Abstract
The project will establish an e-mentors hub for Data Science and Policy Studies Programme (DSPS) students to enhance their engagement in learning data science and public policy, addressing their different learning needs through intellectual exchange with DSPS mentors and scholars of exchange partners (The Technical University of Munich (TUM) and the University of Auckland) and catering students’ learning needs in a multi-directional learning approach. This project will organize a series of activities including e-meetings, webinars and dissemination. Regarding the e-meetings, mentors will meet a group of students regularly and to discuss different aspects like learning, career, personal development, current issues etc. Regarding the webinars, DSPS mentors and scholars of exchange partners will be invited to deliver webinars on various topics related to data science and policy studies to DSPS students. The webinars will be uploaded onto DSPS official website, Facebook page and YouTube channel which are open to public beyond The Chinese University of Hong Kong, for transferring knowledge and bringing social impacts to the society. The project experience and output will be disseminated in CUHK and will be live feed on DSPS Facebook page.
Brief write-up
Project objectives
The project would establish an e-mentors hub for Data Science and Policy Studies Programme (DSPS) students to enhance their engagement in learning data science and public policy and address their learning needs, especially when face-to-face interaction is difficult during the pandemic period.
Activities, process and outcomes
This project consisted of DSPS mentors, scholars and DSPS students. Mentors, by building professional relationship with the students, helped students to identify and address their learning concerns, provided guidance for their learning action plan, analyzed students’ strengths and weaknesses and provided constructive feedbacks.
Deliverables and evaluation
The project mainly organized three webinars. Themes of the webinars include making the transition from theory to practice in data science and policy studies, establishing a successful career in data science and policy studies such as in NGOs, and overseas experience of using data science in collaborative governance, regulation and other policy areas.
Dissemination, diffusion, impact and sharing of good practices
The proposed project provided a teaching and learning model for other departments or CUHK in general, in particular on how to engage students in an e-mentorship programme. The e-mentors hub proposed by this project provides an effective channel, on top of the traditional in-class communication, to communicate and interact with students.
Impact on teaching and learning
The e-mentorship hub could supplement out-of-classroom exposure to students in order to enhance overall learning outcomes. Teachers have adopted the new practice inspired by this project to go beyond providing lectures to inviting honorable guests and professionals to share their life wisdom and experience. Additional workshops based on this model are also organized.
