Training Plan for Software Engineering Top Talents Based on the Demand for High-end Talents in the Industry

Ce Zhang＊, Dianhui Chu, Xiaofei Xu, Zhipeng Chen, Weigong Lv

Abstract: The paper illustrates the reason of the lack of talents with outstanding innovative practice ability and engineering leadership has become a great obstacle for many industries, represented by the software industry, to develop along with the new era, and restricted the evolution of these industries toward the high end. With the target of training talents with innovation capacity and engineering leadership, the training plan for top talents based on the demand for high-end talents in the software engineering industry is put forward, and analyses are given on significant aspects including the development of the training resource system, the screening of students and the selection of enterprises, the teaching staff construction for university-enterprise cooperation,the establishment of a management system with joint effort for talents development, and the construction of process quality guarantee mechanism. In the end, for the implementation of the training plan, it is pointed out that the university-enterprise cooperative development mechanism should be perfected, the talents development practice should be enhanced, the personalized training of students should be emphasized, and the innovative ability in practice and the engineering leadership of students should be practically improved.

Key words: high-end industry; software engineering; top engineering talents; talents training plan;training resource system

1 Introduction

In this “Internet +” era, along with the economic and social development, the software industry develops into a new stage and the application of software systems extends with more diversified existing forms,which have more intensified demand for software engineering talents. Traditionally, universities mainly dedicate both to train software engineering talents on their own and to cooperate with enterprises on training students for ability of practice to prepare the students for their working in the enterprises after graduation.This mode of university-enterprise cooperation for training of software engineering talents has always been the practice of schools of software and has made significant contribution to the development of the software industry in China.

The software industry in China, after so many years of development, has a lot of enterprises, among which a large number of famous enterprises pop up successively.

However, software engineering talents with topnotch engineering practice ability and engineering leadership are far from being sufficient, which leads themselves to the leading talents urgently needed by the software industry. With this background, the training plan for engineering talents for the high end of the industry, being a significant aspect in the software engineering teaching and talents training reformation for universities, is put forward timely.

The training plan for engineering leading talents basing on the demand for high-end talents in the industry is one of the significant measures to implement the training of outstanding innovative talents. Through screening potential talents, building excellent platforms and seeking suitable enterprises, it is aiming at creating opportunities with diversified channels to train leading talents with abilities in practice, innovation and engineering leadership.

The training plan for leading talents in software engineering takes full advantages of both the teaching in university and the practice in enterprises. It is targeting the training of leading talents in software engineering. With the study of professional courses and engineering leadership courses in university,the instruction of senior leaders in enterprises and the practice in real projects and managements of enterprises, the plan creates an innovative mode of university-enterprise joint development of talents as well as a new height of high-level talents training focusing on leadership.

2 Domestic and Overseas Practices

MIT(Massachusetts Institute of Technology)is the first university in the world to realize the significance of leadership in engineering education.Ten years before the Gordon plan, MIT proposed LFM (Leaders for Manufacturing Program)[1]. LFM targets the training of advanced engineering leaders in manufacturing industry. Therefore, MIT applies diversified approaches in university teaching and practice to enhance the engineering leadership. In the 21st century, along with the further development of the global economic integration, MIT changes LFM into LGO (Leaders for Global Operations).

Engineering leadership can be interpreted in various ways; relatively, though, the most reasonable and suitable interpretation is the analyses of MIT. MIT treats engineering leadership as a comprehensive ability[2], which includes value and quality focusing on creativity and decisiveness, perceptual cognizance focusing on perception of the surrounding world,communication skills emphasizing the interrelation between one individual and another as well as individuals and the team, outlook concentrating on the future vision planning, vision realization capacity centering on team leadership, and basic ability focusing on elementary knowledge on subjects and skills.

Taking the training of engineering leading talents in countries represented by the USA as the reference,scholars in China carefully observed and researched the training conception[3-5], the training mode[5], the specific methods and elements[6-8], and the implementation[9]in China, which lay a good theoretical foundation for the implementation of the training plan for engineering leading talents in China and has made certain progress.

Currently, many universities in China have been implementing the training plan for engineering leading talents, which made great contribution to the leadership education in China and made good progress, as shown in Table 1.

It is pointed out in the Outline of Medium and Long Term Education Reform and Development Planning in China (2010—2020) that by 2020, some internationally well-known colleges and universities with characteristics and high level will be established in China, some universities would reach or be close to the level of world-class universities, and the higher education will be internationally competitive; the central position of talents training will be firmly established in university, and the training of highquality professional talents and top-notch innovative talents with firm faith, excellent morality, great knowledge ability and outstanding capability will be emphasized. Therefore, it is significant for the university talents development in the new era toestablish a new mechanism of joint development of talents for universities, scientific research institutions,the industry and enterprises.

Table 1 Situations of training for engineering leading talents.

In 2012, Harbin Institute of Technology published the Outline of Undergraduate Education Reform and Development of Harbin Institute of Technology for“the 12th Five-Year Plan”, which determines the target of training “research-based, individualized and elitetype” high-quality innovative talents with international competitiveness and leadership and stresses the effort in training academic top-notch innovative talents and engineering leading talents. The implementation of the“training plan for engineering leading talents” aims at improving the training of students’ ability in practice,innovation and engineering leadership. The plan has a guiding ideology to comprehensively enhance the fundamental training for students’ moral cultivation,humanistic quality and natural science and emphasize the improvement of students’ innovation ability and leadership in engineering practice with the goal of constructing world-class universities; on this basis and according to features of engineering disciplines, treat the training of high-quality engineering leading talents with international competitiveness as a significant task.

A main change of the educational reform is the transition from knowledge teaching to the “integrated development of knowledge, ability and quality”, which can be effectively implemented from five aspects, i.e.,the mastery of basic knowledge structure on disciplines,engineering practice ability, scientific research guiding, innovation competence establishment and entrepreneurial ability training, as shown in Fig. 1.

Fig. 1 “Five-in-one” structure for top-notch innovative talents training.

Figure 1 is the structure for top-notch innovative talents training provided in a new round of talents development programs; in this structure, we position an aspect of the talents training as the top-notch innovative scientific research ability and engineering practice ability.

3 Implementation of the Reformation Scheme

The training plan for engineering leading talents will integrate the training of innovative engineering talents in university engineering education with the engineering leading talents needed by the high end of the industry. It shortens the talents training gap between university education and enterprise demand and it creates and discovers suitable environment, training mode and educational mechanism for the effective development of engineering leading talents.

The training plan for engineering leading talents facing the high end of the industry bases on traditional university education. Besides excellent mastery of professional knowledge and ability, it lays more emphasis on the learning of engineering leadership knowledge and improving the engineering practice and leadership. With the integration of university education and enterprise training, it provides excellent environment with specific resources, applies methods of university learning and practice and enterprise engineering practice to develop students’ engineering practice ability and innovation ability with the management mechanism of university-enterprise talents development and to train top-notch talents with engineering leadership. Basing on the above mentioned construction and interpretation of training mode as well as the organization of training process, the schematic diagram of reformation implementation scheme is shown in Fig. 2.

Generally, the reform scheme integrates and advances with important aspects including the development of training resource system, student screening and enterprise selection, the screening of students and the selection of enterprises, the teaching staff construction for university-enterprise cooperation,the establishment of a management system with joint effort for talents development, and the construction of process quality guarantee mechanism. It profoundly controls the significant sub-process of implementation and connects the intended target of this plan with important sub-process segments to guarantee the practical effect.

4 Interpretation of Implementation Process of the Reform Scheme

4.1 Constructing the r esource system of training for engineering leading talents

The training plan for engineering leading talents is the implementation of reform of university-enterprise cooperative training taking engineering leadership as the specific expected goal. It needs to take full advantages of university education and enterprise training to establish a series of training resource systems and create suitable environment for the development of particular talents. Such resource systems play an important development role in the whole reform scheme, and they are comprehensive systems with multi-participation, multi-aspect and multi-process.

1) Course system centering on engineering leadership.

The training for engineering leading talents cannot be separated with the study of systematic courses,particularly those related to engineering leadership.This is due to the fact that targeted management courses usually are not arranged in engineering course education for university. For the course resources system, this plan would fulfill students’ knowledge study focusing on engineering leadership with multitype and multi-segment courses.

Fig. 2 Schematic diagram of implementation of the training plan for engineering leading talents.

2) All-for-talents-training system focus on cooperative management.

The training plan for engineering leading talents is for the joint participation of diversified parties,including two major categories of university lecturers and enterprise teachers which can be summarized as double-tutors. University lecturers include both conventional lecturers for professional courses and those for courses on management and engineering leadership as well as the teachers in the university R&D center who instruct students for their improvement in engineering development and leadership; enterprise teachers include not only diversified senior staff offering courses in universities but also the senior staff of enterprises instructing students in enterprises.University lecturers and enterprise teachers have differences in assignment of responsibilities and they are in successive sequence. They are focusing on teaching different courses with more emphasis on the improvement of engineering practice and leadership,and they are all targeting the training of engineering leading talents.

3) Multi-aspect management system emphasizing the talents training process.

For the talents training process, the training for engineering leading talents is the integration of processes, which is embodied in the overall process of talents training. The implementation takes both the necessities of theoretical knowledge study and that of engineering leadership improvement focusing on engineering practices and enterprise management. The processes for talents training transfer from university development to enterprise training, from university lecturers to enterprise senior staff, and from theoretical knowledge to engineering practice, and they are organic and unified comprehensive implementation of integration. These multi-aspect talents training processes are systematic talents development and management systems, all closely centering on students’ability in practice, innovation and engineering leadership.

4.2 Selection of students with engineering innovative ability and engineering leadership potential

At earlier stage of the implementation, it plans to select some students excellent in both character and learning(not exceeding 5% of the total student numbers in the whole college) for participation in the plan. Objects for the selection are excellent junior students in university with both excellent school records (ranking the first 5% in the passed five semesters) and outstanding engineering practice efficiency (those who acted as project leaders in principle) as well as elite student with potential leadership. Students qualified for basic requirements voluntarily enroll for participation and submit their application; the college organizes the primary election and selects excellent ones after strict interviews; the office of academic affairs in the university screen and approve.

4.3 University-enterprise teaching staff construction

Expert groups for leading talents training, constituted by professional university lecturers and enterprise senior staff, will be established to guide all work.Furthermore, considering that universities may learn more about engineering training of students after they are in those enterprises, full-time teachers need to be trained to cooperate with enterprises for the training.

4.4 Construction of professional curriculum system for engineering leading talent

Students training plan curriculum system for engineering leading talents is a significant method to accomplish the accumulation of elementary knowledge on leadership.

Training plan for engineering leading talents in computer specialty bases on the conventional education system of the college. First of all, conduct basic education, quality-oriented education and professional education to students through the integration of liberal education and professional education in the school of computing. The liberal education in the school of computing helps students develop their core value,humanistic quality, basic knowledge on natural science and ability of thinking; the professional education in the school of computing trains students for professional basic knowledge, professional practice ability and innovation ability. It trains students for their ability of problems solving, communicating and expressing basing on study of engineering, and preliminarily trains students for their engineering leadership.

4.5 Construction of university-enterprise cooperation base for the high-end industry

One the key parts of the training plan for engineering leading talents is “university-enterprise cooperation”,which provides a significant opportunity and platform for the improvement and comprehensive development of engineering leadership. Therefore, stick to the significant task of training engineering leading talents with topnotch innovation ability in the practice of facing the high end of the industry; accept the instruction and training of teachers from the computer industry community;personally experience the enterprise management and engineering R&D process in the industrial community;put university theoretical knowledge into practice in real scenes; train the innovation ability and leadership during the engineering research and development, and implement them with emphasis.

4.6 Training of elite-type engineering leader targeting the engineering planning and practice ability as well as leadership

Based on the previous achievement and experience from the cooperation with enterprises at earlier stage,we have discovered a new mode for talents training with the integration of university education and enterprise internship education to provide engineering practice and management leadership, and primarily learned the new mechanism of integration of classroom learning and engineering practice for talents training.

Selected students, after entering the enterprises,mainly accept industrial education implemented by enterprises focusing on engineering projects. They will be instructed by senior staff in the enterprises acting as their teachers for the integration of engineering research and development and enterprise management.It is aiming at the training of elite students for their engineering innovation ability and leadership.

To ensure that the students can reach the expected target of this plan during their internship in the enterprises, we think that the university-enterprise joint training shall start from the following three aspects,i.e., participating in the planning and R&F of true engineering projects of enterprises, assisting senior executive teachers to well complete the management affairs, participating the leadership management, and complete the graduation project and write academic dissertation in combination with the real engineering projects on the basis of the internship. During the implementation of the three aspects, talents training mechanism integrating individualized training and flexible management for different students, and shall not replace specific management under enterprise education environment with rigid requirement.

4.7 Quality guarantee mechanism for training basing on examination

The target of the engineering leading talents project is to train top-notch talents with ability in practice, innovation and engineering leadership facing the high end of the computer industry. It is supported by university-enterprise cooperation for the implementation of double-tutor system, and it is the comprehensive implementation of crossover cooperative talents training, with multi-process and multi-participation, and cooperative management mechanism. To realize the expected target and according to the training process of projects, significant parts of university education and enterprise training must be well controlled and corresponding examination and quality guarantee mechanism shall be established.

5 Conclusion

The training plan for engineering leading talents applies the educational concept with the integration of university education and enterprise training as well as the integration of course learning and engineering practice. It establishes the education method with clear training target driven by ability and quality. It trains students with engineering leadership potential through university-enterprise cooperation, and thus improves students’ ability in practice, innovation and engineering leadership. For the implementation, it requires the enhancement of talents training with practice, the perfection of the university-enterprise cooperation mechanism for talents training, the enhancement of construction of off-campus practice platforms,the improvement of innovative and entrepreneurial education, the emphasis on individualized training of students, and the improvement of students’ autonomy and openness in study.

This article puts forward that the training plan for software engineering leading talents facing the demand of the high end of the industry and interprets the implementation process of reform scheme, hoping that with the individualized education accepted by students,the students’ innovation ability for engineering practices and leadership in universities and enterprises may gradually approach the target.

Acknowledgement

In this paper, the research was sponsored by the 2016 Research Program on Educational Reform of Undergraduate Institutions in Shandong Province,namely “Research and Practice on the Mode of Training for Engineering Leading Talents Facing the Demand for High-end Talents in the Industry”(B2016M016), “Exploration and Practice of Promoting the Teaching Reform and Innovation Mode of Higher Education Based on Massive Open Online Course (MOOC)”(B2016Z018) and“Research and Application of Blended Teaching Mode Based on ‘MOOC+SPOCs+ Flipped Classroom’”(B2016Z020). And the research was also supported by “Research on Multi-dimensional Education Quality Evaluation System Facing the Training of Postgraduate with Professional Degree(SDYZ1603)”, which was the 2016 special project of undergraduate education innovation plan for Shandong Province, and “Research and Practice on the Mode of Training for Full Stack Talents for Internet of Things”(BK201602), which was the teaching and research project of Harbin Institute of Technology,Weihai.