Organizational Learning - City University of Hong Kong

by Corrine


Organisational Background

The organisation I am going to study is the City University of Hong Kong (CityU). It was founded as the City Polytechnic of Hong Kong in 1984, and then assumed full university status 10 years after. During the past quarter of a century it has grown from the relatively humble beginnings to become a high-ranking world university with a talented team of international and local scholars and an energetic campus community.

CityU offers professional education that prepares its students for the challenges and exciting opportunities opening up in Hong Kong, the Asia-Pacific region and throughout the world in business, science and engineering, energy and environment, law, creative media and social sciences. Through its extensive links with relevant industries, CityU provides real-life opportunities for students to work with and learn from professionals in the workplace, from bachelor degrees and postgraduate studies to associate degrees and continuing education.

The University has a steady rise in world rankings in the past few years. It dramatically improves its standing in world university ranking exercises. It is currently ranked 15^th in Asia and 129^th in the world, according to the 2010 University Rankings published by Quacquarelli Symonds (QS). It is ranked No. 1 in the Greater China region for mathematics and computer science in 2010 and has been No. 1 in Hong Kong in engineering research papers for three consecutive years, according to a survey by the Higher Education Evaluation and Accreditation Council of Taiwan.

Organisational Culture

Hong Kong benefits by occupying a unique position between the rapidly developing mainland China and the rest of the world, remaining inextricably linked to Chinese culture whilst also socio-culturally tied to the West. CityU is therefore committed to leveraging this bicultural tradition to contribute to the government’s objective of transforming Hong Kong into an education hub for the development of talents in the Greater China region and beyond. CityU does not only put focus on building its own culture, but also increases students’ cultural awareness of our motherland and internationalisation. Chinese civilisation courses, which bring the values of Chinese civilisation to the knowledge of its students and for international appreciation, have been at the centre of its curriculum structure for 10 years, benefitting many thousands of local and international students every year. This, together with the increasing number and range of language courses in its curriculum and the drive to recruit non-local students is strengthening the multi-cultural atmosphere on campus with its students being more aware of their own cultural background as well as those from a wide variety of other cultures. In the past 3 years, the University has participated in the National University Entrance Examination (NUEE) scheme, and a new arrangement approved by the mainland authority in 2007 which facilitated the recruitment of students in the initial selection round. The University also extended the geographical breadth of the mainland recruitment to 25 provinces in 2007 compared with 20 in 2006. In terms of internationalization, the University has also significantly increased the number of international exchange students from beyond the Greater China region over recent years.

Organisational Structure

CityU, occupying 15.6 hectares, comprises 7 colleges/schools, named as the College of Business, College of Liberal Arts and Social Sciences, College of Science and Engineering, School of Creative Media, School of Energy and Environment, School of Law, and the Chow Yei Ching School of Graduate Studies. There are 20 academic departments and 23 research institute/centres in total. There are altogether 924 full-time academic staff in the University.

Staff

CityU has well-qualified and dedicated academic staff, who are essential to the continuous success of its mission to develop student talents and create applicable knowledge which supports social and economic advancement. 98% of the senior academic staff and 45% of the junior staff have obtained PhDs.

Competition for Quality Staff

Recognising that the higher education landscape in Hong Kong will become more competitive in terms of recruiting quality academic staff, CityU intends to embark on recruitment early to ensure that the high quality of its existing staff group can be maintained and enhanced. CityU has also instituted a more flexible arrangement for determining salaries to attract and retain the best academics from various disciplines.

Performance-based Pay Review Scheme for Non-academic Staff

To reinforce the University's performance-based culture, the University launched the Performance-based Pay Review Scheme for Non-academic Staff in 2010.

The launch of the scheme aims to establish a culture in which faculty/staff members and departments take responsibility for the continuous improvement of their performance and contributions to the University, and to retain staff by building a stronger link between performance and reward. Under the Scheme, performance planning needs to be strengthened to ensure that individual staff’s performance goals are align with the Departmental and University goals and strategies. 

It is deemed a fair and transparent appraisal system with a well-structured rating system to assess staff performance. Individual appraisers and appraisees will agree on the Key Result Areas and performance goals at the start of the performance cycle which in turn will constitute the assessment criteria and standards for staff members.

Organisational Planning

Under the 334 Academic Reforms in Hong Kong, 2012 will be a pivotal year when Hong Kong universities launch the 4-year undergraduate degrees. CityU has taken this opportunity to review the undergraduate curriculum and design a new broadened curriculum for the 4-year undergraduate degrees, giving students a greater flexibility in their studies.

To ensure that all academic staff are fully aware of the significance of the ‘3+3+4’ transition, and the importance of adopting the new competitive bidding process to achieve the institutional outcomes for 2012 and beyond, CityU has engaged in a rigorous and detailed consultation through these years.

Understanding ‘3+3+4’

The reform involves major organisational change and it is crucial that students, parents, and staff are aware of the significance of the changes brought about by the four-year degree curriculum, which is relatively new to Hong Kong. Consequently, they will require appropriate support until the reforms are fully established and understood. Therefore the University’s progressive implementation of the reform has been designed to gradually phase in the major curriculum-based changes over this triennium to ensure that all stakeholders fully understand and can benefit from the four-year degree curriculum by 2012. Outreach activities to schools, parents, potential future students and accrediting professional bodies are being organised to achieve this.

The ‘3+3+4’ reforms will fundamentally change the nature of higher education in Hong Kong. CityU has been preparing its graduates to take their place as professionals in its increasingly globalised communities. Higher education, in common with other sectors of society, is increasingly influenced by globalisation with the pace of technological change taking place within the context of an interconnected yet simultaneously diverse and fragmented world. This poses new challenges for universities, which must produce graduates equipped to excel in this environment. Graduates are now expected to possess cutting-edge professional knowledge from their chosen area of specialisation, up-to-date knowledge of other disciplines, good communication skills, cultural literacy, creativity, personal awareness and self-confidence. They must also demonstrate flexibility, resilience and the ability to function within culturally diverse teams; a fragmented or single discipline-specific curriculum will fail to meet these needs. In order to develop graduate and lifelong employability, the curriculum reform embraces the need for horizontal integration across subjects whilst maintaining vertical development within them. The academic programme design of CityU therefore also aims at enhancing students’ career choice and personal growth, demonstrably preparing students to function as professionals in a complex and continuously changing society.

Understanding its Limitation - Lack of Space

CityU suffers from limited space for the expansion necessary to support the reforms but it is now undergoing some infrastructure projects to provide the additional space required for the University to prosper and grow as a major provider of graduate professionals.

Quality Assurance and Assessment

CityU has a robust culture of quality assurance and continuous improvement deeply entrenched in teaching and learning, evidence of its efforts include the Teaching Excellence Awards (TEA) scheme to enhance the quality of teaching and learning, which requires applicants to demonstrate incorporation of Outcome-based Teaching and Learning (OBTL) into their teaching. The University’s Quality Assurance Committee has also revised the ‘Teaching Feedback Questionnaire’, so that it is constructively aligned with OBTL, and pilot runs of the replacement ‘Learning Experience Questionnaire’ has also commenced in 2007.

Encouraging Innovation

Early Introduction of New Curriculum

The normative 4-year undergraduate curriculum will be implemented in 2012/13. To enable students to benefit from the 4-year curriculum, 28 programmes have been identified for early introduction of the new curriculum in 2010/11 and 2011/12.

The Launch of a ‘3+3+4 Academic Reform’ Website

To disseminate relevant information of the new degree structure to students and staff on campus and the general public as a whole, a ‘3+3+4 Academic Reform’ website has been launched, which was purposely built to update various stakeholders on the essential information and new developments regarding the 4-year degree structure.

Organisational Change and Development

Change in Curriculum

CityU shares the UGC’s view on the importance of early introduction of improvements to curricula to benefit current students, and has set out plans for phasing in the four-year degree curriculum in two transitional phases: Experimental Phase (2006–2009) and Gearing-up Phase (2009–2012). Undergoing the Gearingup Phase, the University has launched a pilot version of the fully-fledged four-year degree curriculum planned for introduction in 2012, which is characterised by the following:

-       Phasing-out the Out-of-Discipline courses requirement and replacing these with a suite of GE courses.

-       Assessing language proficiency on entry and requiring students to take a recognized interim and exit test (e.g. IELTS), if test scores are below a threshold level (currently being discussed in consultation with faculties/schools).

-       Encouraging students to take a minor outside the major with the option of expanding minors so that they become double majors or joint degrees in 2012.

-       Allowing academically strong students (with a GPA of 3 or above) to take up to a maximum of 110 credit units for graduation, as opposed to the minimum of 90 credit units under the existing academic structure.

CityU has designed a four-year degree curriculum and an integrated co-curriculum that are sufficiently flexible to provide a student-centred, broad-based and integrated learning experience, allowing undergraduates to gain in-depth knowledge through major studies and the option to take minors or electives as a complement. Additionally, students will enrich their educational experience and complement their core professional competence with a well-structured suite of General Education (GE) courses. The introduction of majors, minors, free electives and GE courses increases students’ choices, intensifies cross-fertilisation among academic disciplines and reinforces interdisciplinary perspectives in teaching and learning.

Outcome-based Teaching and Learning (OBTL)

The quality of academic programmes at CityU is further enhanced with the phased implementation of OBTL across the curriculum. An institution-wide OBTL project was launched in 2005, it shifts the emphasis from a teacher-centred to a student-centred learning environment. Learning outcomes, which address subject content, are aligned with graduate outcomes and based on employers’ expectations and the requirements of professional bodies and stakeholders.

CityU is proud to lead the adoption of OBTL within the Hong Kong higher education sector. This key educational philosophy was adopted as a means of adding value to the transition to a four-year degree structure, and the University’s new curriculum is entirely underpinned by the principles of OBTL. The set of graduate outcomes ensures that intended learning outcomes, teaching and learning activities, and assessment tasks are constructively aligned throughout the undergraduate learning experience.

Overseeing Student Learning

To further enrich the learning environment and assist students in becoming successful and competent independent learners, teachers and students must understand precisely how learning occurs, and the relative strengths and weaknesses of their learning and teaching strategies. CityU has thus adopted the Learning and Study Strategies Inventory (LASSI), a survey widely used in higher education in Europe and North America, to gauge the learning strategies of students. Prompt individual feedback about scores provides students, academic staff and the institution with a comprehensive analysis of student attitudes, skills and beliefs related to learning across three areas of major importance. The 3 learning areas of LASSI are 1) self-regulation on students’ concentration, time management, self-testing, and study aids; 2) skills of selecting main ideas, test strategies, and information processing; 3) will on attitude, motivation, and anxiety.

From the 2006/07 cohort, each student has taken ‘entry’, ‘interim’ and ‘exit’ tests, and results from these tests are underpinning longitudinal studies of student learning and study strategies, their impact on academic attainments, co-curriculum development, and the effectiveness of the various measures introduced to improve student learning. This diagnostic process allows more effective targeting of resources and academic support to assist staff and students in taking action, and to further improve the overall undergraduate learning experience.

Encouraging a Shift in Emphasis to Functioning Knowledge

The University finds that students are often left to make the links to functioning knowledge alone and this can result in a disconnection between what is learned at the University and what is practised in the professional environment. By shifting the emphasis to functioning knowledge, CityU is thus increasing opportunities for students to acquire all knowledge types in an interconnected way, thereby promoting confidence and creativity, by

-       increasing overseas exposure;

-       strengthening employability through internships, placements and exchanges; and

-       broadening intellectual outlook through general education.

To sum up, the changes which CityU will implement from now and beyond to capitalise on the opportunities provided by the ‘3+3+4’ transition, and the implementation of the new four-year degree structure, constitute major organisational change in terms of the way it conducts its core business. To minimise potential threats to successful implementation, and ensure adherence to both role and mission, CityU is making significant changes to its organisational structure, and has established a number of important committees to manage and steer the transitional arrangements during its ‘Gearing-up’ phase, such as The Committee on the Four-Year Degree, The General Education Committee, The Curriculum Implementation Group, The Institutional Studies Steering Group, and other working groups aligned to the Univeristy’s key outcome areas.

Conclusion

The flexible design of the new degree structure at CityU ensures that the Univeristy is well placed to meet the demands of a fast-changing world, providing its students with wider choices of study, increased flexibility to take courses which extend academic and professional interests, and furnishing the skills, knowledge and mindset to embrace future challenges in their professional and personal lives. Broadening the curriculum with majors, minors and GE courses, and improving language and numerical abilities will promote intellectual curiosity, foster personal growth and nurture creativity through the integration of knowledge across disciplines. The adoption of OBTL and increased opportunities for interdisciplinary learning provides a holistic and student-centred approach. Increased exchange, placement and internship opportunities will add further value to student confidence and ability to function in a competitive global environment.