Digital Transformation and Talent Cultivation in Application-Oriented Colleges: A Case Study in China

Abstract

With the digitalization of industrial structures, labor requirements, and knowledge production, application-oriented colleges have been facing increased pressure to make educational change compatible with the development of practice oriented, interdisciplinary, and innovative talent. The present research explores the concept of digital transformation in the application-oriented higher education system using qualitative case study of DH College in China. The paper explores the conceptualization and implementation of digital transformation at the institutional level based on publicly available institutional documents and policy documents. In order to assist the case analysis, the study uses descriptive keyword-frequency and co-occurrence analysis to determine the main themes in the college discourse. These results indicate that the digital-transformation initiatives of DH College may be viewed as part of a progressive process in terms of faculty capacity building, resource integration, and service expansion. However, there are also a number of issues that are typical to many application-oriented colleges in China, such as a fragmented understanding of strategy, failure to renew talent cultivation models, poor development of smart campus infrastructure, as well as restricted access to high quality digital learning resources. In reply, the paper suggests four practical paths: strategic alignment, restructuring of the curriculum, platform upgrade and reconstruction of the ecosystem by integrating the industry-education-research-evaluation. As opposed to providing a generalised statistical description, this paper offers an interpretive analysis of how resource-constrained institutions may pursue viable and context-sensitive pathways to educational digital transformation.