For new readers and those who request to be “好友 good friends” please read my 公告栏 first

Difference between US and Chinese Graduate Educational Systems (2) – possible Reforms

In my previous article on this topic http://blog.sciencenet.cn/home.php?mod=space&uid=1565&do=blog&id=1213798 I suggested that examination/test are not necessary good tools to promote and discover “creativity and innovation” and the use by the Chinese system in graduate research regulation by the Department of Education and Universities while insuring uniformity may not be conducive to innovation. Typical regulations such as requiring the result of ph.d thesis research be accepted for publication in xx number of journals. While one can argue that such objective standard are easy to administer, it also otherwise releases the thesis advisor of responsibility to uphold standard and hides incompetence. Besides unlike objective standard in athletics, value judgements can be misused particularly in second or third tier journals. Thus, my suggested reform number one is

Each university department should determine which set of journals in their department field should be accepted as proof of quality. In every field there are general agreements among those in the know as to what are the first tier publications and general guarantor of quality. Ph.D research results should be published in these journals only.

My second suggested reform is:

Reduced the number of required publication from four to one or at most two. If reform rule #1 above is adopted than any number higher than “one or two” in my opinion will be too high. This is because to be able to have your result publishable in one of the top journal in your field is a high order. Not every ph.d. thesis even in the best universities in the west can claim this distinction. In my own case, I can only claim a 90% success rate in my career of close to 60 years in Ph.D production. Thus, this should not be looked upon as a strict rule with no exceptions.

Reform Rule #3

Each department organize a set of foreign thesis examiners (with pay) to serve on ph.d. thesis examination committee. The rule is that each ph.d. thesis will have at least one foreign thesis examiner to help look over the results. There are a large number of scholars who can read Chinese and serve in this capacity. Many universities in HongKong and Singapore follow this practice on thesis-by-thesis cases. I myself often serve in this capacity.

These are three small steps I hope can be adopted on department-by-department basis in a university instead of a uniform university wide detail rule which do not take into account the difference among departments. They can also be implemented more easily on a trial basis.