News

TKU GEARED UP FOR INTERNAL ASSESSMENT

Internal assessment for the 2007 academic year was kicked off by the Department of Finance last Monday (4/21). In the same week, the Department of French, E-learning Executive Master’s Program of Business Administration in Global Chinese Management, the Graduate Institute and China Studies, and the Department of Chinese, were also assessed. This internal assessment is a preparation for the external assessment conducted by the Ministry of Education between March and June next year. At this stage, departments can invite their own assessors to evaluate them on their performance in the following five categories: “Goals, specialties, and self-reflection,” “Curricula design and Teaching quality,” “Student Learning and Student Affairs,” “Research and Professionalism,” and finally “Alumni achievement.” There will be a total of 46 departments to be assessed with 18 more to be assessed this week.

LEE, A DOCTORAL CANDIDATE, WINS GRANT TO STUDY ECOLOGY IN GERMANY

INFORMATION ABOUT SISTER UNIVERSITIES IS AT YOUR FINGERTIP

A special webpage that contains elaborate information about the sister universities of TKU in both Chinese and English is accessible now to all TKU students. All you need to do is to enter the university website and click on International Affairs on the menu. The information contained within includes maps, agreements with TKU, and some key statistical data such as history, faculties, research facilities, and student number.

A PICTURE IS WORTH A THOUSAND WORDS

HUMOR MAKES THE DAY FOR WANG AT THE ENGLISH SPEECH CONTEST

An impromptu speech contest held by the Department of English was held on 4/17 at the Ching-sheng International Conference Hall. The top five winners are Wang Yu-hui a junior from the Dept. of English, Wang Yu-ping, a senior from the same department, Lee Chang-jung, a senior from the Department of International Trade, Lee Chung-hang, a senior from the same department, and Lee Kuang-yi, another fellow classmate. The first three winners will represent TKU to attend a national wide English Speech Contest at a future date.

LIBRARY HOLDS QUIZZ ON ELECTRONIC DATABASES

There are 347 electronic databases available on TKU library system, but do you know all of them? As part of the “Teaching for Excellence” project, the library organized three major events this week to encourage students to find out more about the resources accessible through university library system. They are “Quizzes Lottery,” “Speedy Q & A,” and “Databases Workshop.”

UNIVERSITY PAPER WORK FLOW GETS A BOOST WITH BETTER IT

Anyone who has seen Monty Python’s “Brazil”, or read Kafka’s “Metamorphosis” should know very well how the absurdity and terror of too much paper work could do to one’s psyche. Well, that won’t happen at TKU. With its new “Documentation Management System,” which was launched on 3/14, no more piles of paper, no more countless slips of yellow tag paper, and no more worries about losing one’s seal. This web-based system allows all university staff and faculty members to have access to documents regardless of time and place. There is also a digital signature system based on the Citizen Digital Certificate (CDC) developed by the Ministry of Interior that enables people concerned to sign documents on line. The university also ensures that a highly secure verify mechanism is at work to guard authenticity, should the person concerned does not have the CDC on him or her. Apart from this feature, this DMS is equipped with many functions such as notepad, preview, drafting, and registration. With these functions, there is no more hassle of physically delivering paper work.

TEACHING PLATFORM IS DESIGNED TO HAVE TWO SECURITY MODES

The teaching platform at TKU has a new feature: It allows faculty members (FM) to set two types of files, with one for open access, while the other for limited access. In this way, they can determine particular users for certain teaching materials by creating a password. Such a feature provides a bigger flexibility on one hand, and on the other, a greater security for teachers’ materials.

BEAUTY OF FORESTS IN WATER COLOR IS IN DISPLAY AT CCFAC

SAVE THE EARTH? TURN YOUR LIGHT OFF WHENEVER YOU CAN

To commemorate the Earth Day on 4/22, TKU joined the campaign “Save our air” that was launched by the government as an effort to reduce CO2 emission. One way of doing this is to save daily energy consumption such as conserve water and electricity. According to Shen Chien-her, a technician from the Office for General Affairs, TKU has been rather good in conserving water, which is evidenced by the marginal growth in its water bill. “We hope to achieve zero growth very soon,” he said.