The Exploration of the Development of Taiwan's PhD Education in the - - PowerPoint PPT Presentation

The Exploration of the Development

• f Taiwan's PhD Education in the

Field of Biomedical Sciences

Tzu-heng Chiu (tzchiu@tmu.edu.tw) Professor, Center for General Education / Library Director, Taipei Medical University, Taiwan 2018.9.27 @ETD

About me

Co-authors

Hung-te Wang (hunter@ncl.edu.tw) Librarian, Knowledge Services Division, National Central Library, Taiwan An-chi Lin (angela@ncl.edu.tw) Editor, Knowledge Services Division, National Central Library, Taiwan

Research Background

• Between the 2010–2014 academic years, ca. 4,000 PhD

students have graduated from universities in Taiwan each year.

• ca. 700 students per year graduated in the field of

biomedical sciences (including fields such as medicine / health science and life science).

• In the 2015 academic year, although the total number of

PhD graduates nationwide was the lowest (3,617 graduates) in 6 years, the number of graduates in fields related to biomedical sciences increased.

PhD graduates in Taiwan

Academic year All fields Medicine & health science Life science Biomedical sciences 2015 3617 473 274 747 2014 4048 465 253 718 2013 4241 438 289 691 2012 3861 364 245 609 2011 3846 399 250 649 2010 3705 309 201 510

Source: The Department of Statistics (DOS) of MOE. https://stats.moe.gov.tw/

Research Background

• PhD graduates generally want to be employed as faculty

members or as post-doc researchers in related departments

• f universities , whereas fewer will choose to work in

industries.

• This study analyzed the official web pages of university

departments in Taiwan related the biomedical sciences to compile data on the graduating universities and departments

• f their full-time faculty members.
• This enabled an inference on the employment status of

biomedical science PhD graduates who are working as teachers.

Research purposes

• To

explore the distributions

• f

graduation year, school category, and school location of biomedical sciences PhD graduates in Taiwan. (by analyzing their dissertations)

• To explore the employment statuses of PhD graduates of

biomedical sciences in Taiwan employed as faculty members in universities. This was done by

– Examining the career paths of these graduates. – Examining the phenomenon of joint appointments in Taiwan.

Methodology

• The most labor-intensive processes of this research were

data cleansing and defining, collecting, and organizing the data sets.

• Three data sets employed in this study were:

– Data Set 1: bibliographic records of biomedical science related dissertations. – Data Set 2: a list of faculty members in the biomedical science related departments of universities in Taiwan with a domestic PhD degree. – Data Set 3: a list of the categories and locations of universities in Taiwan.

Data Set Sources Number

• f records

Date of data collected S1: Bibliographic records of biomedical science related dissertations NDLTD system (NCL, Taiwan) 國圖博碩士論文資料庫 26,023 2017.10.1 S2: A list of faculty members in the biomedical science related departments of universities in Taiwan with a domestic PhD degree Faculty information web pages of every biomedical science related department in Taiwanese universities. 全國生醫領域各相關系所網頁之 師資資訊 7,868 2016 academic year 2017.11.04 S3: A list of the categories and locations of universities in Taiwan

Ministry of Education website; the websites of all universities in Taiwan

教育部大專校院名單、全國各大 專校院網站資料 157 2017.10.19

Data Set 1

• Bibliographic

records

• f

biomedical science related dissertations from the National Digital Library of Theses and Dissertations in Taiwan (NDLTD system) of National Central Library, Taiwan.

• were selected in accordance with the department code

subjected to authority control by the NDLTD system from the 936 Taiwanese graduate schools.

• As a result, 26,023 dissertations from 1972 to 2017 were

retrieved.

NDLTD system

Data Set 2

• No ready-to-use data were available
• RA manually collected data for faculty members with a domestic

PhD degree from the faculty information webpages of every biomedical science related department in Taiwanese universities. They then compiled all data into a Microsoft Excel spreadsheet.

• A record is consist of following fields:

(1)names (both Chinese and English), (2) graduating school and department, (3) school and department of employment, (4) graduation year (if stated), (5) appointment status (i.e., full-time professor, adjunct professor, joint appointment professor, or professor emeritus).

Data Set 3

• Was organized by the RA based on the existing data files

downloaded from the Ministry of Education website.

• Location (city /county) of each university was key-in by RA

based on their website information.

Research limitation

• The

NDLTD system has a distributed implementation architecture, graduate students from each school submit their works for examination by the person in charge of each school.

• The quality and completeness of each record may be

inconsistent.

• Therefore, a considerable amount of labor time was invested

in organizing the bibliographic records obtained from this system.

• However, the entry errors could not be processed, which is

the limitation of this study.

Research Finding 1-1 : Graduation year

• The number of dissertations in the biomedical sciences field has

increased substantially.

• In particular, the number of biomedical sciences dissertations in

the 2000s is 2.5 times that of those in the 1990s.

• Among the 26,023 dissertations reviewed in this study,

– 35 were written in the 1970s – 468 in the 1980s – 3,783 in the 1990s – 9,544 in the 2000s – 12,193 in 2010 ~2017

Research Finding 1-2 : School Category

• PhD education in the biomedical sciences in Taiwan is

mainly centered in public universities, where 85% of dissertations were produced;

• 96% of PhD graduates were educated in the higher

education system rather than the technical or vocational education system.

Research Finding 1-3: Graduating School Location

• The 26,023 biomedical sciences dissertations are from 65 schools, and

the geographical distribution of such schools is highly disproportionate, 70% of the PhD biomed PhD students were enrolled in schools in Northern Taiwan.

• # of university

– 1st  Taipei City contains 16 universities that offer PhD programs in the field of biomedical sciences; – 2nd  Taichung City has 11 such universities.

• # of Diss. / Univ.

– 1st  The two universities in Hsinchu City offering PhD programs in the biomedical sciences produces with an average of 2,488 dissertations each year; – 2nd  the three universities in Tainan City offering such programs produces with an average of 828 dissertations each year.

Northern Taiwan City / County # of Dissertation # of University # of Diss. / Univ. 基隆市 279 1 279 臺北市 10,403 16 650 新北市 361 4 90 桃園市 2,233 8 279 新竹市 4,976 2 2,488 Sub total 18,252 （70.14%） 31 Middle Taiwan City / County # of Dissertation # of University # of Diss. / Univ. 苗栗縣 3 1 3 臺中市 2,428 11 221 彰化縣 80 3 27 南投縣 54 1 54 雲林縣 55 2 28 Sub total 2,620 (10.07%) 18

Southern Taiwan City / County # of Dissertation # of University

# of Diss. / Univ.

嘉義市 39 1 39 嘉義縣 572 1 572 臺南市 2,484 3 828 高雄市 1,739 7 248 屏東縣 75 1 75 Sub total 4,909 (18.86%) 13 East Taiwan City / County # of Dissertation # of University

# of Diss. / Univ.

宜蘭縣 5 1 5 花蓮縣 237 2 119 Sub total 242 (0.93%) 3 Total 26,023 65

Research Finding 2-1 : Employment status as faculty members

• 2-1-1 Employed in their graduating school

– A total of 7,868 teachers employed in biomedical science related departments in Taiwan have a PhD degree from one of the 62 universities in Taiwan. – PhD students of 7 universities were more likely to stay or return to their school of graduation for employment in teaching (more than 50%) compared with those from other higher education institutions in Taiwan.

• National Kaohsiung University of Applied Sciences
• Chung Shan Medical University
• National Taipei University
• Fu Jen Catholic University
• Taipei Medical University
• China Medical University
• National Chiayi University

School of graduation # of graduates # of persons employed in the graduating school Percentage 國立高雄應用科技大學 1 1 100.00% 中山醫學大學 87 66 75.86% 國立臺北大學 7 4 57.14% 輔仁大學 32 17 53.13% 臺北醫學大學 117 62 52.99% 中國醫藥大學 67 35 52.24% 國立嘉義大學 2 1 50.00%

Research Finding 2-1: Employment status as faculty members

• 2-1-2 Employment in other universities in Taiwan

– In terms of biomedical science PhD graduates seeking employment in universities other than their graduating school –

• >100 schools

– National Taiwan University – National Tsing Hua University

• 80-99 schools

– National Chiao Tung University – National Cheng Kung University – National Central University

Research Finding 2-2 : Appointment status

• Of all 7,868 faculty members in biomedical science

related departments in Taiwan with a domestic PhD degree, 6,433 of them (81.86%) are full-time faculty members.

• More than 500 faculty members (6.4%) are marked as

joint-appointment faculty members on department web pages

– this phenomenon required further investigation.

Research Finding 2-3: Joint appointment phenomenon

• A. Full-time appointment in two or more academic units
• f the same university
• B. Intra-school full-time, adjunct, and joint appointments
• C. Inter-school joint appointment phenomenon

Situation A of Joint appointment

Full-time appointment in two or more academic units of the same university

• We found some teachers were marked as full-time faculty

members in multiple departments of the same university, which can be considered to be another form

• f

joint appointment.

– One faculty member being listed as a full-time staff member in 2 or more departments in the same university is not uncommon; – Moreover, 9 faculty members are listed on university websites as full-time faculty members in 3 or more departments of the same university.

Situation A of Joint appointment

• Following phenomenon is most commonly observed:
• 1. They are in the departments and related graduate institutes
• f the same field the PhD graduates studied,
• 2. They are in different departments of the same university,
• 3. They are faculty members in departments related to the same

profession but in different campuses of the same university.

Situation B of Joint appointment

Intra-school full-time, adjunct, and joint appointments

– Of all the biomedical science related departments in Taiwan, in terms of public universities, the phenomenon of one faculty member being listed as a full-time, adjunct staff member with joint appointments with multiple departments of the same university was most commonly

• bserved in –
• National Taiwan University
• National Yang-Ming University
• National Cheng Kung University

– In particular, 2 faculty members of National Taiwan University were listed as full-time, adjunct staff members with joint appointments with 5 academic units of the university.

Situation C of Joint appointment

Inter-school joint appointment phenomenon

• Inter-school joint appointments are beneficial not only for

strengthening the faculty teams of both universities but also for increasing the research paper publication count of each school because the same paper can be counted by both schools.

• In other words, this appears to be an ideal cooperation

method for universities.

Situation C of Joint appointment

– National Taiwan University and National Yang-Ming University have been working closely in terms

• f

education in the biomedical sciences. – In southern Taiwan, Kaohsiung Medical University works closely with National Sun Yat-sen University, which may be the result of their geographical proximity. – In central Taiwan, a similar joint appointment phenomenon has been observed in biomedical science related departments of China Medical University and Asia University. – We also found a few number of faculty members having joint appointments in 3 universities in departments of related fields.

Conclusion

• By employing the NDLTD system and other open data
• nline

– This study revealed a considerable increase in PhD graduates in the biomedical sciences in Taiwan since the 21st century. – Most of them graduated from public universities in the higher education system. – 70% of them were educated in Northern Taiwan.

Conclusion

• In terms of being employed as faculty members in

academic units,

– Over 50%

• f

biomedical science PhD graduates

• f

7 universities remained with or returned to their graduating school. – The PhD graduates of National Taiwan University and National Tsing Hua University are most popular with universities in Taiwan; their graduates are employed as teachers in more than 100 universities in Taiwan.

Conclusion

• Regarding appointment status,

– More than 500 (6.4%) biomedical science faculty members in Taiwan hold joint appointments with 3 situations. – Particularly, the details of the phenomena of situations (A) and (C) and their causes merit further consideration and examination.

Thank you for listening Q&A?