Abstract:

The purpose of this paper is to convey the experience that the author has developed over the academic year 2008-2009 in the first term course of fifth year of studies in Computer Engineering at the Escuela Superior de Ingeniería Informática at Albacete.

The author has taught this course for several years. After the completion of several training courses for teachers, and various discussions both national and international colleagues who are implementing new teaching methodologies, the author decided to take the step to guide the course towards a project based learning methodology.

Moreover, in view of being raised as the new curriculum for obtaining the degree in the new European Space of Higher Education, the author believes that the experience can be easily implemented in the future for various reasons:

1. This is a one term subject and all subjects in the new curriculum will be configured in this way.

2. It is a subject which involves knowledge of different subjects, which enables the realization of more ambitious projects in collaboration with others without requiring that the student has to cope with additional work that in many cases does not lead to anything, i.e., a more and deeper learning.

3. This subject provides a very immediate application to work. No one disputes that today the security becomes essential not only for communications but also within the organizations.

4. In the current curriculum, this course is part of the optional plan where most students come with a good basic knowledge. In the new curriculum, as the author acknowledges that this subject should be present, this subject should be in third year where the student already has, as mentioned previously, such an extensive knowledge in computer networks, operating systems, etc. In the fourth year, usually left for specialization, this subject could also be offered. However, some students would not study it since the subject would be part of a specialization.

5. Furthermore, and important, the actual number of students in the subject has been reduced enough to enable new teaching experiences.

Since this is a really attractive subject for the student by the practical knowledge that represents, the author, after several years of teaching, feels the need to assess that their students get not just theoretical-practical knowledge acquired, but also other skills such as ability for group work, individual work, decision making, public presentation, writing scientific reports, etc.

Thus, for the evaluation of the above skills, the author proposed a case study during which he followed up the students by meetings. Such meetings were considered at first instance as formative actions, and at the end they were regarded as a final summation action.

Finally, it is worth to note that the satisfaction level of students has been high and constant at around two ideas: they liked the experience because they learned, and the more they learned more they liked. On the other hand the students realized that they were capable of solving problems by themselves, they really had learned things throughout his career, etc and only the teacher had to face them to the problems. Furthermore, the teacher was very pleased to see that their students were capable of directing and performing their jobs with virtually no help, i.e., the student is an active entity.

Keywords:

computer audit and security, project based learning, skill-based evaluation.