TKU has changed “Outstanding Teaching Faculty Award Methods” and “Regulations for Sponsoring Full-time Faculty's Academic Writings and Their Teaching Materials' Publication and Production” into “Faculty Teaching Award Methods.” The new award policy requires that faculty members can apply for it only their last two years’ teaching evaluation average reach 4. Individual course evaluation minimum has raised to 3.5 from 3. Faculty members apply for excellent textbook award can win at most NT$20,000 instead of NT$50,000. Application is changed to Sept. 1 through 30.

Vice-President for Academic Affairs Kan-nan Chen has expressed that TKU has changed the two award policy into one, so faculty members can save time in the application process. In the past, teaching materials were difficulty to get, so TKU encouraged teachers to compile textbooks. But computer information technology has been developing fast, digital IT becomes popular and teaching materials are updated rapidly. TKU has been promoting Internet Teaching Platform for years, and teachers can renew their teaching materials at any time. The final purpose is to promote excellent teaching, so both excellent teaching materials award and excellent teaching award become a unified NT$20,000 now. He hoped more teachers would compile and write teaching materials to cooperate with TKU’s Internet Teaching Platform.

In addition, to continue to encourage faculty to have publications, TKU hopes that not only quantities but also qualities of publications will be raised. The newly revised policy requires A&HCI, SSCI, SCI listed publications be different from EI listed publications. The former is NT$80,000 (formerly NT$100,000) while the latter is NT$60,000 (formerly also NT$100,000). One applicant is limited to have one publication award in the first category. But the awards for second category of publications have been raised from NT$20,000 to NT$40,000, and one applicant can have up to 5 publication awards. The award for EI listed publications is still NT$20,000, as EI listed publications are not necessarily listed in SCI. But SCI listed publications are usually listed in EI, so in the academic world, SCI listed publications are better regarded than EI listed publications, as the Impact Factor of SCI is more than EI. If any of the publications belong to the top 5% of SSCI and SCI listed journals, there will be NT$20,000 more for each publication award. Any paper published by either Nature or Science will have NT$500,000 more. TKU continues to encourage faculty members to publish more and better quality papers. ( ~Dean X. Wang )