Behavior competence development through e-learning: experience at the undergraduate level in the context of Aula a Distancia Abierta (ADA) Madrid, Spain

This communication presents the results of an innovative approach for competencedevelopment suggesting a new methodology for the integration of these elements in professional development within the ADA initiative (AulaaDistanciaAbierta, Distance and Open Classroom) of the Community of Madrid. The main objective of this initiative is to promote the use of Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) for educational activities by creating a new learning environment structured on the premises of commitment to self–learning, individual work, communication and virtual interaction, and self and continuous assessment. Results from this experience showed that conceptualization is a positive contribution to learning, as students added names and characteristics to competences and abilities that were previously unknown or underestimated. Also, the diversity of participants’ disciplines indicated multidimensional interest in this idea and supported the theory that this approach to competencedevelopment could be successful in all knowledge areas.

System Integration in a UAS design. An example of undergraduate student's tasks.

Systems integration is the origin of most major difficulties found in the engineering design of aeronautical vehicles. The whole design team must assure that each subsystem accomplishes its particular goals and that, together with the rest of the systems, they all meet the general aircraft requirements.Design and building of UAS is a field of actuation to which leading Universities, research Centers and Aeronautical designers have dedicated a lot of effort. In recent years, a team of students, lecturers and professors at the Escuela Universitaria de Ingeniería Técnica Aeronáutica (EUITA) have been working on the design and building of a UAS for civil observation. The design of multi-mission Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) has seen a rapid progress in the last years. A wide variety of designs and applications, some of them really ingenious, have been proposed. The project, which has been going on as a teamwork experience for the last ten years, consists of the design and building of a UAV, and its peculiarity is that it has been carried out entirely by undergraduate students, as part of their Final Research Project. The students face a challenge that includes all the features and stages of an authentic engineering project. We present the current moment of evolution in the process, together with a description of the main difficulties the project has undergone, as a global experience in engineering design and development.

Competence assessment of final year projects for undergraduate telecommunication students

The value of project-based learning has lead to the inclusion of project development activities in engineering courses, being the Final Year Project (FYP) the most remarkable one. Several approaches have been proposed for assessing and grading FYPs but, among them, rubrics are becoming a standard for such type of assessment. However, due to the different characteristics and orientations of the projects (some are more practically oriented, some more theoretically), and the high amount of different competences to be evaluated (knowledge, working capability, communication skills, etc.), the definition of one unique rubric suitable for the evaluation of all FYPs presented in different degree programs, is a big challenge. In a former work, the educational outcomes expected from the FYP were defined and resulted in a proposal for their assessment. Afterwards, the proposal has been tested during one year within an educational innovation-project at the Universidad Politécnica de Madrid which involved the follow-up of 8 undergraduate telecommunication students elaborating their FYPs. In this publication, our experience will be described, based on the emerging work taking place through the formalisation of the process which consisted in the following steps: i) establishment of a schedule for the whole process (publication of FYPs topics, selection of applying students and their enrolment, assignation of a jury to each FYP, elaboration and follow-up of FYPs, final report submission, oral presentation, etc.); ii) design of rubrics for each of three assessment parts: working process, final report and oral presentation; and iii) follow-up and evaluation of the involved FYPs. Finally, problems that appeared during this experience (e.g. administrative aspects, criticisms and suggestions from the students, tutors and juries involved) are discussed and some modifications in the assessment system will be proposed in order to solve or minimize these problems.