Chung Hua University spearheads Oracle professional certification and Oracle Academy Cloud Program adoption

Chung Hua University, located in Hsinchu city, Taiwan, is a multidisciplinary university offering undergraduate courses as well as master and doctoral programs. More than 6,000 students per year prepare for their futures in the 28 departments of Chung Hua’s six colleges, all geared to fulfilling Taiwan’s expanding labor market with job-ready graduates.

The College of Management, the College of Computer Science and Electrical Engineering and the College of Innovative Industries provide informatics degrees in information management, computer systems, software engineering, multimedia, artificial intelligence, and bioinformatics. The curriculum and course content is designed to meet the needs of a talent market exhibiting imbalance between supply and demand.

Science park snaps up IT grads

Chung Hua University is ideally positioned a stone’s throw from Hsinchu Science Park, known as ‘Taiwan’s Silicon Valley,’ a 3,300-acre complex where 500 companies employ 150,000 people in semiconductor manufacturing, opto-electronics, information technology, and telecommunications.

The park, managed by the Ministry of Science and Technology, has generated an annual revenue of more than US$35 billion—10 percent of Taiwan’s GDP—over the past five years, and maintains close ties with California’s Silicon Valley and similar technology hubs around the world.

“Our graduates get snapped up by the science park and land well-paying jobs,” says Dr. Chi-Chung Lee, Chairman and Associate Professor of the Professional Master Program of Advanced Database Management. “We monitor the market closely and calibrate our teaching to real-world requirements.”

Oracle professional certification adds competitive edge

Dr. Lee and seven other faculty in Advanced Database Management teach Oracle Academy database courses to 200 computer science students. They instruct the undergraduates using Oracle Academy curriculum Database Foundations and Database Design and Programming with SQL.

Since 2005, more than 3,000 students at the university have taken Oracle database management courses. Of these, 1,000 have additionally sat and passed Oracle certification exams.

“Students with Oracle professional certifications have a real advantage in their career development,” comments Dr. Lee. “Professional, global qualifications like those offered by Oracle are of huge benefit, and we put a lot of care into preparing them well.”

The college provides regular counseling sessions for students wishing to sit exams to become an Oracle Database SQL Certified Associate; an Oracle Database Certified Associate and an Oracle Database Certified Professional.

Program is early adopter of Oracle Academy Cloud Program

Chung Hua University joined Oracle Academy in 2005 as the first institution in Taiwan to become a member. In 2019, three colleges, the College of Innovative Industries, the College of Management and the College of Computer Science and Electrical Engineering took full advantage of its Institutional membership benefits by adopting Oracle Cloud Free Tier through the free Oracle Academy Cloud Program. Enabling teachers and students to learn, build and get hands-on experience with Oracle Cloud Infrastructure for an unlimited time.

“Taiwan government and industry are crying out for qualified Cloud professionals,” says Dr. Lee. “Adopting Oracle Cloud learning will help us immensely.”

Already the college is laying the stage for getting students to sit the Oracle Database 12c Administrator certificate exam, emphasizing the full set of concepts and skills that DBAs need for cloud computing.

Recognizing Oracle Academy as the de facto curriculum for database administration and programming, Chung Hua’s has created what it calls the ‘Oracle School,’ a cross-departmental concept embracing the learning resources associated with Oracle technologies. It serves not only as an umbrella for Oracle instruction but also as an environment for preparing teachers of the highest quality.

Special emphasis is given to Oracle Academy’s course Artificial Intelligence with Machine Learning in Java. “AI is the booming trend and I consider it to be a tool for helping improve the way we live and solve people’s problems by harnessing a new wave of technology,” explains Dr. Lee. “In various areas of AI, success at integrating software with hardware will be the major point of differentiation in truly global competition.”

The Oracle School is part of the Artificial Intelligence Center, AI+ Center, which integrates Oracle Academy database management and Cloud courses with big data, Internet of Things, artificial intelligence, and machine learning with AI teaching and institutional research. In addition, the school offers courses in other Oracle applications, including Primavera Project Management, offered free to certain qualifying institutions by Oracle Academy.

University shares Oracle Academy experience with 500 other educators

The Ministry of Education is sufficiently impressed by Chung Hua’s track record of successful graduates that Dr. Lee has been invited to share his experience with other teachers across Taiwan. He will be introducing the Oracle Academy database management teaching and learning experience to 60 other universities and more than 500 teachers through workshops aimed at encouraging others to follow his formula for helping students get better jobs and meet industry demand.

“It will be my job to have them become Oracle Academy members,” he says. “After that, I will return to focus on Oracle Cloud Free Tier, AI and the traditional database courses.”

Chung Hua’s partnership with Oracle Academy has been recognized, awarded, and financially supported by the Taiwanese Ministry of Science and the Ministry of Education, which has blessed it with accolades for fostering information technology talent. The collaboration has been praised for its Higher Education Sprout Project, designed to encourage faculty to apply effective strategies to maximize student learning and nurture talent.

What’s next

Chung Hua University keeps abreast of what’s new in Oracle technologies through online training in Oracle Academy curriculum and close contact with Oracle’s offices in Taiwan. Experts regularly visit the campus to conduct seminars, while Dr. Lee in return organizes visits to the Oracle offices to listen to and learn from visiting and local specialists in new areas of technology.

Furthermore, Oracle volunteers visit the Oracle School to discuss with students the types of roles available in IT, talk about their own career paths, and provide mentoring and coaching.

Oracle Academy is grateful for this collaboration with our valued member, Chung Hua University, as we work toward our shared mission of increasing knowledge, innovation, skills development, and diversity in technology fields.