Have well-known universities "outsourced" courses, and have the "walls" of universities been torn down?

Recently, some media reported that Tokyo Medical and Dental University in Japan has decided to entrust some language courses such as "Elementary French" for a fee to Tokyo University of Foreign Chinese from FY2022, and it is expected that online classes will be held in the future. It is understood that the "teaching outsourcing" between Tokyo Medical and Dental University and Tokyo Chinese University is actually based on the "credit exchange mechanism" between Japanese universities.

The so-called "credit exchange" refers to the credits obtained by students taking courses at universities other than the university between universities that have signed the relevant agreement, and can be recognized at their own university. According to a survey by the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology of Japan, 83.0% of Japanese universities currently adopt a credit exchange system.

Inter-school electives and mutual recognition of credits are not new, and there are already many universities in the world that support the exchange of credits. In recent years, the Ministry of Education has issued a number of policies to actively promote mutual recognition of credits between universities, and many places and colleges and universities have tried to conduct cross-school classes on the basis of mutual recognition of credits.

One notice, going to multiple universities

The Beijing Xueyuan Road Regional University Teaching Community, which was formally established in 1999, is the earliest organization in China to explore the mutual recognition credit system. The community starts from the inter-school public selection course, and each school selects a high-quality education course with characteristics for all member school students to choose and recognize credits across schools. At present, it has developed into an inter-school elective course system consisting of 11 disciplines in addition to the military, consisting of 265 well-distributed courses.

In 2019, 5 colleges and universities, North China University of Water Resources and Electric Power, Henan Agricultural University, Henan Polytechnic University, Henan University of Economics and Law, and Zhengzhou Institute of Aeronautical Industry Management, took the lead in implementing mutual selection of inter-university courses and mutual recognition of credits in Henan universities. According to the agreement, the five colleges and universities will try to establish a new teaching management system, explore the teaching management system and its operating mechanism under the mode of joint and cooperative education of colleges and universities, and gradually implement a new teaching management system for the sharing of educational and teaching resources such as mutual selection of courses, mutual recognition of credits, and mutual hiring of teachers.

In 2018, the Jiangxi Provincial Department of Education selected 14 colleges and universities in Nanchang, Ganzhou and Jingdezhen to carry out a pilot project of mutual recognition of credits for cross-school course selection. In 2010, the Hubei Provincial Department of Education also organized 10 colleges and universities such as Zhongnan University of Economics and Law, South Central University for Nationalities, Hubei University of Technology and other universities to establish the "Nanhu University Alliance", which can mutually select courses and recognize credits between the alliance institutions, and students can also choose courses across schools to minor double degrees.

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Judging from the cases we have enumerated, although some provinces, cities and universities have only begun to explore mutual recognition of credits in recent years, there are also many colleges and universities whose credit mutual recognition system has been implemented for a long time, so what is the experience of students who participate in mutual recognition of credits and cross-school classes?

At someone else's school, take your own credits

What was the experience?

@L students: The inter-school elective course actually had a class taught by a teacher I liked very much, and I resolutely applied for an inter-school elective. Although it is really hard to travel between two schools, from a long-term perspective, cross-school minors based on mutual recognition of credits are very beneficial to a person's overall growth! Often in class, there is a feeling of empowerment, and the feeling of listening to the lectures of academic bulls is really different.

@ Pancake Student: When I first chose the inter-school course, I was thinking of changing my thinking and changing the environment. The major is not very interested, it just so happens that this school has a discipline that I am interested in, or a relatively bullish ace major, so come and feel it. However, there are more restrictions on time, space, major, etc., the two schools are far away, the class schedule is too tight will become the reason for hindering the class, and the roommate said that the professional part of the course he took was a bit "water-injected".

@ Li Student: I think the role of inter-school minor courses is mainly to establish a basic framework and interest in another discipline. And cross-school classes are a great opportunity to go to different schools to have some experience and meet some like-minded friends. Through the exchange of credits, you can experience the different atmospheres of different schools and enrich the learning experience.

According to a survey conducted by China Youth Daily, 96.4% of the college students surveyed hope to have more opportunities to choose courses across schools. Among them, 72.5% of the surveyed college students believe that the mutual selection of courses in colleges and universities can allow students to experience different campus cultures, and 69.9% of the surveyed students believe that they can provide diversified learning opportunities.

From the above students' comments, it can be seen that the exchange of credits meets the expectations of students for "experiencing different campus cultures" and "diverse learning opportunities" to a certain extent. In this regard, some people believe that the mutual recognition of credit system has played an exemplary role in tearing down the "wall" of the university and breaking down the academic "barrier".

Mutual recognition of credits in colleges and universities has a long way to go

However, in fact, in the implementation process of cross-school study and mutual recognition of credits, due to the constraints of management concepts, teaching methods and financial support, some problems have also been exposed, such as the unequal evaluation standards of the two institutions, the cumbersome procedures for exchanging credits, the no one to take some courses, and the uneven quality of courses.

In this regard, Professor Wu Shuang of Bohai University mentioned in his article "Cross-school Study and Mutual Recognition of Credits in the Context of Resource Sharing in Colleges and Universities" that cross-school study and mutual recognition of credits are not mature after all, and the experience in various aspects is not mature in the stage of reform and experimentation, and can be improved from the following aspects:

First of all, about the teaching management link. The choice of courses should try to select courses that can reflect the characteristics of the school as the builder in the resource sharing curriculum, while the user can choose the relatively weak courses of their own schools for cross-school study. Regarding the selection of teaching materials and curriculum assessment, both sides should also actively communicate, teaching materials should be consistent in the selection of teaching materials, communicate in advance to avoid inconsistencies, and the construction party's syllabus and the preparation of the teaching plan should also try to comply with the selected teaching materials to facilitate the learning of the students of the user.

Second, it is imperative to develop a standardized and complete set of mutual recognition standards for credits. This is mainly to solve the differences in credit recognition between schools, unify the credit conversion standards, and formulate a reasonable set of conversion standards, which will help both parties to operate more standardized when determining credits.

In addition, attention is paid to the protection and incentive mechanism for teachers, which is mainly reflected in the respect for the intellectual property rights of teachers, although the premise of cross-school study is carried out through resource sharing, but through password protection and other technical means, intellectual achievements such as teachers' teaching videos should be protected. The incentive is mainly reflected in the positive exploration of cross-school learning teachers in the class schedule, title evaluation, priority training and other links to give a certain tilt, in order to encourage more teachers to actively participate in the practice of this model.

Finally, about platform building. Technical support is the premise and foundation for better completion of the reform of cross-school study and mutual recognition of credits. At present, it is more common for colleges and universities to choose third-party resource sharing course platforms. This often creates a disconnect between platform usage and platform developers. Therefore, it is recommended that the universities of both sides of the cross-school study can directly participate in the production process of the teaching platform, especially the opinions of front-line teachers and students are widely solicited to ensure that the platform can better reflect the teacher's teaching ideas in the operation process, and it will be more convenient for teachers and students to use.

Source: Max Research is comprehensively compiled from Guangzhou Daily, Global Daily, Ministry of Education website, China Youth Daily, etc., please indicate the source when reprinting.