International Conference on Engineering Education July 21–25, 2003, Valencia, Spain. 1 Electronic Business Center— An International Resource Center Advancing Theoretical and Technical EB Education Authors: Amy Trappey, National Tsing Hua University, Hsinchu (300), Taiwan, trappey@ie.nthu.edu.tw Jiang-Liang Hou, National Tsing Hua University, Hsinchu (300), Taiwan, adamhou@ie.nthu.edu.tw Abstract  The Electronic Business Center (EBC) at National Tsing Hua University (NTHU) in Taiwan is an innovative educational resource center sponsored by the Ministry of Education. The philosophy behind establishing EBC is to build an open resource center for online e-business technology learning and knowledge sharing among the academic community, industries and government. A three-tier architecture is carefully planned and developed for EBC operation. Through the architecture, the most-updated resources can be customized and distributed to other users without the limitations of locations and time. The center provides sophisticated technologies, facilities and course materials to support the EBC participants in education, outreach, R&D, and technical transfer. Consolidating the technical infrastructure and outreach strategies, the major accomplishment of the center can be categorized into four tracks. They are in outreach, education, prototype hosting and technology (R&D) transfer. The concrete deliverables include interdisciplinary program planning in e-commerce, online teaching materials and case study design, international workshops, education and training events, construction of web-based resource center, newsletter publications, student project exhibits. In order to enhance the outreach capability, applications of information technology include the video conferencing, ubiquitous computing and intelligent multi-channel call center for higher service quality and efficiency. The critical feature of EBC in e-learning is to provide a collaborative environment that integrates the industry, application service providers and researchers from partner universities to demonstrate an internationalized and industry-oriented training and education platform. In a very cost and time effective way, the objectives of educational resource exchange and distribution are accomplished via the on-line collaborative network. Index Terms  Resource Center, Innovative Education, E-Learning, Electronic Business (EB). INTRODUCTION The Electronic Business Center at National Tsing Hua University (EBC at NTHU), Hsinchu, Taiwan was established in 1999 in the Department of Industrial Engineering and Engineering Management. It is the first and only Engineering College and College level center at NTHU and no other college has established an e-business center under an Engineering College in Taiwan. It is a strategic step toward bridging the gap between research and industry outreach. Conforming to the government strategies, the center focuses on the development and implementation of innovative e-business methodologies and technologies by incorporating the academic efforts. The center is partially supported by Ministry of Education and emphasizes on establishing a demonstration environment and online resource center for education and training. The operation infrastructure and strategies are the critical foundation for the success of the resource center. The principal strategies of EBC is to leverage education, research and industrial cooperation via the following approach: Integration of Comprehensive and Advanced Resources NTHU is the top university for training industrial engineers in Taiwan. Most of the graduates play dominant roles in other universities, institutes and industries. On the basis of the close relationship with the academic and industrial sectors, many EBC resources can be promoted and integrated with other universities and companies. Thus the objectives of demonstration and resources sharing can be readily fulfilled. Provision of University Open Resources to Partners Since the faculty participating into EBC has numerous experiences and hardware/software resources in manufacturing automation and electronic business. The faculty has participated in many projects from National Science Council, Ministry of Education, Ministry of Economic Affair and other private sectors and as a result, many EB solutions are established and