One Case of THOUGHT: Industry-University Converged Education Practice on Open Source

Zhiyi Yu, Chao Li, Chaochen Hu, Zhen Chen, Yandong Yao, Jiang Wu, Hao Wang, Jialun Du, Min Guo, Haoyu Wang, Weimin Li, Xiu Li, Xiaodong Ma, Yisong Zhang, Shuangshou Li

Abstract: Nowadays, more and more data are produced in our life. The rapid development of big data and intelligent computing industry has put forward new demands for talents, while colleges and universities with limited industry experiences are striving to promote the talent cultivation. Therefore, the "Innovative Community of Industry-Education Convergence", named THOUGHT (innovaTive Hub for the cO-development of indUstry and hiGHer educaTion) [1], was founded in 2019. THOUGHT aims to improve education cooperation between teaching staff and industry professionals in the related field. The industry-university converged courses are different from technical trainings in enterprises or the speeches of the leaders. In order to cultivate talents, both sides of industry and education cooperate closely in nearly every aspects in course building, e.g., targets, contents, methods, and assessments. And it is necessary to make the courses systematic for learners in terms of knowledge transmission, ability training and value shaping, so as to make them more competent for challenging work in the future of big data and AI. The industry-university converged courses focus on breaking the barrier of the traditional campus. Compared with the emphasis on theories and ideal experiments of traditional campus, it focuses more on practices and applications. Therefore, it needs to rely on a bridge which is convenient for both sides to participate in. Compared with traditional tools of business platforms, open source platforms are better choices. And open source makes it easier for more learners to stand on the giants’ shoulders. This paper shares the experience of a case of THOUGHT: the industry-university converged course "Foundamentals and Application of Distributed Data System" jointly built by Tsinghua University and Greenplum open source community. The target, team, organization, structure and contents, practice project, and future work of this course are all introduced in this paper, which may be a vivid case for professors and professionals in this field.