[Purpose/Significance] In the context of the development of the New Liberal Arts and the Digital China strategy, the construction of data element-related disciplines and professional programs has become an important response to the growing demand for highly skilled digital talent. As data are increasingly recognized as a key production factor, talent cultivation must go beyond technical training and address the full process through which data are organized, governed, developed, circulated, and transformed into value. This paper focuses on the connotations and innovative pathways of data element-related program construction. It highlights the supporting role of Information Resources Management, a discipline that has long focused on the organization, retrieval, preservation, governance, service, and utilization of information resources. The study contributes to current discussions by linking data element talent cultivation with disciplinary transformation, curriculum reconstruction, practice-based education, and the development of China's independent knowledge system in philosophy and social sciences. [Method/Process] This paper adopts an interpretive analytical approach based on policy texts, disciplinary evolution, and professional construction practices. First, it analyzes the strategic background of Digital China, the digital economy, data element marketization, and New Liberal Arts development, and clarifies the new requirements these contexts place on talent cultivation. Second, it examines the transformation from Library, Information and Archives Management to Information Resources Management (IRM), emphasizing the expansion of disciplinary objects from documents, archives, and information services to data resources, digital knowledge, data governance, intelligent information services, and value realization. Third, it reviews the knowledge foundations of IRM, including information organization, knowledge organization, metadata, information retrieval, digital preservation, information behavior, knowledge services, information policy, public data opening, data quality, data ethics, and intelligence analysis. Finally, it draws on the construction of the Data Resources and Data Intelligence program as an illustrative practice to discuss possible pathways for curriculum design, practical teaching, digital-intelligent empowerment, multi-actor collaboration, and international cooperation. [Results/Conclusions] The study found that data element-related disciplinary and professional program construction should be organized around the full lifecycle governance and value realization of data resources. This lifecycle includes the processes of data resource management, assetization, and capitalization, covering data collection, storage, description, organization, quality control, rights confirmation, valuation, product development, circulation, application, and security governance. This perspective helps integrate fragmented knowledge modules and connects data management education with the practical process of data value creation. IRM provides a distinctive disciplinary foundation for this task. Compared with fields that focus mainly on algorithms, systems, or market allocation, IRM emphasizes the relationship between data, users, organizations, institutions, scenarios, and public value. It can therefore support the cultivation of compound, governance-oriented, and scenario-oriented digital talent. Such talent should possess foundational knowledge of data resources, methods of digital and intelligent technologies, an understanding of governance institutions, capabilities for industry and scenario application, and international communication competence. The paper further proposes that data element-related program construction can proceed through several connected pathways. Teaching content should cover the full process of data value realization and integrate data organization, data governance, data intelligence, data ethics, data asset management, and scenario-based data application. Practical teaching should be strengthened through real projects, industry scenarios, government departments, enterprises, data circulation institutions, and research organizations. Digital and intelligent technologies should be deeply embedded in professional training, while data security, ethical awareness, and responsible innovation should remain central. International cooperation should also be expanded to enhance students' global competence and awareness of cross-border data governance. Overall, data element-related program construction provides an important opportunity for IRM to reorganize its knowledge system, renew its educational model, and better serve Digital China, the data element market, and global data governance.