Abstract:

We present a promising methodology that is currently being followed in the supervision and guidance of Master and PhD courses in Engineering.

We have combined and linked the following tools:

- A collaborative repository in the cloud, containing bibliography, references, lectures presentations and all the material needed for both the activities performed during the class, and the activities prepared for evaluation as homework.

- A task managing software in the cloud, that allows task definition, completeness status, following task progress, and a system to communicate between the student and the tutor (email and chat). In addition, the responsible of the activity can assign observers for every task, so students can evaluate and learn from the progress of other subject.

Our methodology has showed a great improvement in the effectiveness of transferring concepts linked to exercises organized into tasks.

The fact of providing to the students clear concepts depicted into tasks, seem to improve their level of comprehension, and what is more important, they organization skills. The collaborative software used, allows that the work that is suggested to the students can be provided organized into different levels of priority. This advantage is encouraging for the students; they manifest an increment in motivation, since they can really follow their progress along the different projects and exercises related to the concepts exposed during the lectures.

Keywords:

Collaborative work, task managing, supervised guidance.