news

한어Русский языкEnglishFrançaisIndonesianSanskrit日本語DeutschPortuguêsΕλληνικάespañolItalianoSuomalainenLatina

some universities and majors have the courage to break the "paper-only" evaluation standard, which should be encouraged. as long as the assessment standards are set scientifically and rigorously, we should be happy to see more such innovations.

zhu changjun丨media commentator

is it possible to graduate from university without writing a traditional thesis? recently, a netizen said that ningbo university of science and technology has stipulated in its undergraduate graduation requirements that students majoring in chinese language and literature can obtain graduation qualifications by writing online works published as contracted authors on online writing platforms instead of degree thesis.

©tuchong creative

in fact, the practice of replacing traditional graduation theses with "diversified papers" has long appeared in many universities. for example, wenzhou university allows students to use entrepreneurial achievements to replace graduation theses to encourage entrepreneurship; at zhejiang gongshang university, papers with more than 3,000 words completed independently by students and published in publicly published professional academic journals can replace graduation theses after review and recommendation. ningbo university of science and technology allows online articles to replace degree theses, but this is not the first time this year.

on the one hand, discussions and calls to break the "paper-only" graduate assessment method have actually been around for many years. the attempts of colleges and universities are actually a positive response to the call of society. but on the other hand, when some schools start to practice this, it is easy to cause controversy. for example, some people think that the school deliberately lowered the graduation threshold by replacing thesis with online articles. but in fact, in terms of difficulty alone, becoming a contracted author of an online article platform and publishing online articles requires higher requirements than writing a graduation thesis. the reason is simple. it is not uncommon for college students to write graduation theses, but there are obviously fewer who become contracted authors of the platform during their student stage.

therefore, the key to looking at the "diversity" innovation of students' graduation theses may not be to explore the difficulty and threshold, but to reflect on what kind of talents the school wants to cultivate. like undergraduate graduation theses, the academic value itself cannot be overestimated. it mainly tests students' basic academic common sense norms and information collection capabilities. however, rigorous academic training is often not what every undergraduate and society really needs, nor should it be the only pursuit of undergraduate education. it can be said that for most undergraduate students, these four years are mainly a "transition period" to society. so, if students can develop some abilities that are more focused on social practice based on their interests and specialties, this can also be said to be a successful talent training.

for example, most required courses in the chinese department include creative writing or writing theory. if students can study su shi or oracle bone inscriptions in their graduation thesis, then since online literary creation is also a kind of "literary practice", students can naturally take "their own writing" as a research object.

moreover, from the perspective of graduates, compared with a graduation thesis of "simple analysis" or "simple discussion", a 200,000-word original novel can be called their "masterpiece", and it is more like a gift left by literature to them; from the perspective of social development, online literature has great potential in the market and cultural communication. by setting such assessment standards, colleges and universities guide students to explore themselves and adapt to social needs, which also plays a certain "bridge" role. moreover, not "only graduation thesis" does not mean that the requirements for students' academic writing ability are relaxed. this can be cultivated and tested in other ways.

therefore, some universities and majors are brave enough to break the "paper-only" evaluation standard, which should be encouraged. as long as the assessment standards are set scientifically and rigorously, we should be happy to see more such innovations. of course, how to innovate is essentially related to the university's consideration of talent training goals and positioning. if this issue is clarified, the setting of graduate assessment and evaluation standards will naturally be more scientific.