have focused their attention on undergraduate education and launched undergraduate teaching reform. In 2006, Harry Lewis, Dean of Harvard University’s undergraduate school, proposed that a “world-class university” without a world-class undergraduate education is soulless. In the UK, Department for Business, Innovation and Skills released a white paper called Success as a Knowledge Economy: Teaching Excellence, Social Mobility and Student Choice in 2016, which pointed out that the success of the knowledge economy is reflected in teaching excellence, social mobility, and student choice.

Stanford University proposes that the goals of undergraduate education in the twenty-first century should include four aspects. The first is to own knowledge, which emphasizes the integration of professional education and general education as well as the integration of the depth and breadth of knowledge; the second is to hone skills and capacities, such as expression and writing skills, critical reading ability, aesthetic ability, reasoning, and analytical skills; the third is to cultivate personal and social responsibility, including personal and social responsibility, ethics and morality, cross-cultural and cross-racial identity, tolerance and compassion, etc.; the fourth is to adaptive learning, also including how to respond to challenges and opportunities and enhance innovation. MIT also emphasizes the urgency to strengthen curricular and pedagogical changes and advocate active learning, inquiry learning, project-based learning, etc.

Every country in the world pays attention to interdisciplinary construction, especially the construction of modern engineering, and actively promotes the reform of engineering education. For example, from 2011 to 2013, the United States successively launched the “American Advanced Manufacturing Partnership Program”, “American Advanced Manufacturing National Strategic Plan” and “American Manufacturing Innovation Network Program”. In addition, Germany issued the “German Industry 4.0 Strategy Implementation” in 2013. In 2014, many countries issued a series of national strategies for engineering education reform. For example, Japan released the “Manufacturing White Paper”; the United Kingdom promulgated the “Made in Britain 2025” strategy, and France proclaimed the “New Industrial France” strategy.

Promotion of Opening and Sharing Course Resources in the Rise of MOOC

Canadian professors Stephen Dow Enns and George Simmons proposed MOOC (Massive Open Online Courses) in 2008. In 2011, the “Introduction to Artificial Intelligence” opened by Sebastian Sirui and Pete Norwich of Stanford University in the United States attracted 160,000 people from more than 190 countries to register online for learning. In 2012, Sebastian founded Udacity, an online education business company that provides free, non-credit college courses to the public. In the same year, Andrew Ng and Daphne Kohler of Stanford University co-founded the education technology company Coursera. Additionally, Harvard University partnered with MIT to establish edX, an online education platform. Since the emergence of MOOCs, there have been a series of changes in higher education around the world. The educational methods in universities have changed, which has promoted the openness and virtuality of universities and the expandability and economic values of curriculum resources.

TAFE (Technical and Further Education) College in New South Wales, Australia, is a government-funded vocational training institution whose main goal is to provide flexible and timely solutions to meet the needs of students, industries, communities, and the ever-changing economy. Courses in TAFE include online, distance, and face-to-face courses as well as a combination of these courses in an attempt to provide a flexible and high-quality education for all (Bliuc et al. 2012).

Promotion of the Opening and Mutual Recognition of Course Credits Through Resource Sharing

Learners have the chance to learn when course resources are open to all learners, but it does not mean that students can obtain corresponding professional academic certificates. For example, Stephen Jackson, director of accreditation at the Quality Assurance Agency for higher education in the UK, believes credibility is the most important thing. In other words, “credits should be awarded only if it is demonstrated that learners did finish the corresponding learning tasks”. However, it has become a natural trend to achieve credit certification between academic programs after some time. The Universal College of Colorado State University in the United States became the first university in the United States that recognized credits in MOOCs in 2012. In 2014, Tsinghua University in China announced the recognition of some of the classroom credits in “XuetangX”. The “CNMOOC” independently developed by Shanghai Jiao Tong University has started the mutual recognition of MOOC credits among 19 universities in Southwest China for the first time.

American research universities are still exploring the value-added services of MOOCs. Traditional American higher education often charges based on credits. Through the credit certification of The American Council on Education, MOOCs truly enter the traditional American higher education market. Universities are actively exploring new ways of learning certifications, such as Udacity’s “Nano Degree Certificate”, Coursera’s “Professional Course Package Certificate”, edX’s “Vocational Qualification Certificate”, etc. Columbia University has also cooperated with the edX platform to develop MicroMasters courses. Students who complete the course can receive an electronic course certificate that is accredited and can be used as a credential for degree-awarding. Based on the needs of in-service professionals for further education or professional qualification certification, MOOC platform operators also conduct systematic evaluations of the learning process in MOOC. For example, edX has designed a signature tracking project to evaluate the learning process of learners(Wu and Qian 2021).

Promotion of Blend and Creation of Academic Program Construction Through Mutual Recognition of Credits

In 2013, Udacity announced a partnership with Georgia Tech and AT & T to develop an online master's degree program in computing. edX is also actively exploring a blended method that integrates MOOCs and traditional campus learning. In August 2015, Udacity launched an innovative project named “Global Freshman Academy” with Arizona State University, allowing students to apply to different universities, including Arizona State University, and different academic programs after completing all credit courses in the first year of college and passing the exam. They are also endowed with on-campus learning opportunities from the second year of college. Arnett Angerwal, the founder and CEO of edX, called this new model for college application and admission “flipped admission”. In 2016, edX launched a MOOC program for a “Micro Master's Degree”. Students who have obtained the certificate can apply for the on-campus courses of the master's degree programs in many universities that can accept the certificate. Therefore, students can spend less time and money acquiring a formal master’s degree. In 2016, Coursera and the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign launched the “Master of Data Science (MCS-DS)” program and the “Online Master of Business Administration (iMBA)” programs, respectively.

The medical students of Imperial College London in the UK need to specialize in one of their selected disciplines in the fourth academic year. Pharmacology is one of the optional courses. About twenty medical students and five biomedical students choose to complete this course every year. The course construction team carried out the modular design of the course and organized the teaching material of neuropharmacology in a blended teaching model. This course was originally only open to graduate students, and then the blended teaching model was also applied to undergraduate education. It was proven that students become very interested in studying this subject with the blended teaching model, but the premise is that the curriculum should be highly structured, high-quality, and supported by tutorials. Students believe that “blended” learning is more beneficial than purely learning online (Morton et al. 2016).

Universities in many countries not only attach importance to the practice of blended teaching but also strengthen the research on the quality of online teaching. For example, Massey University in New Zealand established the Distance Education and Learning Future Alliance in 2012. It also brought together scholars and practitioners in distance education, online education, and blended education to explore how to form a new model and method of modern higher education in the digital network environment, global link, and rapid change of higher education (Brown and Xiao 2013).