Do Classes in Cooperative Classrooms Have a Positive Influence on Creativity and Teamwork Skills for Engineering Students?

Contributing to the acquisition of professional creativity and teamwork skills has been a special challenge for some of the subjects taught at the Technical University of Madrid (UPM), and this has been a starting point for the work described in this paper. Some professors have intuited that the use of cooperative classrooms could facilitate the acquisition of these skills. We describe the new methodologies applied within cooperative classrooms by some professors, and present the procedure for measuring students��� perception of their own learning outcomes, skill improvements, and overall satisfaction with the use of this kind of classroom. For this project, 250 students enrolled in several subjects answered a questionnaire. The featuresof thesubjectsinvolved intheproject arewidely disparate. We present the results of the statistical analysis with special emphasis on creativity and teamwork skills, and we conclude that the use of cooperative classroom has a positive influence on the acquisition of these skills. This work has the added value of being the first analysis of student perception of the use of cooperative classroom in the acquisition of creativity and teamwork skills.

Performance and Professional Skills in an Online Java Programming Course for Engineering Students

The main purpose of this work is to describe the case of an online Java Programming course for engineering students to learn computer programming and to practice other non-technicalabilities: online training, self-assessment, teamwork and use of foreign languages. It is important that students develop confidence and competence in these skills, which will be required later in their professional tasks and/or in other engineering courses (life-long learning). Furthermore, this paper presents the pedagogical methodology, the results drawn from this experience and an objective performance comparison with another conventional (face-to-face) Java course.

Soft Skills: A Comparative Analysis Between Online and Classroom Teaching

Currently the Spanish universities are making a great effort to effectively incorporate the development and assessment of generic skills in their training programs. Information and communications technologies (ICT) offer a wide range of possibilities but create uncertainty among teachers about the process and results. It is considered of interest to conduct a study to analyze the extent to which social skills like commitment, communication and teamwork are acquired by students and teachers. It seeks to ascertain the influence of the learning context, online or classroom training, in the development of these personal skills among the participants in the sample. For this study two universities have been chosen, Universidad a Distancia de Madrid (UDIMA) offering online training environment, and Universidad Polit��cnica de Madrid (UPM) with classroom training modality. A total of 257 individuals, 230 students and 27 teachers have answered the survey called Evalsoft. This instrument was designed in the project with the same name by a research team from Universidad Complutense of Madrid (UCM). Some interesting conclusions can be highlighted: it is in the online context where there are higher levels of commitment and teamwork than in the classroom modality; teachers have higher social skills that students and these improve with age. Sex and the training program appear to influence these social skills.

Espacio web para el dise��o de un museo virtual de la historia de la inform��tica

El objetivo principal de crear un espacio web para el Museo Hist��rico de la Inform��tica (MHI) perteneciente a la Escuela T��cnica Superior de Ingenieros Inform��ticos (ETSIINF) de la Universidad Polit��cnica de Madrid (UPM) es la difusi��n de la historia de la inform��tica entre el p��blico en general. Si bien es cierto que existe ya una p��gina web de consulta del MHI con algunas im��genes y contenido sobre los objetos que all�� se exhiben, es tambi��n rese��able que se trata de un espacio obsoleto, lleno de carencias y extremadamente dif��cil de gestionar y actualizar, por lo que se hac��a imprescindible actualizar el dise��o del espacio web, los contenidos y el sistema de gesti��n de los mismos, cosa que es de gran inter��s para un lugar divulgativo. En la actualidad, existen maneras mucho m��s amigables para el usuario de navegar por una web; y de la misma manera para un administrador, gestionar el contenido de la misma y mantener a los usuarios bien informados de todo lo que se ofrece en cada momento. Esto es posible gracias a los sistemas de gesti��n de contenidos o content management system (CMS), de los que se hablar�� lo largo de todo el documento. Estos sistemas, dan una facilidad mucho mayor a los encargados de llevar al d��a una p��gina web, sin tener que saber de programaci��n, lenguajes o inform��tica en general, ya que incorporan paneles de control muy intuitivos y f��ciles de manejar, que son una ventaja tanto para ellos como para los usuarios. Es por esta raz��n que, hay p��ginas web como la de las empresas IKEA, Ubuntu o, en especial para el caso que compete al documento, el museo del Louvre usan gestores de contenidos para sus p��ginas web. Y es que las ventajas y facilidades que ofrece un CMS son realmente interesantes y se tratar�� de todas ellas en el documento, de la elecci��n del CMS que mejor se ajusta a los requisitos del museo, las restricciones a la hora del despliegue en el ��mbito de la ETSIINF y de c��mo mejorar�� esto la calidad visual y divulgativa del MHI. Este trabajo se desarrolla a lo largo de 11 cap��tulos, en los que se muestra como construir un sitio web, las posibilidades y la elecci��n final para este caso. En el primer cap��tulo se hace una peque��a introducci��n de lo que es el proyecto, se especifican los objetivos, la motivaci��n del mismo y el alcance que tiene. En el segundo cap��tulo se muestra la informaci��n que se ha recopilado en el trabajo de investigaci��n que se hace previo al desarrollo. En ��l se muestran los distintos tipos de p��ginas web, que tecnolog��as y lenguajes se pueden usar para su construcci��n, una comparativa sobre otras entidades similares al MHI, las limitaciones que presenta el entorno y la elecci��n final que se consider�� m��s adecuada para este caso. En el cap��tulo tres se empieza a desarrollar la soluci��n a trav��s del dise��o. Aqu�� se puede encontrar el dise��o de m��s bajo nivel que se le presenta al cliente para sentar las bases del trabajo, el dise��o de alto nivel con un mayor grado de realidad que el anterior y una preparaci��n de lo que ser��n los planes de prueba. El cap��tulo cuatro muestra todo lo que se ha usado en la implementaci��n y la integraci��n de la p��gina web: herramientas, tecnolog��as, plantillas de dise��o y m��dulos que proporcionan distintas funcionalidades. Llegados al cap��tulo cinco, se puede ver una detallada documentaci��n de los resultados de las pruebas de usabilidad y accesibilidad realizadas, y las conclusiones que subyacen de estas. Una vez acabada la implementaci��n del sitio web del MHI, en el cap��tulo seis se intenta hacer una labor de consultor��a, mostrando precios y presupuestos de las distintas tareas que se han llevado a cabo para la realizaci��n de este proyecto. En el cap��tulo siete se extraen las conclusiones de todo lo acontecido en los cap��tulos anteriores y en el ocho unas l��neas sobre posibles trabajos futuros que se podr��an llevar a cabo en base a lo que ya se tiene en la instituci��n, incluido este trabajo. Para facilitar la comprensi��n y satisfacer la curiosidad del lector, se ha incluido en el cap��tulo nueve la bibliograf��a con toda la documentaci��n consultada y en el diez un glosario de t��rminos para la aclaraci��n de t��rminos y acr��nimos m��s t��cnicos. Para acabar, en el cap��tulo once se anexionan tanto el documento que se us�� para las pruebas de usabilidad como un manual de administrador para el sitio web, que hace m��s amigable el entorno para las personas que lo tengan que mantener en un futuro.---ABSTRACT---The main goal of creating a website for the Informatics Historical Museum (���Museo Hist��rico de la Inform��tica��� or MHI) located in the Higher Technical School of Informatics Engineers (���Escuela T��cnica Superior de Ingenieros Inform��ticos��� or ETSIINF) of the Polytechnic University of Madrid (���Universidad Polit��cnica de Madrid��� UPM), is to promote the aforementioned museum as to increase its reach to the public. While it is true that there already is a consulting website with some pictures and information about the items which are displayed in the building, it is outdated and the data is scarce. Moreover, it is extremely complicated to manage and to regularly update the web page, which is very important for informative/broadcasting media. Currently, there are easier ways for the users of a website to consult whatever information they want, as well as it is now easy for a website manager to display new content and to keep the users informed about what is been offered at every moment. This is possible because of content management systems (CMS), which will be discussed throughout the entire paper. These systems make it easier to use for the administrator of a website to keep it up to date without the necessity for them of having any knowledge or skills in programming, languages or computing, because the systems have an intuitive control panel that is easy to use, which is an advantage for both managers and users. Because of all these reasons, there are lots of companies that use this kind of systems, such as IKEA, Ubuntu or, especially, the Louvre Museum, to which we direct our attention all throughout this report. It is easy to notice that these systems have an important and very interesting number of perks and benefits. In the next chapters of the document we will explain the benefits of the program as well as the choice on the kind of CMS that best suits the requirements of the museum and, finally, the restrictions of the school for the deployment and of how all of this will improve the visual and informational qualities of the MHI. This work is developed over 11 chapters, shown how to build up a website, the possibilities and the final choice for this case. In the first chapter a brief introduction of the project, goals, motivation and scope thereof having specified are done. Before the development of the website, the second chapter shows de information of the researching work. It discusses the different types of websites, technologies and languages that can be used for build-up, a comparison of similar entities to MHI, the limitations of the environment and the final choice was considered more appropriate for this case. Chapter three begins to develop the design of the solution. Here there are the lowest level design that presents the customer to fix any problem, the high level design with a higher degree of reality than the last and the test plans. Chapter four shows everything that has been used in the implementation and integration of the website: tools, technologies, design templates and modules that provide different functionalities. Reaching the fifth chapter, you can see a detailed documentation of the results of the usability and accessibility tests made to some users and the conclusions of it. Once the implementation of MHI website is done, in chapter six there is a consultancy work, showing prices and budgets of the different tasks which were carried out for this project. In chapter seven there are the conclusions of what happened in the previous chapters and eight chapter shows possible future works that could be carried out based on what the institution already have, including this work. To make easier to the reader understand this paper and satisfy his curiosity, the chapter nine includes the bibliography consulted with all the documentation and chapter ten has a glossary of terms and an explanation of technical terms and acronyms. Finally, in chapter eleven there are attached both the document that was used for usability testing as a manual administrator for the website, making the environment friendlier for people who have to maintain it in the future.

Higher education in industrial engineering in Peru: towards a new model based on skills

This article analyzes the progress of Industrial Engineering in Peru, the relationship to major trends in Europe and North America, and the projected outlook for the future. It is determined that the need for this engineering specialty includes a significant degree of resource management, and the formation of engineers through education requires not only the acquisition and strengthening of technical knowledge, but also the development of the competences that are required by both employers and the recipients of the benefits of engineering: society. Conclusions have been drawn based on state-of-the-art analyses from Europe and North America, and definitions of trends for engineering.

A friendly online C compiler to improve programming skills based on student self-assessment

This paper presents an online C compiler designed so that students can program their practical assignments in Programming courses. What is really innovative is the self-assessment of the exercises based on black-box tests and train students��� skill to test software. Moreover, this tool lets instructors, not only proposing and classifying practical exercises, but also evaluating automatically the efforts dedicated and the results obtained by the students. The system has been applied to the 1st-year students at the Industrial Engineering specialization at the Universidad Politecnica de Madrid. Results show that the students obtained better academic performance, reducing the failure rate in the practical exam considerably with respect to previous years, in addition that an anonymous survey proved that students are satisfied with the system because they get instant feedback about their programs.

Face, content, and construct validity of the EndoViS training system for objective assessment of psychomotor skills of laparoscopic surgeons

Background The aim of this study is to present face, content, and constructs validity of the endoscopic orthogonal video system (EndoViS) training system and determines its efficiency as a training and objective assessment tool of the surgeons��� psychomotor skills. Methods Thirty-five surgeons and medical students participated in this study: 11 medical students, 19 residents, and 5 experts. All participants performed four basic skill tasks using conventional laparoscopic instruments and EndoViS training system. Subsequently, participants filled out a questionnaire regarding the design, realism, overall functionality, and its capabilities to train hand���eye coordination and depth perception, rated on a 5-point Likert scale. Motion data of the instruments were obtained by means of two webcams built into a laparoscopic physical trainer. To identify the surgical instruments in the images, colored markers were placed in each instrument. Thirteen motion-related metrics were used to assess laparoscopic performance of the participants. Statistical analysis of performance was made between novice, intermediate, and expert groups. Internal consistency of all metrics was analyzed with Cronbach���s �� test. Results Overall scores about features of the EndoViS system were positives. Participants agreed with the usefulness of tasks and the training capacities of EndoViS system (score >4). Results presented significant differences in the execution of three skill tasks performed by participants. Seven metrics showed construct validity for assessment of performance with high consistency levels. Conclusions EndoViS training system has been successfully validated. Results showed that EndoViS was able to differentiate between participants of varying laparoscopic experience. This simulator is a useful and effective tool to objectively assess laparoscopic psychomotor skills of the surgeons.