Lingnan’s President leads QS Summit panel on digital innovation
Lingnan’s President leads QS Summit panel on digital innovation
Lingnan University played a prominent role at the recent QS China Summit 2024, an event which took place in Shanghai on April 17-18 and brought together leading figures to discuss key issues and forces now reshaping the world of higher education.
During the two days, particular emphasis was placed on the growing impact of technology on course content and learning, as well as ways in which universities can contribute to helping China become a recognised global leader in an era where digital innovation is driving rapid change and evolution.
Professor S. Joe Qin, President of Lingnan University and Wai Kee Kau Chair Professor of Data Science
To this end, Professor S. Joe Qin, President of Lingnan University and Wai Kee Kau Chair Professor of Data Science, a noted expert in the field of data science, was invited to chair a high-profile Presidential Panel Discussion at the summit.
The featured speakers included Professor Zhang Dongxiao, Provost and Executive Vice President of the Eastern Institute of Technology in Ningbo and Professor Lyu Peiming, Executive Vice President of Tongji University.
Also taking part were Ms Alice Wei Wei, senior consultant for QS Quacquarelli Symonds and Professor Chen Zhi, President and Chair Professor at Beijing Normal University-Hong Kong Baptist University United International College (UIC) in Zhuhai.
The given theme was “Fostering Distinction in Chinese Higher Education through Digital Innovation”, which provided the basis for a wide-ranging and highly informative discussion on topics which, one way or another, will profoundly affect the work of every student, faculty member and university administrator over the next few years.
In setting the scene, Prof Qin had outlined how, since his appointment in 2023, Lingnan had been a pioneer in Hong Kong in making ChatGPT freely available to everyone on campus and had already made generative AI a core course for all first-year undergraduates as from the 2024/25 academic year.
Course content would cover everything from fundamental concepts to ethical considerations and would also teach practical skills, so that users can make the most of the technology to advance their studies, while avoiding unwanted complications.
Prof Qin explained how these steps tied in with Lingnan’s whole-person model for higher education and would give students and graduates essential know-how to help them excel in the digital era.
More broadly, the ongoing impact of such initiatives could be expected to contribute both to the economic development of South China’s Greater Bay Area and to the development of a Chinese approach to teaching and learning which offers crucial support and advantages.
“Digitalisation is really revolutionising our cognitive tasks,” said Prof Qin, who makes a point of monitoring relevant developments around the world. “Related to the adoption rate of generative AI tools at university level, it feels like China is leading in various ways, including helping students to learn faster and in more individualised ways. As higher education practitioners, we all see that there are opportunities coming, as well as challenges, and they will transform our lives.”
Professor Zhang Dongxiao, Provost and Executive Vice President of the Eastern Institute of Technology in Ningbo
As leader of still new university, Prof Zhang said there had been some pretty intensive discussions about the role of AI in the curriculum and student skill sets in the buildup to starting undergraduate programmes next year.
On the one hand, it presents the chance to design different types of courses, for example by having AI-assisted chemistry and physics experiments in the lab and by exploring all the emerging possibilities in computer science.
On the other, though, there is a risk of skewing the whole higher education system if some students simply use ChatGPT to complete essay assignments and then come top of the class.
“We may have to mandate that students don’t lose certain skills sets, like writing well without AI,” Zhang said. “A hundred years ago, Chinese people used an abacus to do sums, then there was the calculator, and now we use a cellphone. We have lost the ability to do calculations in our head. If AI can generate an email with just a few keywords, pretty soon we are going to lose our ability to write. That is a significant challenge for educators.”
Professor Lyu Peiming, Executive Vice President of Tongji University
Importantly, Prof Lyu emphasised, the innovations brought by digitalisation meant that older established disciplines including civil engineering, architecture, and traffic and transportation had to move with the times and be ready for change.
“Whether they like or not, it must be done,” he said. “Since 2019, when we started university-wide reforms, every discipline has had to consider how to survive in the digital era.”
This has led to the introduction of groundbreaking programmes such as “intelligent construction”, while information technology and large language models (LLM) are now being used to monitor how students learn and progress and how teachers can change their methodology to improve efficiency and effectiveness.
“Many faculty members are old-fashioned and slow to keep up with the times,” Lyu said. “With this transformation, there is outside pressure on them to go forward and progress faster than the students, but I see that as a great opportunity for us.”
Ms Alice Wei Wei, senior consultant for QS Quacquarelli Symonds
For Ms Wei, it was notable that the findings of a recent QS survey show that problem solving and creativity are increasingly viewed as key workplace skills in a world where AI will handle an ever larger share of routine tasks.
“Although AI can process information, do data analysis and even recommend some solutions, human creativity is often the asset needed to navigate and guide AI to find the best solution,” she said.
Professor Chen Zhi, President and Chair Professor at Beijing Normal University-Hong Kong Baptist University United International College (UIC) in Zhuhai
As a humanities scholar, Prof Chen noted that these days it was extremely challenging to deal with new trends and technologies, which made it necessary to rethink a lot of different things.
For instance, one persistent question was whether traditional university subjects such as accountancy and translation could remain as standalone disciplines in the face of the latest developments in generative AI.
“University administrators do need to think about current curriculum structure and consider cross-disciplinary possibilities,” Prof Chen said. “We have to follow the trends in an age of innovation, otherwise we will fall behind.”