Bernard TAN

Senior Vice Provost (Undergraduate Education), National University of Singapore

Biography

Professor Bernard Tan is Senior Vice Provost (Undergraduate Education) at the National University of Singapore (NUS). He assists the Provost in setting educational directions and policies, and in assuring educational quality for the University.

Professor Tan was Vice Provost (Undergraduate Education and Student Life) from 2012 to 2017, Associate Provost (Undergraduate Education) from 2009 to 2012, Chair of the NUS Teaching Academy in 2009, Head of the Department of Information Systems from 2002 to 2008, and Assistant Dean of the School of Computing from 2000 to 2002. His is a recipient of the NUS School of Computing Outstanding Alumnus Award in 2019, the Singapore Long Service Medal in 2019, the Singapore Public Administration Medal (Silver) in 2012, the NUS Outstanding Educator Award in 2004, and the NUS Young Researcher Award in 2002.

Professor Tan was President of the Association for Information Systems (AIS) from 2009 to 2010. He is a Fellow of the AIS and a recipient of the AIS Outstanding Service Award in 2019. He has served on the editorial boards of MIS Quarterly (Senior Editor), Journal of the AIS (Senior Editor), IEEE Transactions on Engineering Management (Department Editor), Management Science (Associate Editor), ACM Transactions on Management Information Systems (Associate Editor), and Journal of Management Information Systems (Editorial Board Member).

Prof Tan is Shaw Professor in the Department of Information Systems and Analytics. His research interests include virtual communities, Internet commerce, and big data analytics. He has given invited talks and keynote addresses at various international conferences. His research work has been published in major international journals and conference proceedings in the field of information systems.

Education Reforms at NUS

Abstract: Students today will be working in an Industry 4.0 workplace for much of their careers. Such a workplace is characterized by rapid obsolescence of knowledge, massive transformation of industries, increased complexity of problems (and solutions needed), and greater turbulence of the environment. To prepare students for such a workplace, it is imperative for universities to re-examine and make bold but necessary changes to its curriculum and pedagogy. This address provides insights into (and the rationale for) the various pieces of education reforms carried out by NUS (over the past few years) to better prepare students for an Industry 4.0 workplace.