Operating a Virtual Teaching and Research Section as an Open-Source Community: Practice and Experience

Abstract

The teaching and research section is the fundamental organizational unit for teaching and research in a university, and the virtual teaching and research section (VTRS) is crucial for the exploration of the digital transformation of new basic teaching organization construction in the information age. However, this new type of organization transcends institutional and spatial boundaries, and motivating participants and sustaining their engagement are key challenges in VTRS implementation. The VTRS for database courses (VTRS-DB) proposes an open community-based operating model, founded on the core concepts of openness, dedication, competition, and orderliness. It establishes a hierarchical organizational structure and working group operation mechanism. After two years of practical exploration, a course knowledge graph and a wealth of teaching experiment cases have been developed. A series of distinctive teaching and research methods, such as collaborative course preparation, have been implemented, and the domestic database in the classroom brand activity has been established. The VTRS-DB has incubated several national and provincial level first-class courses and has won national and provincial level teaching achievement awards, achieving significant results.

Graphical abstract

Keywords

virtual teaching and research section / database course / open-source community / collaborative teaching and research

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Acknowledgments

This work was supported by the National-Level Research Project on Basic Discipline of the 2.0 Base of Top-notch Students Training Program.

Conflict of Interest

The authors declare that they have no conflict of interest.

Data Availability Statements

The author confirms that all data generated or analyzed during this study are included in this published article.

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2024 Higher Education Press