Application of Grey Clustering Evaluation Model to
Construction of University Excellent Courses
Huibin Zhan
School of Economics and Management Huangshan University,
Huangshan, 245041,China;
College of Economics and Management, Nanjing University
of Aeronautics and Astronautics, Nanjing,210016, China
zhanhuibin@sina.com
Abstract—As a measuring tool of evaluating teaching
performance of Universities, the Excellent courses attract more
and more attention. But in practice, how to objectively evaluate
excellent courses is still unresolved. This paper tries to evaluate
an excellent course of Huangshan University, selling course,
based on the grey clustering model. We empirically justified the
effectiveness of this method and followed with suggestions on
local Universities’ evaluation of excellent courses.
Keywords ü university excellent courses;selling course;grey
clustering
I. INTRODUCTION
With the fast development of Chinese higher education, it
is achieving great success especially in terms of size. However,
how to ensure the quality along with the expansion in size is
still a question. Borrowing the historical experience of western
countries and applying it to Chinese reality is one of the key
solutions[1]. In order to share the teaching resources and
promote the development of local talent, the Higher Education
Department of China's Education Ministry issued a notice on
promoting the teaching quality of higher education and the
construction of excellent courses of teaching reform in April
2003, and officially launched the project of Chinese excellent
courses. ‘Excellent Courses’ means illustrated teaching courses
accompany with special characters and high quality. ‘First
class teachers, first class contents, first class materials and first
class management’ are the basic tenets and connotation of this
project. This Notice further requires to build excellent courses
system compromising three levels (the universities, provinces
and nation) with numerous categories and professionals. At the
same time, continuing the education reform and enhancing
education levels and quality are considered important for talent
training[2].
Recently, with the development of education reform and
construction of excellent courses, how to evaluate the excellent
courses and which indexes and methods should be choosing
attract numerous attention. Some scholars even suggest that the
construction of well-designed and effective evaluation system
and review process is more important than excellent courses
itself. Literature[3] suggests to build an unique Management
Science excellent course evaluation system, after referencing to
the evaluation indexes of Ministry of Education. Literature[4]
This work is sponsored by quality engineering construction project of
Huangshan University (2015JPKF04)..
978-1-5090-6668-1/17/$31.00 ©2017 IEEE
Sifeng Liu
College of Economics and Management, Nanjing University
of Aeronautics and Astronautics, Nanjing, 210016, China
sfliu@nuaa.edu.cn
proposed to evaluate excellent courses by using fuzzy synthetic
discrimination method, and he also empirically analyzed the
Higher Mathematics of Wuhan college of Technology by using
fuzzy synthetic discrimination. Literature[5] puts forward the
Two level fuzzy comprehensive evaluation model by
comparing the advantages and disadvantages of evaluation
models;He also empirically analyzed excellent courses (Basic
Computer) in Yulin Normal College as a case study. Six
indexes of excellent courses evaluation is proposed, they are:
teachers, management, materials, teaching contents and reform,
practical teachings as well as teaching performance. They also
construct Fuzzy Comprehensive Evaluation Model to evaluate
excellent courses[6]. Literature[7]construct the excellent
courses evaluation system of Chongqing Normal University by
proposing AHP and Fuzzy Comprehensive Evaluation Model,
these evaluations are based on the Evaluation index system of
national excellent course of Ministry of Education. The Fuzzy
Comprehensive Evaluation Model is constructed[8].
Literature[9]makes a quantitative analysis is on excellent
courses based on Analytic Hierarchy Process, combines with
the practical situations of Xuzhou Vocational College of
Industrial Technology.
China excellent courses achieve great success to date, but it
is a very complex system due to the different professionals and
disciplines, which requires objective and accurate evaluation
system and scientific methods. This article uses the case of
selling course of Huangshan University, try to use grey
clustering system to make the evaluations.
II. THE CONSTRUCTION OF EXCELLENT COURSES
EVALUATION SYSTEM
According to the Opinions of the Ministry of Finance on
the implementation of undergraduate teaching quality and
teaching reform project in Colleges and Universities, Some
opinions of the Ministry of education on further deepening the
reform of undergraduate teaching and improving the teaching
quality, and Notice of the Ministry of education on promoting
the teaching quality of higher education and the construction of
excellent course of teaching reform, Huangshan University
constituted and issued the Quality engineering project
evaluation index of Huangshan University in 2014, the
evaluation combined the qualitative and quantitative methods
and indexes include teachers, facilities, situations and
247 GSIS 2017
performances, scores decomposed into four levels. Table I and (0.02) the courses;and so on
II present the evaluation system.
a.
Notes: More information you can see the Quality engineering project evaluation index of Huangshan
University constituted and issued in 2014.
TABLE I. EVALUATION INDEX SYSTEM OF EXCELLENT SELLING
COURSE
TABLE II. PERCENTAGE OF FOUR CLASSES
First class Second class Index meaning and requirement
index and index and A B C D
weight weight 1 0.8 0.6 0.4
good plan for the construction of The score of evaluation index is divided into four grades,
Structure and
teachers; balanced structure of and the percentage of each grade score is shown in Table II
quality(0.04)
position, ages and diploma;and so on
Teachers two or more teachers open up the III. GREY CLUSTERING EVALUATION SYSTEM BASED
(0.04) course, one responsible for more
courses or more teachers for one
ON THE CENTRAL POINT TRIANGLE WHITENING
course; professor or assistant WEIGHT FUNCTION
professor take up the course in each As the complicity of educational structure and interplay of
academic year;and so on the ingredients, excellent courses evaluation is an uncertain
Teaching high level of teaching performance, system with multiple levels, targets and factors. It would be
Teachers
quality outstanding teachers; research flawed in case we just use the simple data to evaluate the
(0.21)
(0.04) achievements, more than one paper excellent courses. Currently, there are a number of theories and
for each teacher in recent three methods and grey clustering stand due to its outstanding
years;and so on performance.
Academic good academic achievements;
(0.05) independent scientific project;and so Grey system theory, created by Chinese Professor Deng
on Julong in 1982,is a method to study uncertain problems with
Teaching no bad signs on teaching including few data and lacking information. It targets at“small samples”
attitude good teaching, adhere to teaching of “partial information known and partial information
construction(0 and continuous improvement of unknown”, and the “lacking information” as the subject, and
.04) teaching,and so on has the features like needing small amount of samples and
Teaching Outline redesign teaching syllabus; the simple calculation, etc[10]. Among them, Grey clustering
facilities (0.08) quality education and ability evaluation model is an indispensable part. It is based on grey
(0.21) training; and so on incidence matrix or grey whitening weight function, a cluster
References add, remove, supplement the can be seen as objectives belong to one category. Whether the
(0.05) teaching materials;and so on originally variable wight grey cluster mode put forward by
Facilities, equipment and advanced teaching Professor Deng [11],or the fixed weight grey cluster model,
materials and aids; basic materials necessary for
thegrey cluster model is based on the endpoint triangle
base(0.08) course teaching;and so on
whitening weight function and the grey cluster model based on
Teaching Management feasible teaching schedule; full
situation (0.14) lecture;and so on
the central point triangle whitening weight function put
(0.42) forward by Professor Liu Sifeng et a, all of them have been
Theoretical organize and arrange the teaching
cour(0.07) content ;try to stimulate students’ universally used in the areas of water quality analysis and air
learning ability;and so on pollution, etc[12—18].
Practical full practical teaching materials; This study mainly focuses on the grey clustering based on
teaching teachers actively attend practical the central point triangle whitening weight function. Following
(0.07) sessions;and so on are the basic steps:
Reform schedules for teaching reform;
(0.08) Actively explore the reform of The first, according to grey cluster s, we define the central
examination methods and points of 1, 2, 3 …., s, that are O1ˈO2ˈ Os ,to stand for s
methods ;and so on
Exams a good evaluation system and grey clusters.
(0.06) method; examination paper quality The second, add 0 cluster and (s+1) cluster, define their
analysis and management
standard;and so on central point O0ˈOs 1 ,then we get the new central point
Teaching Teaching percentage of evaluation quality series O0ˈO1ˈO2ˈ OsˈOs +1 ,connect to ( ON + ,1)as well
evaluative quality should be higher than 85%;
(0.16) (0.14) satisfaction rate of students should as the (k-1)th and (k+1)th central points( ON -1 ,0),( ON +1 ,0),as
be higher than 75%;and so on
last we get the function f j (x) (j=1,2,……,m;k=1,2,……,s)
k
Outcome awards and publications related to

248
 Fig. 1. Central triangle whitening weight function

As for the observation x ,the forum is

TABLE III. SCORES OF SELLING COURSE
­
°
°0, F  [Ok 1 , Ok 1 ] u1 u11 u12 u13 u14 u15 u2 u21 u22 u23
° F  Ok 1
f jk ( x) ® , F  [Ok 1 , Ok ] (1)          
° O  O
k k 1 u3  u31 u32 u33 u34 u35  u4  u41 u42  
° Ok 1  F
° , F  [Ok , Ok 1 ]     
¯ Ok 1  Ok          

Calculate f jk  x  of k k 1, 2, ˜˜˜, s  B. Result analysis of grey cluster

The third, Calculate the comprehensive clustering According to requirements of Huangshan University, we
coefficient V i
k
of i i 1, 2, ˜˜˜, n  , k k 1, 2, ˜˜˜, s  divide four categories, i.e., excellent, good, middle and bad. we
make turning point Oi 90 as excellent and O4 50 as bad.
m
O2 80, O3 70 denote good and middle. As the indexes
V ik ¦ f  x   x  xK
j 1
j
k
ij j (2)
turn into percentages, so the whitenization weight function of
the four categories are the same, they are
Among them, f jk  xij  is the whitenization weight
­ ­
function of indicator,K j is the weight. °0, F  [80,100], °0, F  [70,90]
° °
° F  80 ° F  70
, F  [80,90] , f j2 ( x) , F  [70,80]
^V ` f j1 ( x) ® ®

The fourth, max i
k
V ik ° 10 ° 10
1d k d s
°10  F ° 90  F
°¯ 10 , F  [90,10], °¯ 10 , F  [80,90]
IV. CASE STUDY

A. Example ­ ­
°0, F  [50,80], °0, F  [30,70]
According to the excellent course evaluation system and ° °
score criterion, we invite experts to evaluate selling course in ° F  50 ° F  30
Huangshan University, and translate the scores into f j3 ( x) ® , F  [50,70] , f j4 ( x) ® , F  [30,50]
° 20 ° 20
percentages. Results can be found in Table III.
° 80  F ° 70  F
°¯ 10 , F  [70,80], °¯ 20 , F  [50,70]
Results can be found in Table IV.

249
 TABLE IV. INDEXES AND AFFILIATED GREY CLUSTERS [2] Xia Luhui.The Construction of National Excellent Courses:An
Important Measure to Improve the Quality of Higher Education.
Index V1 V2 V3 V4 Scientific Consult,2003 ,No.10,pp.9.
[3] Wu Na and Zeng Ziwei. Research on Ā Management Principles ā
u1 0.524 0.476 0 0 Excellent Courses Evaluation Index System in Independent
School.China Collective Economy,2009 , No.31,pp.193-194.
u2 0.929 0 0 0
[4] Mei Jiabin, Tu Ping ,and Cao Jianwen. Evaluation Techniques of Top-
0.714 0.286 0 0 quality Courses Based on Fuzzy Synthetic Decision.Journal of Wuha n
u3 University of Science and Engineering,2010, Vol.23 ,No.1,pp.32-34.

u4 0 0.620 0.380 0 [5] Hong Yuehua. Evaluation of High-quality Courses Based on the
Method of Two-grade Fuzzy Comprehensive Evaluation.Journal of
u 0.605 0.319 0.061 Yulin Normal University, 2010, Vol. 31 , No.1.2:7-10.

^V `
[6] Gong Fuhai and Cheng Jilin. Study on of Excellent Courses Level
According to the empirical analysis of max i
k
V ik
1d k d s
generally speaking, this course belongs to ‘excellent’, implies
that it performs good. Among them, teachers, facilities and
situations belong to ‘excellent’, performance belongs to ‘good’.
V. CONCLUSION
It is an important procedure to evaluate the development of
excellent courses in the construction of excellent courses, but it
is a great challenge because the data are usually subjective and
information is uncertain. This article calculated the weights
based on experts consulting and grey clustering method, then
converted the traditional qualitative method into the
combination of qualitative and quantitative, to evaluate the
excellent selling course. Empirical results revealed that the
grey clustering method overcomes the simple and subjective
characters reside in previous evaluations of excellent courses,
to make it objective, fair and reasonable, in line with the reality
and proved the effectiveness of this method employed in this
study, and thus implies with policy implications. But limitation
remain, such as small sample, incomplete evaluation index as
well as the unavoidable errors. It is necessary to further
develop this evaluation system.
ACKNOWLEDGMENT
The authors thank the anonymous referees for their
comments and suggestions.
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