The original title of this paper: "how to avoid embarrassment in scientific research for undergraduates".
"As an important part of the undergraduate innovative talents training system of Southeast University, SRTP adheres to the principle of facing the whole staff, running through the whole process, inside and outside the classroom, and inside and outside the school, and has long been focused on in the school." Professor Shen Xiaobing, deputy director of the Academic Affairs Department of Southeast University, said.
Talking about the topic of "undergraduates participating in scientific research", in September 2018, the Ministry of Education issued the report on accelerating the construction of high-level undergraduate education It is proposed in the opinions on comprehensively improving the ability of personnel training that the national and provincial scientific research bases should be opened to undergraduates to create conditions for undergraduates to participate in scientific research, promote students to enter the subject, laboratory and team as early as possible, timely convert the latest scientific research results into educational and teaching contents, and support the cultivation of high-quality undergraduate talents with high-level scientific research.
Mecos has conducted an in-depth analysis on the importance and satisfaction of the basic work abilities of the 2018 undergraduate graduates. The data shows that the most important part of "scientific thinking ability" is scientific analysis ability (the importance is 67%), and the satisfaction is 85%. For the first-class university students who are willing to do scientific research, the scientific research experience accumulated during their undergraduate study is of great benefit to their follow-up study. According to the research data of Mycos "where the graduates of 2018 undergraduate colleges think the academic preparation of their alma mater needs to be improved", among the graduates of 2018, the most important place for improvement is "academic critical thinking ability" (55%), followed by "research methods" (51%).
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In order to make undergraduates better participate in scientific research activities, as early as 1969, MIT launched the "UROP" (Undergraduate Research Opportunities Program). By the 1980s and 1990s, many world-famous universities had set up their own "UROP". The undergraduates in our country began to participate in scientific research activities later. As one of the earliest universities to launch undergraduate scientific research and training programs, Southeast University has launched "SRTP" (student research training program), and now the university has realized the full coverage of SRTP. According to the 2020 first class undergraduate education action plan released by the University in early 2019, about 500 million yuan will be invested in the cultivation of undergraduate talents within two years, of which 150 million yuan will be used for "the construction of innovation and entrepreneurship education conditions and the research funds for students".
How does SRTP of Southeast University realize the full coverage of undergraduates? In this regard, Professor Shen Xiaobing, deputy director of Academic Affairs Office of Southeast University, is invited to share a series of experiences and practices of the University.
Adhere to the principle of "facing the whole staff, throughout the whole process, through the inside and outside of the classroom, through the inside and outside of the school"
As one of the first universities to carry out innovation and entrepreneurship education for college students, according to Professor Shen Xiaobing, Southeast University adheres to the principle of cultivating talents based on morality, the core of improving the quality of talent training, the focus of innovative talent training mechanism, the breakthrough of deepening innovation and entrepreneurship education reform, strengthening innovation practice ability and stimulating innovation and entrepreneurship potential, "SRTP as a undergraduate innovation of Southeast University As an important part of the new talent training system, it adheres to the principle of facing the whole staff, running through the whole process, inside and outside the classroom, and inside and outside the school, so as to get key construction in the school for a long time. "
Therefore, Southeast University mainly starts from the following three aspects:
（1） The credits of extracurricular research and learning will be included in the talent training program. In 2003, Southeast University revised the talent training program, which clearly stipulated that each student must complete at least 2 extra-curricular research credits before graduation design (Thesis). SRTP, as the main way to get credits of extracurricular research, plays an important role in the process of scientific research and training for undergraduates. Every year, the school has established more than 1600 SRTP projects at all levels and participated in more than 5000 students every year.
（2） Establish a sound management system. The scientific research and training program of Southeast University includes three categories: innovation training, entrepreneurship training and entrepreneurship practice. It consists of four levels: Institute level, university level, provincial level and national level. It provides various choices for students with different abilities and needs. The school has also established a complete operation mechanism of "guide Collection - release guide - students apply for projects according to the guide - review project approval - mid-term inspection - recommended application for provincial and national projects - merit selection review project approval - Periodic inspection - conclusion acceptance - credit recognition - achievement exchange and display". Only those school and college level projects with good mid-term inspection results can be qualified to apply for provincial and national level projects, which fully guarantees the project quality of high-level projects. At the same time, the school has formulated the implementation measures of SRTP and the credit recognition measures for college students' extracurricular research to ensure the smooth participation of Undergraduates in SRTP.
（3） Establish a comprehensive guarantee mechanism. Southeast University offers courses such as freshmen seminar course, subject introduction course, engineering introduction course and freshmen guided experiment practice course to guide the construction of subject knowledge and research methods, so that students can get familiar with the independent research experiment practice environment as soon as possible, and provide early-stage guidance training for students to apply for projects. Southeast University's innovation and entrepreneurship practice education center, national experimental teaching demonstration center, national virtual simulation experimental teaching demonstration center, provincial experimental teaching and Practice Education Center, as well as a large number of university level innovation and entrepreneurship laboratories and training centers are open to all SRTP students, and the library with automatic information management equipment is opened for students for the first time in China The exhibition scientific research training provides full support of venue and equipment. At the same time, the school also continues to increase investment in teaching funds and set up special funds to support.
How to open the door of scientific research for all undergraduates?
As mentioned above, Southeast University has set up special funds to support SRTP project, realizing full SRTP coverage for undergraduates. In the process of opening the door of scientific research for all undergraduates, what are the main difficulties the university has encountered and how to solve them?
"The source of students' topics is relatively scattered, and it is easy to have students' topics repeated, research significance is not great, and the training effect is not achieved." Professor Shen Xiaobing said. In this regard, the approach of Southeast University is to open the project guide of teachers and enterprises collected to the undergraduates of the whole university. Students can choose freely and actively participate in the practice of teachers' scientific research and enterprise R & D. At the same time, the number and amount of funding of SRTP projects declared by relying on the project guidelines have been increased, and the upgrading path of projects declared by relying on the guidelines has been opened. Projects with good progress can also be applied for upgrading to provincial and national level projects, obtaining higher amount of funding support and credit recognition, and optimizing the management of existing research and training programs for college students at college, University, provincial and national levels. At present, more than 60% of all kinds of SRTP projects approved by Southeast University every year come from teachers' scientific research or actual needs of enterprises.
Students of different grades have different characteristics and learning tasks. For undergraduates of different grades who apply to participate in SRTP project, Southeast University has clear application conditions and whether it will limit the number of undergraduates to participate in SRTP research projects. According to the introduction of Professor Shen Xiaobing, the students who participate in the project are generally students of grade two, three and four, which is encouraged by the University Undergraduate students of different grades and specialties form innovation teams to bring forth the new with the old and promote each other.
Generally, the team needs to determine a project leader, clarify the specific division of work of each member in the project, and ensure that the implementation subject of the project is undergraduates. The number of innovative team members is generally no more than 5, and the number of entrepreneurial project team members is generally no more than 6. In order to ensure that the normal study of students is not affected, Southeast University requires each undergraduate to have no more than two research projects in the same period, and can only be the person in charge of one of them. After finishing the existing SRTP project, the students who have spare time can continue to apply for the new SRTP project.
Faced with a large number of SRTP projects, how to choose for undergraduates? It is understood that students of southeast university can not only draw up research topics according to their own interested topics and contents, but also choose related topics within their own professional courses. The content of the topics can be the forefront of the discipline, can be a social hotspot, and can also be some practical engineering problems.
The school requires that the research content is novel, the research objectives are clear, the research topics are innovative and exploratory, and the participating students can receive relatively complete scientific research training, so students are encouraged to select topics for teachers' scientific research and for the actual needs of production (Society).
It is particularly worth mentioning that in order to meet the needs of students to carry out project research, Southeast University will issue project guidance suitable for students' scientific research training to all teachers and enterprises every year. Now more than 1000 project guides are collected every year, which fully guarantees the source of the project. In order to ensure that students can choose their own projects, the school and each college will organize several SRTP project publicity meetings before the application of each year, invite professional and skilled instructors to introduce how to select topics, how to carry out scientific research, and invite outstanding senior students who have completed the project conclusion to introduce their experience in SRTP project.
How to resolve the embarrassment of undergraduate research?
It is an embarrassment for many undergraduates to participate in the scientific research process.
In order to ensure the quality of undergraduate scientific research, according to Professor Shen Xiaobing, Southeast University will provide at least one instructor of related disciplines for each project, requiring the instructor to give guidance from project initiation, mid-term inspection, final acceptance, daily guidance and other aspects. The instructor mainly acts as a consultant to guide students from how to carry out scientific research, and does not directly participate in the project research. Only when the project research meets difficulties and students can not solve them, the teacher will give instructions and guidance, and study together with students when necessary.
In order to mobilize the enthusiasm of teachers to guide undergraduate students to carry out SRTP project research, Southeast University encourages teachers with doctor's degree and master's degree or above qualification to guide students to study independently, and incorporates the workload of teachers' guidance of SRTP project into Teachers' performance score assessment. Project instructors can obtain corresponding work performance scores according to the guided SRTP project level and final score.
In addition, Southeast University implements secondary management of SRTP project. The intermediate inspection and final acceptance of SRTP projects at the Institute level and school level. The intermediate inspection of SRTP projects at the provincial and national level is organized and implemented by the Extracurricular Research Activities Guidance Group of the school where the project is located. Generally, the school organizes three teachers to form a project expert group for inspection and acceptance. The specific arrangement will be reported to the project management office of Southeast University Students' innovation and entrepreneurship training plan one week in advance The office shall send school experts to conduct random inspection. The project management office directly organizes experts to carry out the final acceptance of provincial and national SRTP projects.
Mid term inspection and final acceptance are generally carried out in the form of project team report and expert questions. For SRTP projects with a period of one year or more, a mid-term inspection shall be carried out every six months, and for projects with a half year period, a mid-term inspection shall be carried out in the third month after project approval.
During the mid-term inspection, the project expert group will check the progress of the project according to the work schedule specified in the "project assignment" and review the use of funds