Successes and lessons from a trial of the three-way university-enterprise cooperation program on data science and big data processing technology in China

Abstract

Work integrated learning (WIL), most in the form of co-operative (co-op) partnerships or workplace placements/internships, has been incorporated into many undergraduate programs in universities around the world. In this express report, we share a recent trial of a new WIL model for a bachelor's IT degree in data science and big data processing technology experimented at our University (Inner Mongolia Agricultural University, IMAU) in China. This new model involves three entities, an institution as IMAU (Part A), an industry-certification training agency (Part B), and a cloud computing enterprise (Part C). Our experiment was initiated in September 2018 with the first intake of about 120 undergraduate students and completed in July 2022 over four years of full-time study. The initial results show that the three-way WIL initiative produced more than 60 employment-ready and industry-certified professionals for ICT enterprises and service providers specialized in data science and big data processing technology. The industry-standard certification training and the four-month industry placement in a top 500 ICT enterprise in the world significantly improved both the hands-on skills required by the ICT industry and the employment opportunities for the graduates.