The way educators understand the concept of curriculum has significant implication to the nature of curriculum design, decision, implementation, evaluation and research in curriculum reform. Based on these dimensions, this article compares documents and research reports of curriculum standard of 1993 with those of curriculum program of 1998. It comes to the conclusion that curriculum standard tends to define curriculum as an academic discipline, in which reform is a repeated process of development, diffusion and adoption. Curriculum program tends to define curriculum as an experience, in which reform is a continuous development process. However, the latter has inherited some characteristics of the former in curriculum decision, implementation and research. From the perspective of the definition of curriculum, the nature of curriculum reform in Taiwan can be considered as moving from “academic discipline” to “experience”.