ISBN:978-84-613-2955-7

STUDY OF COMPETENCES AND TRAINING ACTIVITIES ON THE INDUSTRIAL ENGENEERING DEGREE AT

THE UNIVERSITY JAUME I OF CASTELLON (SPAIN) Ana Piquer, Ignacio Peñarrocha

Universitat Jaume I Castellón, Spain

Ana.Piquer@uji.es, ipenarro@esid.uji.es

Abstract A transfor mation of the present degree in Industrial Engineering is required due to the changing Higher Education framework in Spain. This involves a whole revision of the degree s and adapting them to the Higher Education European Area and the ministerial orders [1] . The transformation in Industrial Engineering involves the creation of a first Graduate degree in Industrial Technologies followed by a Master’s degree in Industrial Engineering which will provides the career attributions of the current Industrial Enginee rs. The main objective of our work is to compile the information needed to facilitate the development of the new corresponding Graduate and Master’s degrees curricula. This article summarizes the competences promoted by the teachers in charge of the curren t Industrial Engineering degree, also the importance that they give to these competences in their areas of knowledge. It also links the competences with the training activities performed to achieve them. During this work the information related to the specific and general competences have been collected as well as the training activities performed to achieve them in 60 different subjects . This includes both compulsory and elective subjects from the different specialities. 23 generic competences, over 500 specific competences and 12 categories of training activities used in the learning process have been defined and linked to different activities.

Keywords - Development of degree curricula, Industrial Engineering, competences, training activities.

1 INTRODUCTION The coming changes related with the new situation of the European Higher Education Area and according to the proposal of Guidelines for the Development of University degrees of Graduate and Master submitted by the Ministry of Education and Science in December 2006 [2], the degrees curricula require an important change. For the development of such degrees curricula is necessary to have the information of the contents to be transmitted to students. This contents have to be based on competences and training activities undertaken to achieve them.

Before these changes the Universit y Jaume I (UJI) maintains a conservative policy that wants to give continuity to the current degrees. In this way the University proposes a transformation of current degrees to the new Grade and Master’s degrees. Thus, in the case of Industrial Engineering the possibility managed consists of maintaining the Graduate degree in “Engineering in Industrial Technologies" and a later Master’s degree in Industrial Engineering . This Master will provide the professional attributions of the current Industrial Engineer.

In order to having all the information of the current subjects on the basis of compet ences and training activities, the following study has been carried out. In Section 2 it is described how the information was compiled, in Section 3 the processing of such information is shown, and in section 4 the most interesting conclusions are summarized. In addition, in the Annex, the form prepared for the compilation of the information can be observed.

2 ACTUAL COMPETENCES AND TRAINING ACTIVITIES ON THE INDUSTRIAL ENGINEERING DEGREE AT THE UNIVERSITY JAUME I

With the main objective of collecting relevant information for developing the new degree curricula in the field of engineering, all teachers of current subjects of Industrial Engineering Degree have been

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requested for some information. The information was focused mainly on the study of competences and training activities that are currently used for students to learn these competences.

Table 1. Summary of generic competencies compiledin each. Subjects are named by their code.

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A document was prepared as framework for data collection. After several attempts, the final format is shown in the Annex of this article. This document was based mainly on th e Assistent Informàtic, that is software developed by Unitat Tècnica d’Armonització of UJI, and it is used in the European convergence projects developed at different degrees at the University. One of the main objectives of this document was to obtain a fi nal document really friendly and clear, and obviously that contains the fields of information necessary for the achievement of the Project, and useful for making decisions for the development of the new curricula.

Thus, the collaboration of all the subject s distributed in the five courses of the degree was requested. That means a total of 67 subjects that are currently active in the curriculum of Industrial Engineering taught in the Universitat Jaume I. The response of the degree’s teachers was very positiv e, so that it was obtained collaboration of 61 subjects, which means a 91% of the total of the subjects. It also had the support of two scholarship holders for the collection of information.

In the forms, as we can see in the annex’s figures, information of both the generic and specific competences are requested to each subject. It was also requested information on what activities used teachers for the achievement of each of these competences and what degree of importance considered for each of them. The su mmary shown in tables of this document only collects the information of generic competences, since specific ones can hardly be comparable between the different subject areas covered by the degree. Table 1 shows a summary showing the code for each subject and the information provided by teachers related to generic competences. At the same time, the generic competences used in each of the subjects are rated with the next legend:

A: High importance

M: Medium importance

B: Low importance

3 INFORMATION PROCESSING Once collected the information from the degree teachers, it was organized in different tables and figures which are detailed below.

3.1 Generic competences First, it was carried out a table that lists the different ratings given by teachers to the generic competences that recognize to enhance in the development of their teaching. These ratings were assigned a numerical value to get a result for guidance. The competences not referred were evaluated with 0 points, and valuation levels Low, Medium and High with 1, 2 and 3 points respectively. With this numerical translation and adding the performance for each competence in all subjects of the degree we have reached the summary graph shown in Figure 1.

The competences have been ordered in the graph in Figure 1 in accordance with the importance that teachers give to them. Thus, the graph shows the great importance attached by teachers to the competences of capacity of analysis and synthesis, problem solving, autonomous learning or decision making, qualities that hav e to be significant in the further development of the profession of the Industrial Engineer.

3.2 Training activities It has also been studied which are the capacities that are enhanced over each of the training activities taking place during the academic year. The following table summarizes what were the five most valuable skills with each of the activities in order of most to least.

To study the amount of competences that are intended to enhance with each activity that is done and the extent to which they are harnessed, it has been used the valuation that teachers have done when filling in the paragraph 3 of the form shown in the annex.

Figure 2 shows in a bar graph the sum of valuations for each competence made in all subjects.

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Figure 1. Summary of generic competences with more value for teachers.

This analysis shows the great importance given to laboratory sessions and to practical lectures that are often to resolve problems. This result is mainly because it is an instrumental degree with a high experimental level.

3.3 Specific competences Regarding to the specific competences collected from each of the current degree subjects there were two main tasks.

First, all the competences that the teacher had provided were rewritten to homogenize the vocabulary and to balance the level of detail given in each of the subjects and, then, they were grouped by the subject areas that are collected in the study plans of the future Graduate and Master’s degree. Those subject areas are: Mathematics, Physics, Computer Science, Chemistry, Drawing, Economics, Business Administration, Thermodynamics, Fluid Mechanics, Materials, Electricity, Electronics, Automatic control, Mechanics, Strength of materials, Manufacturing Processes, Environment, Management and Projects. This grouping of competences by area and with a balanced level of detail is being used to create new subjects that will shape the curriculum.

It would have been interesting to show the list of competences grouped by areas, but its size makes it impossible to collect them in this article.

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Table 2. Training activities more used in the most value generic competences.

Training Activity Generic Competences

Theory Lectures G04 G17 G19 G05 G02

Lab Sessions G19 G04 G17 G16 G22

Personal works G03 G19 G04 G17 G02

Seminars G17 G04 G19 G07 G10

Projects G22 G19 G17 G03 G16

Practicum G22 G19 G17 G04 G03

Exams G19 G04 G17 G02 G07

Tutorials G19 G17 G04 G02 G05

Projects G19 G22 G04 G05 G07

Figura 2. Training activities more valuates in the actual generic competences.

With this group, and with the competences contained in the decrees governing Graduate and Master’s degree, it is being carried out the drafting of the curricula that will lead to new Industrial Engineering degree.

CONCLUSIONS This paper summarizes the work do ne at the University Jaume I to prepare curricula for new Graduate’s degree in Industrial Technology and Master in Industrial Engineering adapted to the EHEA that will replace the current Industrial Engineering degree, giving the same professional responsibilities to their graduates.

The work has involved a study of generic and specific competences that teachers promote in each of the subjects, and training activities in which they rely to enhance each of these competenc es. This

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information was obtained fro m a form that has been filled by most of the teachers of the degree. The specific competences that have been collected have been drafted in a language and a uniform level of detail to facilitate the development of new curricula.

Figure 3. Training activities vs General Competences

ACKNOWLEDGMENT This work was supported by the project "Competencies and subject content of Industrial Engineering degree awarded by the “Unitat de Suport Educatiu” of the University Jaume I within the program of “Projectes de Mi llora Educativa del curs 2008 -09”, and by the European Convergence Project of Industrial Engineering degree from the Universitat Jaume I, promoted by the Vice -Rector for Educational Quality and European Harmonization.

References

[1] Education and Science Ministry of the Spanish Government. Order CIN/311/2009, in which the requirements for verification of official university degrees that enable to exercise the profession of Industrial Engineering are established. BOE n. 42, 18/02/2009. pp. 17.187-17.191

[2] Education and Science Ministry of the Spanish Government: Guidelines for the Development of University degrees of Graduate and Master

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