Internet of Things: An Emerging Industrial or a New Major?

Internet of Things (IoT) develops rapidly and becomes a hot topic around the world now. After analyzing and comparing the current IoT layer models, a three-dimension (3D) technology model is proposed to classify the complicated IoT technologies logically for the existing IoT. Furthermore, U2IoT (Unit IoT and Ubiquitous IoT) model is summarized and the layer model is updated by adding social layer for the future IoT. Based on this, whether IoT can be regarded as an emerging industrial or a new major is answered. After studying the related issues, this paper argues that IoT is inappropriate to be an independent industry while it should be regarded as a new thing at the stage of intelligentization and informatization development for all walks of life. Meanwhile, how to train talents in colleges is also a problem to be explored. After analyzing how IoT relates to the science system and why setting IoT major for undergraduate is different with other majors setting, this paper proposes two modes to set IoT major and gives some suggestions for universities on the related IoT major problem in China as well.