Abstract:

The process for the implementation of the so called “Bologna accords” has been increased in a substantial way all over the European countries. Its purpose is to create the European higher educational area by achieving academic degree standards and quality assurance standards much more comparable and compatible throughout Europe. It was named after the place it was proposed, the University of Bologna, with the signing in 1999 of the Bologna declaration by Ministers of Education from 29 European countries in the Italian city of Bologna.
Thus, one of the most positive aspects that have been appreciated in this process of change is such a different way of organizing the student’s curriculum involving them in their own process of education/learning as they became now active figures. Other positive aspects to consider are undoubtedly the major approximation to the real scenario, moving away from the excessively theoretical traditional scheme and approaching in turn other educational systems, being much more transparent since the student knows in advance all about he/she will be evaluated at the end of their educational stage.
As for the negative aspects, to highlight on one hand the initial fear that provokes in the fellow any change that could extract them from their comfortable current position that means the hard requirement of encouraging them to be their own figures in the learning process. On the other hand according to our own experiences in the matter, the real problem arises from the number of students, so for a sum higher to 20 or 25 this system becomes unfeasible as it results exhausting for the lecturer due to the enormous amount of tasks to be handled such are mainly the way to evaluate the achievement of different competences. Additional negative aspects would be in short the lack of criteria for the standardization of the contents for all the subjects, getting further away from the matters provided in the same area of knowledge for different institutions.
Following the implementation of the teaching protocol corresponding to this subject, recently presented at ICERI 2008, in this work, a survey about the student’s perceptions and lectures experiences regarding the implementation of the ECTS system over a specific subject in the field of thermal engineering is presented, corresponding to the degree of Industrial Engineer at the School of Engineering, University of the Basque Country in Spain.



References:
[1] J. Blanco; F. Mendía; L. Martín and F. Peña, Implementing new experiences in ECTS for higher education procedures at the University of the Basque Country according to the Bologna declaration, ICERI 2008, Nov. 2008, Madrid, Spain.

[2] A. Heinze and C. Procter, Online Communication and Information Technology Education Journal of Information Technology Education, Vol. 5, pp. 236 - 249, 2006.

[3] Bourne, J., Harris, D. and Mayadas, F., Engineering education: Learning anywhere, anytime, Journal on Engineering. Education, Vol. 94, N. 1, pp. 131 - 146, 2005.

[4] A. Perez, R. Herradon, Work in progress: an undergraduate B-Learning Experience for the teaching o Politics of Telecommunications and Information Society, 38 ASEE/IEEE Frontiers in Education Conference. Saratoga, NY. October 2008.

Keywords:

higher education, student perceptions, ects implementation, engineering technology.