Bulletin Spring‧Summer 2001

The Faculty of Medicine will continue to improve the application of telemedicine in international conferences, long-distance teaching, and consultation. Pilot projects have been launched and the efficacy of teleconsultation w i l l also be tested by r andom sampling. Wi t h the help of the Department of Informatio n Engineering, the faculty w i l l f u r t her develop the use of broadband network in telemedicine. Chinese Medicine Databases The University has been collaborating w i th related institutions on the mainland since 1996 to use information technology to develop Chinese medicine databases in Chinese and English. I n f o rma t i on about different Chinese medicina l materials such as their shape, smell, co l ou r, chemical properties, and functions have now bee n recorded in electronic databases for easy reference by the Chinese medicine industry, researchers, and government o f f i c i a l s involved in setting regulations related to Chinese medicine. The University is also wo r k i ng w i t h the Beijing Un i ve r s i t y o f Traditional Chinese Medicine to develop a multimedia CD - RO M for teaching use. Surveys and Marketing Computer-assisted Chinese Open Response Analysis System M u c h academic research relies on questionnaire surveys to collect data. There are commonly three kinds of questionnaires: multiple choice, true or false, and open response. While software for processing the first two kinds of questionnaires is abundant on the ma r ke t , there has not been any p r o g r amme designed spec i f i ca l ly f o r processing open response questionnaires. One reason is that such questionnaires do not easily lend themselves to systematic compilation and analysis. And i f questions are set in Chinese, the language problem futher complicates matters. To fill this gap ， teaching staff from the F a c u l t i e s o f E n g i n e e r i n g , Business Adm i n i s t r a t i o n and Social Science are collaborating in the COR A (Computer- assisted Open Response Analysis System) project to develop programmes for analysing and processing Chines e open response questionnaires. What result s w i ll greatly facilitate researchers in their survey studies. Commercial Application and Data-mining I n business studies, a lot of research is c o n c e n t r a t e d on de v i s i ng ma r k e t i ng strategies. The University's researchers are using information technology t o develop an advanced system to market banking services. The Bank Marketing Decision Support w i t h Da ta M i n i ng project w i l l use data- mining technology to reprocess all customer data i n the databases o f banks, w i t h marketing needs as a basis. A n innovative customer database will then be established, from which the banks can mine and recover all necessary data for the purpose of selling products and services to specific clients. The project is financially supported by the Industry Department and undertaken by researchers from the Faculties of Business Administration, Engineering, Social Science, and Science. U p o n its comp l e t i on , the banking industr y w i ll not only be able to meet their customers' needs more effectively and improve customer relations, but will also be better equipped to move into new business areas such as e-commerce. with great efficiency, allowing a much better grasp of the conditions of patients under their care. Chinese University Bulleti n Spring • Summer 2 0 00