Highlights:Core Strengthening 5+2, AI & Fintech Innovation, Communities and Competitions, Job Market Goals, Short-term Foreign-Teacher Courses, Foreign Language Improvement, Multiple Physical Education

1. Core Strengthening (5+2) Industrial Talent Cultivation- Talents for Intangible Assets Valuation

The Ministry of Education cooperates with government policies to promote the strengthening of core (5+2) industry talent cultivation. Its purpose is to establish a development focus in the school's advantageous fields and cultivate key talents for the country in the future. In 2017, the National Development Council investigated the views of various industries on the supply and demand of manpower and found that in industries such as "smart textile", "intangible assets valuation", "biological pesticides", and "agricultural machinery", most companies believe that there is a phenomenon of "insufficient talent." On November 22, 2017, the government amended and announced the "Industry Innovation Regulations." It includes improving the quality of intangible assets, establishing valuation standards, and personnel management mechanisms, etc., with a view to enhancing the credibility of evaluation. It can also connect financial institutions to promote related supporting measures to facilitate the circulation and operation of intangible assets. In addition, the government has also strengthened the revision of relevant policies and laws on the protection of intellectual property rights, and gradually established and improved mechanisms and systems for the protection, evaluation and financing of intangible assets.

In the context of the demand for talents in this industry, the Department of Finance and Economics of our university promotes the cultivation of intangible asset evaluation talents through a Higher Education Sprout Project combined with the advantages of commercial management in the institution. The primary- and intermediate-level training courses were conducted for intangible assets valuation appraisal for both teachers and students in the institution (148 teachers and students participating in the certificate courses, 268 people participating in the primary-level test, 40 intermediate-level test; number of licenses passed: 44 for the primary and 1 for the intermediate level); lectures and book clubs on related topics were also held. The goal is to cultivate seed teachers in the school and send teachers to participate in the course of "Application of M&A Tax and Evaluation" organized by the Chinese Association of Business and Intangible Assets: to enhance professional knowledge in this field, and compile the textbook of intangible assets-"Enterprise Valuation". And on October 4^th, it hosted the "2019 Intangible Asset Valuation Financing, Operation and Innovation and Entrepreneurship" Practice Forum, attracting more than 250 industrial, government, academic, and research participants, including the Financial Supervisory Commission, Ministry of Culture, Ministry of Education, Ministry of Economic Affairs Industrial Development Bureau and Intellectual Property Bureau representatives, Chinese National Federation of Industries, Chinese Association of Business and Intangible Assets, Taiwan Intellectual Property Operation Association, Corporate Synergy Development Center, Taiwan Institute of Economic Research, Development Center for Biotechnology, Industrial Technology Research Institute, Taiwan Patent Attorneys Association and other public associations, as well as professionals such as general managers, chief executives, deputy chief executives, chief operating officers, chief financial officers and accountants, leading lawyers, evaluators, and patent attorneys from the industry and students from our institution have worked together for the appraisal valuation, financing, circulation, and operation of intangible assets in Taiwan, and the project has successfully provided a platform for mutual exchange and cooperation between the public sector, research institutions, scholars, and industry experts.

This forum discussed how to conduct valuation of intangible assets, patent layout, authorization, investment and financing, circulation and operation mechanisms, etc., to continuously optimize and enrich the evaluation system of intangible assets, and provide recommendations for intangible assets or patents facing international litigation. It is expected to continuouly deepen the strength of the knowledge economy and enhance the international visibility of Taiwan’s intangible asset valuation and development.

This institution is the only professional business university in the country. Through the cooperation of academic, industrial and government agencies, we continue to strengthen the education and training of intangible assets. In particular, the Department of Finance is the leader in fintech, intangible asset valuation education and cultivation of professional financial talents both domestic and abroad. Therefore, through the cooperation of industry, government and academia, we will actively cultivate talents in the "intangible asset valuation appraisal" in order to enter a new era of entrepreneurship financing for intangible assets in Taiwan.

2. The Innovation and Development of Digital Teaching

        In 2019, each sub-project in accordance with different professional fields, also added logical thinking and programming and certification training courses. In May, our school held the "2019 National College Computer Auditing Case Competition". This competition integrated the design of "Auditing" and "Professional Practice of Computer Auditing, Internal Control and Auditing". Through the competition, it inspired the professional use of the ability and cogitation of accountants and improved the quality of accounting talents. A total of 16 teams from 12 colleges and universities across the country entered the competition. The competition invited the National Audit Office and four major domestic accounting firms to form a judge panel. After the case analysis and group briefings by each team, the students of this institution regained the championship title, and our strength of information auditing was highly recognized.

        In response to digital economy, students' data analysis capabilities have been improved, and plans have been created to gradually strengthen the operational skills of computer applications. The deep cultivation plan started in the year 2018, starting with the most widely used Office series, and provided license counseling courses and rewards to encourage students to obtain computer operation certification. The Department of Accounting in this institution also established an International Licensing Center with Gotop Information Inc. to train students to obtain Microsoft MOS Master Certification.

　　Through the summer MOS certification course, the department also invited Microsoft certified lecturers and well-known player-type lecturers to offer classes at the school. The third-year students of the Department of Accounting’s five-year program were introduced to the MOS certification training and successfully obtained the five categories of MOS (Power Point/Excel/Word/ Access/Outlook), to obtain a master certificate. They represented the school to participate in the 2019MOS/ACA World Cup National Competition and won the championship in the PowerPoint 2016 presentation competition. The team was selected as Taiwan representatives and went to New York, USA on July 28 in the year of 2019 to participate in the MOS Microsoft World Cup "Microsoft Office Specialist World Championship".

　　The advancement of technology changed the business industry and caused the international trade industry to undergo structural changes. From integration of virtual reality, cross-border trade to unmanned stores, the institution took the initiation to cooperate with the Taiwan E-Business Association and the Alibaba platform to offer practical operation courses in the e-commerce background, introduce corporate resources, promote cross-border e-commerce programs, and let students learn about product analysis, project design, keyword marketing, business English, and related cash flow, logistics and other industrial knowledge, so that students were able to help companies get orders during internships and successfully stay in office after graduation. The "2019 National College B2B Cross-Border E-Commerce Competition" was held by the Chung Hwa International Trade Association, the Importers and Exporters Association of Taipei, and the Alibaba International Exchange Market in cross-field cooperation. After more than two months of competition, the Department of International Business in the institution has helped manufacturers develop new customers through the Alibaba platform, improve the performance of the export market, and increase the exposure of the company. They have stood out among 95 participating teams and won the championship of this e-commerce achievement competition.

3. Developing School Features-AI Artificial Intelligence Fintech Innovation

        The rapid advancement of AI artificial intelligence, in addition to changing lifestyles, has also brought an explosive innovation revolution and new opportunities for the financial industry. This institution created the "AI teaching" sub-project, which has been jointly promoted by the interdisciplinary Institute of Information and Decision Sciences, the Department of Information Management and the Department of Commodity Creative Management. They held AI application workshops, AI lectures, AI series of seminars, AI artificial intelligence summer study courses, AI online courses, programming studies, and conference -2019 Artificial Intelligence and Business Application. It also formed an "AI Fintech Alliance" with five other universities, five financial institutions, and one fintech company.

On October 30, 2019, the institution and five other universities (National Taiwan University, National Chengchi University, National Taipei University, National Kaohsiung University of Science and Technology, and Soochow University), five financial institutions (Singapore Bank, Concord Securities, Bank of Shanghai, Far East Bank, and KGI Bank), and a fintech company (inFlux Financial Technology), formed the "AI Fintech Alliance," the first alliance in the domestic fintech field. Through the establishment of the alliance, "Industry-academic cooperation exchanges" have been put together to jointly cultivate talents in financial technology.

After the establishment of the alliance, the "National AI Fintech Innovation and Innovation Competition" were held on December 20, 2019 to encourage students to actively participate in the development of financial technology. Through the industry-academic financial cooperation formed by the alliance, teachers and students of various schools were closely involved in the process of research and development of financial technology, and more innovative and safer financial service environments have been developed. In the future, members of the alliance will continue to engage in various innovative and creative interactions and competitions, and in-depth multi-party industry-university cooperation to cultivate Taiwanese fintech talents through practical operations.

4. Talent training through community and competition

        By training students using the project funding, instructors not only taught professional knowledge in the content courses, but also sought out suitable related competitions for students and integrated them into the curriculum, strengthening the practical aspects of the course. Moreover, instructors encouraged students to form a community and actively participate in domestic and foreign competitions. Teachers used their spare time to revise students’ works for competitions, and guided students to participate in competitions to increase their winning opportunities. In the process, students fully demonstrated their professional knowledge and their learning effectiveness, and thrived from an independent learning atmosphere and collaborative teamwork.

        Communication is an indispensable ability for accountants. In addition to offering the course selection "Accounting Communication and Communication", the Department of Accounting Information of our school has also established an accounting debate team to compete in the field. It created plans to discuss, report, debate as well as invite accounting practice experts for debate guidance, etc. It intended to find ways to give students the opportunity to engage in multi-faceted discussions that would increase their understanding of the newly developed issues of accounting, auditing and taxation, as well as strengthen their thinking and communication skills, establish logical analysis concepts and learn professional speech and debate skills, all of which will help students participate in related competitions. In order to enhance students' skills in teamwork, creative thinking and problem solving, the accounting debate team--in addition to the topic of accounting communication and dissemination of course results, has also organized an "accounting debate competition" within the department. By focusing on accounting-related issues, the debate deepened the effectiveness of students’ learning. Finally, the contestants of the accounting debate team were selected from the competition to represent the school in the national accounting elite cup debate.

        In terms of participating in the competition, in addition to the funding support of the department’s alumni and deep education funding, a series of professional practical lectures and the invitation of graduates who have participated in the training are invited to train freshmen.

And from October 5th to 6th in the year of 2019, the Department of Accounting was represented in the 31st Accounting Elite Cup Debate Competition hosted by the Accounting Research and Development Foundation and the Accounting Research Monthly. Among the 22 national teams, our team players recaptured the championship we had not won since the 27^th Competition (2^nd place Shih Chien University, 3^rd place National Taiwan University). And from November 2nd to 3rd, our team players were invited to represent Taiwan at the Anhui University of Finance and Economics to participate in the 2019 Cross-Strait University Accounting Debate Invitational Competition. It was not easy to stand up in the face of elite players from 19 schools on both sides of the Strait and win the championship.

        In order to strengthen the ability of teachers and students to apply information technology in the fields of accounting and auditing, through the financial support of Higher Education Sprout Project, the "accounting information and business application community" is composed of teachers’ group meetings to discuss how to strengthen the practical aspects of the courses and the core content of the courses. Software practice teaching, review and improvement of teaching process issues, and the invitation of the project managers from the four biggest accounting firms to provide consultation and guidance for current social function needs were methods to enhance the richness of professional teaching and to comply with the latest academic development trends. The program also used information software practice applications to cultivate students the necessary professional accounting skills and information application, and to provide professional accounting information application talents required by enterprises. At present, teachers have obtained a total of five computer auditing and information professional certifications. Twelve courses (programming, accounting information system, enterprise resource planning, computer auditing, computer auditing programming) are offered every year, and with the number of students taking courses exceeding 400. In addition, students obtained more than 130 computer audit certificates and 47 enterprise resource planner certificates.

        Here is a series of practical lectures including: "General Audit Software Assisted Checking", "Enterprise Processes and Internal Control", "Computer Audit Checking Practice Drill", "Database Checking Practice", "Data Analysis Technology", "Continuous Audit" and "Computer Audit Project Practices", hiring the Big Four accounting firms and foreign companies as speakers, and guide students to make special topics. The topics are shown below.

5. Promote teaching with the goal of job market

        The future employment of students is the goal. Through the Higher Education Sprout Project, teachers were have been encouraged to develop innovative teaching ideas and the design must combine both practice and practical elements which would conform to students' favorite themes and materials, and thus would improve and increase learning. Students learned about job search directions and interests through lectures and activities in various professional fields on campus, and they also learned through practical courses.

The school's accounting information department cultivates employment targets for computer auditors, data analysts, bookkeepers, accounting auditors, appraisers, and other related positions. For this goal, which is accomplished outside the course, it is necessary to establish training courses in intangible assets valuation appraisal certification, accounting reviewers, accountants, etc. In addition, the program trained  students to participate in various competitions. In 2018, 110 people passed the book keeping certification examination, and the total number of people passing the exam throughout the entire country was 1052, accounting for 10.5% of the national rate. Of the 108 graduation classes, 70% have been successfully employed, and 2/3 of the graduates have entered the four biggest accounting firms. Another 30% of the graduates continued with higher education or public service examinations. In fact, very few students have difficulty in finding a job.

The Department of Business Design Management takes the cultivation of design talents as the main axis, and takes the original international Adobe series professional certification in the design field as a counseling test target, because this photo contains the core knowledge and practical operation technology necessary for learning the design field. The commercial design department considers the design of professional course subjects and the students' future work application needs, and selects the three most closely related license projects in the ACA as PhotoShop CC2015, Illustrator CC2015, and InDesign CC2015 for guidance.

In the 2018 academic year, 60 people obtained the PhotoShop CC2015 license, 36 people obtained the Illustrator CC2015 license, and 21 people obtained the InDesign CC2015 license.

In addition, there are also marketing management professional training objectives, such as: service industry managers, brand managers, consumer behavior analysts and integrated marketing managers and other certifications. The school specially conducts certification courses for this purpose:

In the 2018 academic year, 78 people obtained service industry management certification, 85 received brand management certification, 32 received consumer behavior analyst certifications, and 86 were awarded integrated marketing management certifications, allowing students to master the future competitiveness of employment during the school period.

6. Sister school teachers offering short-term courses

In response to the challenges of globalization, the school actively integrates into the international academic community, conducts international exchanges and cooperation in higher education, establishes a communication bridge with sister schools, continuously develops international academic cooperation, and enhances the international competitiveness of the school. In order to prevent discontinuity, the International Division continued to promote the "Famous Teacher Lecture-Short-term Lectures" program in 2019, in response to the needs of various departments in the school, with the strong support of the deep education plan of the higher education, NTUB has been promoted internationally. International exchange activities gain more resources and diversification. Inviting scholars from different fields to come to the school to co-teach with our school teachers and arrange public lectures, with students as the main body to carry out teaching reversals, so that students have the ability to think and act, which provides them with a learning model of "solving problems" as a way to organize learning through interaction. With the model of learning, the students actively learned the knowledge underlying the problems, and cultivated the ability of "self-learning, lifelong learning" and "finding problems, analyzing problems and solving problems".

In 2019, the International Affairs Office organized a five-week series of " Short-Term Lectures by Famous Teachers" activities, inviting five scholars from four sister schools in the four countries of the United States, Singapore, Germany and the United Kingdom to conduct a one-week exchange course for a total of 5 weeks. The series of lectures included a week-long joint courses and open seminars providing graduate students and teachers at school for in-depth academic discussions. In the workshops, scholars in addition to presenting their own research expertise, it also engaged participants in discussions in various disciplines and professional knowledge specifically to help participants understand the current international trends and changes.

In the five-week "Short-term Lectures by Famous Teachers" sub-project, students of the institution experienced the situation of foreign teachers in the first hand. For example, students could brainstorm through group activities, and then students were encouraged to do practice speaking in the classroom to express their opinions. Then the lecturers would give affirmation and provide analysis. This enabled students who have not yet had the opportunity to study abroad to understand the atmosphere of studying abroad; some scholars asked students to discuss their arguments in a brief written statement, and then asked students to share their thoughts with the class. The knowledge is transferred in a flipped method, so that learning is no longer a one-way street, and it could stimulate students' independent thinking ability. Through the process of contact with foreign scholars, the students deeply experienced the foreign culture that is very different from Taiwan and promotes the broader thinking of students. They became curios about foreign cultures and views of various countries, and there were different learning experiences in the interaction with foreign teachers. It is both fresh and rich. Students were given the experience of studying abroad without going abroad. That kind of experience is one of the core values of this sub-project. This type of teaching method not only helps our students to learn about different aspects, but also teaches students to cultivate their own intellectual space under the heading of independent thinking, and to lead the exploration of the heart to the world, and to combine different dreams of the young as a way to create the future.

There was also a series of courses with inviting speakers from Pittsburgh State University in the United States. Under the arrangement of the International Office, the students who will exchange with the sister school will meet with the scholars to make more arrangements and preparations for the students to study abroad in the future.

7. Increase students' understanding of the international trade environment

With the support of the higher education plan, we invited foreign scholars and officials of the Foreign Trade Association (TAITRA) to explain the program to students. All the lectures and interactions with students will be conducted in English

Scholars discussed the “Challenges faced by Taiwan and the United Kingdom in negotiating a bilateral investment agreement (BIT) or free trade agreement (FTA)” in light of our country’s position. It's very difficult for students to fully understand what the scholars were saying. Despite this, students still offered a lot of feedback. In terms of their respective positions on Taiwan and the United Kingdom, they separately listed the obstacles faced by the two parties, and also cited the impact of other international organizations on the signing of an agreement between our two countries.

The Secretary General of the Foreign Trade Association is invited to introduce the current economic and trade situation and the latest developments of various countries, including Brexit, the China-US trade war, and Japan-South Korea trade disputes. Regarding Brexit, the Secretary-General analyzed Brexit and non-Brexit and soft or hard Brexit. Regarding the China-US trade war, the Secretary-General explained the causes of the trade war, its subsequent development, the layout of China and the United States in various international organizations, and the impact on Taiwanese companies. In response to Japan-South Korea trade disputes, the Secretary-General also analyzed the ins and outs in detail, and brought to Japan the impact of the Trans-Pacific Partnership Comprehensive Progress Agreement (CPTPP) led by Japan on Taiwan, using the APPLE supply chain as an example. In addition, the Secretary-General also explained what he thinks will be the future development trend of Taiwan's emerging industries and introduced the help that the Foreign Trade Association can give to enterprises.

The Deputy Secretary General of the Foreign Trade Association introduced to students what emerging markets are, including the potential of emerging markets, how Taiwan will develop emerging markets and related strategies, and the impact of Taiwan of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) and Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement (RCEP) Impact on Taiwan.

Inviting scholars and professional speakers in the industry to give lextures and workshops. With these front-line scholars and professionals, students were able to develop a different perspective of thinking besides international news and helped students become more sensitive to the international trade.

8. Improve foreign language skills

Through the subsidy of the Higher Education Sprout Project, professional IELTS lecturers were invited to conduct classes in order to increase students' English speaking ability. Whether the purpose is in the future to communicate with English speaking professionals or internationals, this will be a substantial help to students.  

　　Listening and speaking instructors adopted an open and highly interactive class strategy, assigning students to practice with each other in pairs or groups. In addition, the lecturer assigned a variety of topics and often supplemented practical phrases in daily conversations, so that students could naturally respond in the face of various situations and gradually overcame the fear of speaking in English.

　　The reading and writing instructors guided students to read many academic articles. Through ample practice, instructors explained IELTS test skills and problem-solving skills, and trained students time allocation and strategies for writing tests.

　　The training on listening, speaking, reading and writing has helped our students to study and work in the future. In addition, it also held English speech contests and Japanese reading-aloud contests. Through the contests, students practiced their oral expressions and increased their language proficiency and interest in learning.

For the second foreign language, the institution also organized Vietnamese language training and cultural courses. Various foreign language certification tutoring courses in Japanese and Spanish were held for students. Foreign professionals were recruited for workshops and lectures. A total number of participating students was 62.

9. Offering diversified physical education courses

Due to the size of the campus, the development of the physical education programs in this institution is relatively limited. The deep education plan specifically includes the physical education room. After discussion and revision of the existing curriculum, student learning conditions, student suggestions, examination of the possibility for new courses and teacher course discussions, the Physical Education Office in this institution has signed a relevant cooperation agreement with the Taipei Zhongzheng Sports Center. Taking advantage of the existing venues, teacher resources and transportation convenience of the Zhongzheng Sports Center, new courses such as swimming, shooting and archery were added into the 2018 school calendar year; (30 places) were be fully booked on that day, and the number of course selections were increased in the 2019 academic year (36 places). The courses were also fully booked on the day of open selection, showing students' love and interest in the new courses.

Students were also interested in learning and showing their athletic talents. In this year's 2019 Taipei Zhengzheng Cup Shooting Championships, our students won the first and second places in the men's 10 meters air pistol program and the women's 10 meters in college, first place and third place in the air pistol project.

 

Achievements : Implementing the Management and Evaluation Mechanism, Improving Teaching Quality, Innovating Teaching Models, Developing School Characteristics, and Fulfilling Social Responsibilities

1. Implementing the evaluation and management mechanism for the Higher Education Sprout Project

In 2019, the Higher Education Sprout Project was subdivided into 33 sub-projects to promote the participation of the academic departments and offices of the entire school. Before the beginning of this project this year, the institution’s Higher Education Sprout Project organizing and evaluation team (members appointed by the University President) conducted a final evaluation and review meeting of the project to examine in detail the implementation of each sub-project plan and the expenditure of funds. The funding was decentralized and subsidized to each academic office in the year 2018. After a thorough review, the academic offices overall lacked a clear direction for implementation and improvement, and the funding was mainly used for improving teaching between teachers and students in each academic field based on the needs of their respective professions. In order to realize the goal for "implementing teaching innovation and improving teaching quality" in 2019, this institution requested each academic office to implement the subsidy to improve teaching quality and enhance teaching strategies and to add 6 intra-school performance indicators. The school-wide program evaluation and management committee and university social responsibility (USR) development and promotion committee assisted each academic office to jointly promote "industry-academic” dual teachers courses (lectures)", "teacher field practices", " Professional Certification Training Course", "(Academic) Specialized Topic research", "Subsidy for Professional Certification for students" and "Digital Course Design and Production".

Under the implementation and strict regulation of this mechanism, compared with 2018, this year's academic offices had more detailed planning and directions in the implementation of the Higher Education Sprout project, and were more in line with the development of the mid- and long-term institutional goals --"Business Management Innovation”, “Digital Development and Innovation” and “Professional Applications." Moreover, because of the Higher Education Sprout Project, the institution was able to improve teaching facilities and equipment, to establish four college-level and cross-disciplinary professional laboratories-- "Enterprise Management Simulation Laboratory," "Digital Management Laboratory", "Intelligent Investment Laboratory" and "Smart Finance Interactive Laboratory".

2. Enhancing the fundamental ability of students --learning guidance and teaching improvement

In order to improve students’ learning effectiveness, provide sufficient learning resources for disadvantaged students, and strengthen students’ information-related abilities, the School Affairs Research Center of the institution conducted a survey of students’ learning needs. According to student feedback, it is found that freshmen who entered the university from general high school graduation are less familiar with the basic operational tools in the professional fields compared to students with technical backgrounds. Therefore, the school has organized a number of school-wide training courses and lectures covering a wide range of topics such as professional certification, technical certification, summer prerequisites, computer programming, etc. In cooperation with the department, experts from the institution and the industries have been invited to teach those courses. Since May 2019, various courses have been successively established, including "Excel Software Training Class," "Level B Certification for Computer Software Applications Training Courses," "Summer Prerequisites-Accounting," "Summer Prerequisites-Public Finance," "Python Programming Training Courses", "Java Programming Design Courses", "Excel Function Applications that Business Managers Must Know, " "CPE Programming Certification Training at the University Level" and other courses and lectures. In addition to teachers from the academic departments including Department of Information Management, Department of Finance, and Department of Public Finance and Tax Administration, professional specialists from various industries have also been invited for specialized-topics lectures. The course arrangement combined theoretical content and practical applications, assisting freshmen students to smoothly transit from high school curriculum to higher education curriculum, and furthermore, the project helped students obtain professional certifications, strengthen student learning, expand students’ horizons, and thereby enhance student abilities. The number of lecturers reached exceeded 200.

Lecture Classes and Promotion Posters

3. Digital Technology Development-Teaching towards the development of digital innovation

In response to the developmental trend of digital technology and one of the long-term developmental goals of this institution, "digital innovation," the academic offices have gradually integrated computer programming skills into professional courses to train students' critical thinking and programming skills. Many courses with technology integration became available to students, including "Financial Analysis and programming" and "Financial Programming" in the Department of Finance; "Computer Audit Programming" in the Department of Accounting Information; "Mobile Application Design" and "Website Application Design" in the Department of Information Management; “Game Programming Design” in the Department of Digital Multimedia Design; "Creative Technology Programming" in the Department of Product Innovation and Entrepreneurship; “Web Design” in the Department of  Commercial Design and Management; "Big Data and Financial Programming " in the PhD Program of the School of Finance and Economics; "Programming and Computational Thinking" in the Graduate Institute of Information and Decision Sciences. In addition, the institution has advocated computer programming courses to be mandatory for the entire school. Therefore, programming courses were no longer the only required courses for students in the field of information management and the Graduate Institute of Information and Decision Sciences. These programming course trained students to develop critical thinking and programming knowledge and fundamental skills.

In addition to those courses, in the year 2019, through the Higher Education Sprout Project, each sub-project was designed to hold a variety of courses, lectures, workshops, and seminars in the fields of information and programming, such as "AI Applications Workshop," "CPE Programming Certification at the university level,” "Robot Zenbo Scratch Programming and Applications Seminar," "Mobile Application Programming Seminars", "Python + Micro:bit Micro Project Applications Seminar", "Python Seminar," " Python International Certification Courses", "Adobe AI Licensing Course," "AI Series Lectures", "Summer Artificial Intelligence (AI) Seminars," "AI Series Seminars," etc. On October 30, 2019, five universities, five financial institutions, and one fintech company jointly organized the "AI Fintech Alliance" to form an alliance among the three parties to cultivate AI fintech talents in Taiwan.

4. Developing an innovative teaching model-PBL course

In order to strengthen students' competitiveness in multiple areas as well as their core competence, the project assisted each academic office to promote innovative teaching methods. The Department of Innovation and Management in the institution adopted professional applications as its teaching goal and combined the pedagogical trend to apply the innovative ability to the "problem-solving-oriented PBL courses".

In recent years, with the declining birthrate in Taiwan, children have become the core of family structure. Parents became to pay more attention to the development of parent-child relationships, which brought the rise of DIY hand-made baking workshops for parent-child leisure. Many parent-child baking classes have age restrictions, and similar baking classes and kitchenware are not cheap; thus, it is difficult to meet the needs of many parents. This became the motivation for the team of students of the Department of Commercial Design and Management to develop friendly products that meet the safety. Under the guidance of teachers, the first step was to conduct field visits to discover the needed requirements, and finally the program developed a parent-child interaction a "simple geometric cake mold” model, using colorful mold parts that could be assembled and disassembled into various shapes for use, like Lego’s; this allowed children to have fun and increase their participation. At the same time, it also reduces costs and facilitates storage. In addition, food-grade silicone materials reduce the safety concerns in regard to children. This product has already won 5 competitions during the development stage.

5. Improving Chinese writing ability

Information has been developing rapidly in recent years. Communication and expression often adopt more convenient media technology and facilities, which has greatly reduced reading, writing and personal expression skills of students. Therefore, the General Education Center of this institution created the "Chinese reading and writing ability assessment" for the entire school, and the evaluation method is completely in accordance with the "Chinese writing ability test" for the national university examination. That is, the tested students must write a complete composition and then students' word usage and writing ability can be measured. A pre-test is required for the promotion of the Chinese writing ability test. After one year of training in the compulsory Chinese language courses, a post-test is required. The two evaluations in the 2018 academic year (2018/8~2019/7) have indeed obtained the results set in the program objectives, which truly shows that the improvement of Chinese writing ability of the fourth-year students in the five-year program and the first-year students in the four-year university program.

From the above table, we can see that if "B+" is used as the benchmark, the number of students passing in the four-year program increased from 267 on the "pre-test" to 334 on the "post-test", an increase of 12%; The number of passers in the five year program increased from 138 in the "pre-test" to 225 in the "post-test", an increase of 24%. The degree of progress is apparent. The school also has a dedicated webpage to announce the results of the evaluation of the "Chinese Reading and Writing Ability Assessment"(URL：https://sites.google.com/view/ntubchinesetest/%E9%A6%96%E9%A0%81) , including the integration of the scores of all levels, and the A+ model with the author’s consent, all information is open and transparent, and can be reviewed by all parties.

Starting from the 108 th academic year, the "Chinese Ability Cloud Diagnostic System" designed by the "CWT National Inspection" was purchased as a test platform for Chinese reading and writing ability evaluation. The evaluation method was also changed from the original paper-test to an online test. In this system, the content of the question data bank includes seven aspects: "text," "words," "idiomatic phrases," "sentence punctuation," "rhetorical skills," "language knowledge," and "literature interpretation," and can independently examine students’ writing at each level. The distribution of achievements in various aspects can comprehensively assess students' Chinese reading and writing skills. At the same time, the instructors can adjust and strengthen the curriculum in response to students' weaknesses and needs.

During the first semester of the 2019 school year, the system simulation test was conducted. Because of a lack of computer wares and the difficulty in arranging the same examination time for all students at once, the first-year students of the Four Year Program were first tested. The actual number of people tested was 551. The statistical data of the evaluation results are shown in the following table. The "post-test" will be conducted in the second semester of the 2019 academic year.

For the reading ability, the General Education Center of the institution also established the "2019 NTUB Youth Book Review Award" to encourage students to select books from the recommended book list and write a 600-word reading reflection, aiming at "improving student learning effectiveness" and "cultivating students' reading and writing skills". A total of 409 manuscripts were received in the 2018 school year; about 540 manuscripts were received in the 2019 school year, indicating that the students in school fully demonstrated the achievements of the humanity cultivation under the influence of the compulsory courses of general Chinese language. Moreover, the General Education Center organized the "Literary Season" every year. The number of manuscripts from the two reading competitions proved that under the influence of the annual literary competitions and activities, the school's reading atmosphere and students' literal ability are indeed increasing. General education -related activities have also naturally improved the learning effectiveness of the students' Chinese proficiency!

6. Promote International Exchange-Summer Chinese Course

The summer Chinese course for foreign students of NTUB began in the summer of 2019 starting from July 1st. The Department of International Affairs of this institution followed the successful experience that has been highly praised in the past, and continued to encourage the students of the sister school to study and to engage in cultural exchange. In addition to the original Chinese language education, this summer Chinese language course also included an introduction course for Taiwanese society and culture, so that foreign students could experience the culture outside the classroom, and participated in extracurricular activities to obtain the highest benefits of cultural immersion. The students shared their achievements with all students after class through their own observation and under the guidance of teachers.

In terms of the Chinese language course, a new strategy has been adopted for the new curriculum, adding a number of cultural experiences such as writing spring couplets, ancient paper-cut artwork, introduction to calligraphy, small sky lantern production, Chinese songs singing and appreciation, making dumplings, and other cultural activities. As a result, learners were able to experience the nation’s culture in first hand, deepening their impression of learning, and being entertained in an interesting way, which could ultimately enhance foreign students’ learning motivation. In the same year, cultural experts were hired to demonstrate traditional techniques such as diabolo rings and noodle making, etc. Therefore, foreign students could receive a balance of education objectives outside the classroom.

In addition to classroom education, taking foreign students to experience life in Taipei and to experience the cultural atmosphere of Taiwan was also an important element of this summer course. From the Observation Deck in the 101 Building, they could see the best of Taipei city from the beauty of mountains, to the Yilan National Traditional Art Center Chuanyi Cultural Park. Culture represents the spirit of a country and society. The park is characterized by cultural creativity, which allows more people to know and get close. In this space where performances, crafts, and creative talents are lively presented, students could immediately experience the local culture evolution.

The NTUB International Office, which hosted this summer course, is constantly striving for excellence, so that the foreign students of these sister schools can get a good Taiwan experience through NTUB and promote school reputation and international impression for the country. The program uses Chinese language and cultural teaching as a delivery tool to offer a good impression of Taiwan to foreigners from different corners of the world.

Participants of this summer Chinese language course for foreign students included students from Singapore, Japan, the Netherlands and other places, including Malaysia, Indonesia, India, Vietnam, and even overseas Chinese students, each of whom was taken care by different local family households. Their lives were fused in a traditional but diverse society. These internationals all gathered here at National Taipei University of Business this summer to study Chinese and Taiwan's culture and society together. The students of the school participating in the activities were very eager to assist and entertain these foreign students while communicating with each other and trying to understand cultural differences. Similarly, when everyone with a sincere attitude learned and grew together. Every element in the Chinese language course was indispensable, creating the meaning for this project.

7. Assisting disadvantaged students to learn with ease for a fuller learning process

The Office of Students Affairs in the institution formed a counseling program for students with economical disadvantages, students with physical and mental challenges, students of indigenous identifies, and overseas students:

Pictures from Various Activities：

8. Caring for and practicing university social responsibility

Based on the concepts of social care, industry connection, local practice, sharing of implementation experience, and talent cultivation, both teachers and students engaged in local problem-solving, along with the industry, and practiced professional skills. The General Education Center of the institution conducted an action plan to organize teachers and student communities and conducted social care and community actions through the intensified social action—a sub-project of collaborative learning in liberal arts. In addition to making teaching more flexible, the plan guided students to go out of the classroom to care for their community and engage in social participation to carry out professional actions. Through a systematic review of social awareness, the teacher-student collaborative team participated in a number of national competitions, and the two groups of students participated in the "My Innovation DNA-Practical but Creative Application Competition" and "Creative mindset -Innovation-Salary -Youth Dreamer-Practitioner Competition" and won second place twice. "Social innovation" and "local innovation" are the latest trends and models for realizing university social responsibility.

In addition, the College of Business in the institution identified problems in taxation and accounting services locally, and led students to participate in service learning for tax services (During winter vacation: services were provided by North District Internal Revenue Service Audit Office in San-chong, North District Internal Revenue Service Xizhi Audit Office; During tax season period in May: services were provided by National Taxation Bureau of Taipei and its branch units, National Taxation Bureau of the North Area, and its branch units, and the university). Not only could students apply theories into practice, they have also fulfilled college students' social responsibility (USR), providing taxation consultation in the spirit of the Higher Education Sprout Project, making contribution to the public. This taxation consultation sub-project has cultivated tax and accounting talents to meet the needs of the society.