Reviews of my organizations

By Mia

Background of the Organization

Training Center of Zhejiang Electric Power Corporation is organized and managed by Zhejiang Electric Power Corporation. It is a large-scale education and training base. The Training Center was built by 1978, which undertakes the technical training, project development, technology services, skill evaluation, continuing education and other tasks. It has trained a large number of talents for Zhejiang Electric Power Corporation.

Organizational Culture

The main culture of the training center is bringing up the requisite trainees of electric power industries. To reach this goal, we provide different ways to improve the effect of teaching and training. All the staffs take every effort to integrate the teaching resources and increase the quality of teaching. The classify styles of training is fit for staffs and leaders. Moreover, the training for the staffs can be distributed into two classes: the new staffs and senior staffs. There are many professional teachers and professors to improve ability to innovation. As the training center is a division of state enterprise, with a set of strict management system, so it lacked some elements of innovation and communication to a certain extent.

Organisational Structure

Staff

There are many teachers who have. Some of them are the senior staff of the electric power enterprise. At the same time, we will invite some famous professor to give a lecture. Some teachers who have no practice in the electric power enterprise will be arranged to work in the enterprise for a certain time. 

Organizational learning and training

As a high-tech enterprise, which need to update of information constantly. So, organization's learning is very important in the enterprise development process. Employees not only have a clear division of labour, but also job responsibilities in electric power companies. It is possible to solve the employees know the problem of "what to do", but from another point of view, it limited staff to go beyond the scope of organization. The creativity of the employees are less likely to be played. How to break the rigid pattern? The leaders re-examine the significance of power, so it appears the phenomenon of right differentiation in decision-making and management of enterprise development. Give full play to each employee's intelligence, and to raise the level of decision-making and effectiveness. Another change was to encourage innovation and creativity. Staff encouragement has also experienced the change from the simple, extensive model to the subtle and detailed one, which puts forward higher requirements for staff encouragement to further explore the subjective capability of staffs to motivate the enthusiasm, emotion, passion and motivation of staffs, and to improve the organizational performance.

I was impressed by the activities of "safe production month" carried out under arrangements of the State Grid. To power businesses, security is the life and efficiency, security is the most important thing in all the work! So, security is always a power of course people need to learn. In just two months, we organized eight of the safety regulations for our organization. In the process of learning, not only we study with the work-related safety regulations, but also highlighted other systems. Everyone review objectives and performance, find the faults and weaknesses, and to recommend appropriate measures. This makes me felt the crews pay attention to the safety of works deeply. Indeed, only we constantly learn to enhance own security awareness, we can transfer from "I will be safe" to " I want to be safe".

Performance and Evaluation

The training center will do an evaluation for the teacher after one training project. During this way, we can know the advantage and disadvantage in the teaching activities. After the evaluation, we can take measure to improve the quality of training and promote innovation. Meanwhile, it can enhance the competition among the teachers to improve the ability of teaching. 

We work out evaluation scheme which include four mainly parts. The four parts are attitudes towards teaching, ability of teaching, teaching effect, and order of teaching. We will ask trainees, managers and the teacher who under evaluation via questionnaire method to collect data. At last, the teacher will get appropriate reward or discipline.

Learning environment

During the survey results, it is easy to see that the leaders of the organization did not play an important role in the learning process. Lacking truly communication, it can leads to inadequate connection between leaders and employees. In my organization, the leader seldom provided time to listen to the opinions of the employees, and at the right time, able to give advice. It is the result of the employees unwilling to express different opinions. We must heed the correct views and act upon them. At the same time, leadership behaviors affect the learning process and environment.

As a professional training organization, when comes to the concrete learning process and practices, the result is quite otherwise and not nearly so much high as I thought. After reflection of the truth, I think we still need for improvement.

To serve as a high-tech enterprise, we usually provide the new technical support and service to our learners. On the other hand, although we usually try out new teaching method instead of the certain pattern, we do not have a set of intact, effectual experiment system. Even if employees have some constructive ideas, they do not know how effect the new ways can actually be used in the practice.

Then, the information collection, we require continue to collect information, in accordance with the present level of technical and social development trend. However, because of the specialty of our enterprise, which is organized by the Zhejiang Electric Power Corporation, we do not need to consider about the competitors. This is a hidden danger.

When comes to the analysis, in my department, the colleagues will discuss with the training problem frequency. Although there are various opinions can be issued, leaders will make the final decisions in accordance with his argument.

In the aspect of education and training, and information transfer, training is important, especially newly hired employees, who will accept a serious of training and tests to make sure whether they can accomplish duties and responsibilities. But for the experienced employees, supporting training is not sufficient. Also, my organization will share information during the form of conference and symposium, however, the model is comparative traditional.

Last, the supportive learning environment, which is in a poor condition. Three of them are in the bottom quartile. The openness to the new ideas got the lowest score among all the indexes. Time for reflection is relatively high. There is one thing need to know from the result, we still did not form a good learning environment.

Overall, we need to realize how serious the whole situation is. Hardly any index located to the top quartile. Instead of this, many indexes have been placed to the bottom quartile. I need to collect the data more details and come up with the solution.

Summary of my organization:

By Rainbow
Company history:

Background of this trading company

The company is a big company which exports clothes and it has its subsidiaries as well as its own clothes factories. The company is very young which has established only for eight years. As it is a joint venture, it has staff from different cultures. It is a company which exalts teamwork and happiness.

Culture:

Although our company is very young, there is no lack of company culture. On the company website, there is forum for communication, courseware for analysis, successful cases for studying. Moreover, there are many real stories about the company shared on the forum for enjoying.

Staff:

The staff of this company comprises Chinese people and Indian people. There are totally 300 staff. The whole company can be divided into 9 departments such as such as human resources department, merchandize department, shipping department, QC department,etc.

Learning environment and training:

As our company is very practical and it is associated with trade, so it lacks in Experimentation. However, on the whole, there is still much to be improved in that the turnover rate is so high. I am not so sure about the information collection since I only worked for six months. Actually the communication between the headquarter and subsidiaries and factories. Next is the analysis. There is adequate time for the staff to reflect and self-analysis at least in my department. But the degree varies in other departments. Our company pays great attention to education and training. Every new staff will receive training regularly and people who move to new positions will receive corresponding training, but I think the effectiveness of the training can be further improved. As for information transfer, I think there is formal and casual communication between the team managers and the team members. If there is branch point, we can solve it by discussing. However, most of the time the managers are the decisions makers, so I think it would be better if there is some communication channels such as the forum.

Our company values reflection and staff will be evaluated with respect to their work performance and social activities. As I feel there is relatively strong sense of hierarchy in our company, so there is less spark for new ideas. This may be a weak point to be improved. In conclusion, a company should be well-organized, so that every member in this company will feel satisfied and rewarded.

Innovation:

According to the situation in our company and the diffusion of innovations model, we persuade the subsidiary company and customer to employ new equipment and new product. The subsidiary company need to pass some official audit and the audit requires new equipment. This is a process of diffusion of innovation. It is interesting that some companies are willing to adopt the new equipment and some are not. They can be regarded as the early adopters and the other companies who do not adopt can be regarded as the late majority or laggards. The reason why they do not adopt is it costs money and the effect does not show so soon. Once the advantage of the new equipment is discovered, they will be adopted by the late majority. There are always innovators who advocate new things and products and late adopters who are reluctant to change. Oftentimes, new things always have their vitality because there are new functions and reinventions added into the old things. They can be accepted by people according to the change diffusion.

What can be improved?

On the whole, our company has good management and it operates well. The staffs are friendly to each other. Maybe we can consider about how to make full use of the forum for communicating work experience which can helps improves work effectiveness and efficiency. As for other aspects that are to be improved are analyzed in the learning organization survey.

summary of my organization

By Emma

History

it is a motor components manufactory, which has developed for 16 years. It has been placing a high priority on the quality of products and got many honors for well-quality. It should be mentioned this company is from very mini-scale to owning about 40 units land, but it insists one role: create high quality product to satisfy customers’ demands. However, the management system of this company does not changed much compared with the beginning, especially for human resources management, which leads to brain drain within these years.

Culture

the slogan of this company is ‘create high quality product to satisfy customers’ demands’, therefore, from the boss to shop floor, everyone put quality in the first place. Besides, the requirement among workers is zero fault. Almost workers take this company as a family due to a few years working here, and the company spirit makes them confirmed that the company will be stronger and stronger in the future. In addition, whenever and wherever you come into the company, you can feel busy and hard working surroundings. Most people are happy and satisfactory working and having life here.

Staff

Until now, there are 192 workers in the company and 170 sets automation equipment which makes the company seem like having certain scale and catching up modern industry.

The organization structure
Boss
Marketing department	Financial department	Administration department	Product lines	Warehouse section

learning environment and training

From the data showed in the learning organization survey, we can notice the learning passion is not quite high in this organization. It can be understood because it is a manufactory industry--almost every process has been ruled, employees repetitively operate everyday, no much need to change. But compared with few years ago, it is better now, because the learning room was built. Managers in different department can give lectures for their fellows and solve usual problems for them. but measured by Senge’s the Five Leaning Discipline, this learning organization still has some shortage, such as system thinking.

When coming to training plan, I think it should be noticed that training is not only professional skill or other area skills improvement, but also should be included job ethics and operation safety training. in this company, when new employees come in, the manager of certain department will offer technical instruction and give help. To the experienced employees, the company encourages them communicating with managers who are working in other organizations(e.g. supplier). But one thing needs to be mentioned, managers in individual department regularly take classes for technical problem solving, safety operation and warning responsibility for products that workers have made. At the end of every month, the heads of every department regularly do conclusion to demonstrate the weakness of this period. This may be called informal training but it has achieved the aim of training.

Performance assessment

Different department has its own job responsibility. In my father’s company, the achievement of a marketing worker is judged by how many real clients he/she brings to the company. As a worker in product line, the achievement of his/her is judged by the quality and quantity of the products he/she can produce. But unfortunately, it is still not a perfect company--no much promotion space, the only thing which can be called incentive is raising salary or giving bonus or giving annual rewards.

Innovation

1. Adding one learning room and making suitable leaning environment

In the past years, there was no special room for taking lessons. Managers found it was energy-waste when repeately solved the same problem for different workers. so that they thought of a plan that was making a room for learning together. Surprisingly, this proposal was accepted by everyone. However, problems emerged after several classes were taken, listeners replied it was boring and tedious sitting in the room, words from speaker made them sleepy. Therefore, some managers discussed whether they should add some technology equipment and change the layout of furniture. Few weeks later, the learning room had a new look, it was installed a projector, a computer, and  the furniture laying was not mess any more, but is in order (e.g. tables are placed one row by one row). the new learning room made workers refresh, and happy to stay here. Besides, speakers not just gave lectures, but played some relevant videos, showed some images to explain more detail, and made audience understandable.

2. Industry diversification(current plan)

This is a new suggestion which has been discussing these days. the company is plan to expand current products, considering fridge components making. If it is confirmed, many scenarios need to be considered: (1) whether we should employ workers who have fridge components making skills or just train inside employees? Which way can save money? (2) what if we can not come over technical problems? (3) what if there has been many strong competitors? If so, is there still benefit existed? …..

organizational learning---CCTV summary

By Fay

Organization Background

Organization Name: 

Happy Dictionary Programme, China central Television

Main features:

This programme is famous around China. It is featured as a quiz show. Guests can reward with prizes by answering quizzes correctly. There are about 20 staff in the TV team, including producers, hosts, directors, photographers, lighting, interns and so on. Like all entertainment shows team, we are also a very active group.

Staff:

The whole producing team consisted of young people, and the atmosphere was alive and equal. This team intakes many interns each year in order to refresh the creating blood.

My position

Internship as assistant director

(My response was to assist the programme director to film)

Duration

One year

Performance assessment in the workplace

Following aspects are the main assessment components:

·     Audience rating (TAM=Television audience measurement)

A professional team is responsible for this assessment. In CCTV, the CSM is responsible for this link: http://www.csm.com.cn/en/index.html

Each week we will have at least one meeting, and the TV rating is a must item.

·    Direct hotlines

The programme has its own email boxes, fax and hotlines. Audience could reflect their suggestions to us directly.

·    Professional assessment

The programme will be sent to TV expert to analysis. And the programme must be approved before shown by the political department, in order to ensure no harm to the society. Meanwhile, we also invite some experts outside the organization to assess like some media professors form universities.

Professional Development

As the TV programme requires fresh blood all the time. PD is quite essential. The leadership level’s PD is quite often. They could observe and study in other cities and even countries. For interns like me, at the beginning, we are assigned by the HR into the suitable position, while; we are asked to take part in different working sites to know the whole making process.

My Learning Feelings:

In this workplace, there was no very strictly working distribution structure.

People will learn more if they work harder and communicate with others more. For interns, we could learn lots of fresh knowledge by even watching. In this organization, personal mastery was accomplished well. This target acquired did not separate with shared vision. The functioning of this organization was transparent; we did discuss issues in an equal and freedom way. Thus, as the filming going, innovation could appear gradually, and some basic rules were executed well without forcing. The tacit understanding could be found which was interesting and power saving. However there was a not that welcomed thing always happened, which was the inspection system of TV system in China. Usually, producers due to some hard-explained reason here killed our great ideas. As we were a team of young, the system thinking was not carried out very well. While these shortages cannot be seen through the screen. We had to have many meeting for one shooting. Trying our best to forecast what will happen. Perhaps due to the emergencies always appear for TV making, we had to deal with some situation we had not thought before.

The following table analyzes KWL model of my previous job.

What I already know?	What I want to know?	What I have learnt?
Some basic filming knowledge. Not very skilled filming skills.	Professional filming skills How to coordinate scenes How to lead the whole team to work smoothly	Professional filming skills Working with others better. Dealing with some emergencies. ……

Above all, this is a long story; the place I have ever worked can be called a not bad learning organization.

The survey

Survey Results:

Colleague	Leadership that reinforces learning	Learning Process composite	Learning environment composite	Experimentation	Information collection	Analysis
Me	65	85	84	75	93	86
A	63	78	69	86	86	71
B	75	82	69	93	89	74
Average	67	81	74	84	89	77
	Education and training	Information transfer	Psychological safety	Appreciation of differences	Openness to new ideas	Time for reflection
Me	79	93	86	86	100	66
A	76	71	60	61	93	63
B	76	82	71	71	82	54
Average	77	82	72	72	91	61

Analysis

5 items reach top quartile among 12, while 3 of them only get second quartile. There are 4 elements out of 5 top ones belong to the concrete learning process and practices.

Good learning items:

From the table above, the RED item are the ones who jump to the top category. As 4 items are in concrete learning process and practice. It reflects the organization is a open information communication group. And in practice, the TV team does share information quite often due to the following potential reasons. People who are in this field especially entertainment area are full of passion and must have creative minds. Their characters are open and brave. Working with them, I could acquire many information all the time, never feel bored. 

Experimentation:

The organization experiments with new ways of working frequently. When some good ideas come up, after the meeting approve, we will do the pre-test. If something that come raise our audience rating, we will embedded it into the programme. The test is carried out in a professional method. The leaders are encourage and stimulate us to explore new ideas.

Analysis:

When we have meeting, it engages in productive conflict and debate during discussion seeking dissenting viewing.

Information collection and transfer:

In order to have a scientific assessment, the organization not only collect information inside, as well as outside like experts, audience, advertisement customers, etc. The data is public. When we in a low point, the leaders will not just hide it, they let everyone knows in order to stimulate us.

Learning process composite:

Organizational learning is strongly influenced by leadership. I cannot totally agree this organization is a well-processed learning environment. When I worked as a intern, I did learn lots of professional and practical things gradually.

What should be improved?

Phycological safety

Although we are brave to express our ideas, while everyone in this organization is over stressed. For me, I always express my views, but compare with the other two colleagues, perhaps not everyone in this group like me. Especially some senior staff, they might hide their views due to different reasons.

Systematic training

In this organization, the leader level staff always has chance to go outside and open horizon. While these opportunities are not for everyone. Some staff seldom learns more things according to my observation. The huge imbalance in this organization might create a gap gradually--a knowledge one. The working staff is not one who receives new things for the first hand, they have to listen to leaders’ order. While leaders seldom participant the recording process all the time. The team should create a systematic training plan for all, not just for the few.

Summary

Organizations need to learn more than ever as they confront mounting forces. Although still some shortages exist in the organization in learning environment prospect, it is not a bad one. Strengthen staff is also strengthen the organization.

Attachments:

Fay:

https://survey2.hbs.edu/los/LosResults?sessionId=381B5FE533C282FF08CDA225B0195BD002

Colleague A:

https://survey2.hbs.edu/los/LosResults?sessionId=381B5FE533C282FF08CDA95CCFF8B99E7D

Colleague B:

https://survey2.hbs.edu/los/LosResults?sessionId=381B5FE533C282FF08CDA95DBCFBDE8802

Scenario Planning

Situation now:

The programme has already been run for over 10 years. The format of it is modified by many other programme in mainland. How to raise audience rating? As a learning environment, it still needs long way to go. The improvement of using new 3-D technology is indeed needed.

The main format of the show does not change too much. While some issues appear with the rapid entertainment shows rising.

 1. The format of the programme is midified by other programmes in a great scale in the past few years. Audiences are kind of tired of this format. How to survival? 

 2. As I have already analysis the learning environment of the organization. Combining with my own experience, the training imbalance between leaders and working staff make a gap, which blocks the understanding of knowledge. This is, the leaders always receive the new horizon and knowledge, then they transfer it to the working staff, in this process, some points are missed. 

 3. Combining with new technology. As we know, many shows use new technology like interactive camera, SMS participation to attract audience. This programme also needs this.

Search for driving forces

From audience: the audience rating

From Sponsors: the stress of advertising 

From TV leaders: the promotion

Find uncertainties:

1. If the format of this programme, will audiences accept it? 

2. Will there be enough budgets for working staff to receive frequent training and alternative with new technology?

Scenarios and Plan

Scenarios	How to	Will
1. Change the format	Collecting advices from the public, change the group of hosts Bring more interactive games	Raising audience rating Attract new audience and keep loyalty ones Attract more sponsors
2. All staff training	More budgets for training and let everyone in the team get involved	Increase the working effectiveness Reduce “gap”
3. New technology integrated	Change form recording to live Multiple connections with outside-studio audience	Raising audience rating Attract new audience and keep loyalty ones Attract more sponsors

Discussion

Scenario planning involves identifying factors that could drive change in a system, and then systematically varying those factors in narrative storylines about the future development of that system (Fahey & Randall, 1998; Peterson, Cumming, & Carpenter, 2003). Scenarios help decision-makers cope with uncertainty by providing a framework from which to begin a discussion of uncertain and nonlinear ecological dynamics and potential futures (Peterson, Cumming et al., 2003; Wollenberg, Edmunds, & Buck, 2000).

Conclusion

The research outcomes of this organization are valuable, especially the scenario planning tips for it. From the nature of this media organization, it reflects some common points in the related organizations. For illustrate, the assessment system is well developed. However, as far as I know, the communication channel and ideas sharing various in different groups in this area, it is based on the attitude of leaders and cultures of the organization largely. I am lucky to have a good communication environment.

References:

Fahey, L., & Randall, R. M. (Eds.). (1998). Learning from the future: Competitive foresight scenar- ios. New York: John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

ennett, E. M., Carpenter, S. R., Peterson, G. D., Cumming, G. S., Zurek, M., & Pingali, P. (2003). Why global scenarios need ecology. Frontiers in Ecology and the Environment, 1(6), 322–329.

Scenario Planning for Wildlife Management: A Case Study of the National Elk Refuge, Jackson, Wyoming MARK W. NEFF Consortium for Science, Policy and Outcomes, Arizona State University, Tempe, Arizona, USA

David A,Garvin, Amy C   Is your a learning organization?   March 2008  Harvard Business Review

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.