Abstract:

During the last decades, the advance of technology has produced substantial changes in teaching and learning methodologies. In this context, we present KEEPUPMCIVIL, an online course for first year students, conducted through the Educational Innovation Project of the Universidad Politécnica de Madrid (PI-1819-5801). The online course includes in a global virtual space the first year subjects within Civil Engineering Degree at Universidad Politécnica de Madrid.

Usually, each teacher can or cannot host his subject in the institutional Moodle platform, being that practice hardly recommended by the Universidad Politécnica de Madrid. These individual courses do not interact between each other. The proposed global course presents an innovative format where a global vision of the course is provided.

The main objective of KEEPUPMCIVIL is to supply the students with different resources that promote autonomous learning, thus the students themselves manage their individual learning, although encouraging collaborative work through forums and team activities available in each subject. Through these forums, students can get in touch with each other, exchange opinions, answer questions and advance in learning, even if they do not have a teacher available. This strategy will be very useful for students who are not able to attend normal classes for several reasons.

The professors, who normally conduct the subjects, use their own methodologies to implement and design their individual virtual course. Therefore, different materials are included: notes, presentations, videos, computer programs, questionnaires... making sure that the most suitable resources is considered, to easy individual learning and acquisition of competences related to the different subjects.
Despite this freedom when choosing the resources to be used in each subjects, KEEPUPMCIVIL global course has been designed to display an attractive layout that is user-friendly for both students and teachers. In fact, some professors of more advanced courses have expressed interest in applying the same strategies.

The subjects included in the course are:
- Linear Algebra and Geometry
- Calculus
- Statistics and Numerical Analysis
- Applied Computing
- Chemistry of Materials
- Physics
- Geology
- Drawing and Representation Systems
- Management and Business Administration
- Technical Mechanics

Each subject begins with a representative image and an introduction of interest, in order to highlight the need to acquire solid scientific foundation as well as specific knowledge of the degree.

Since KEEPUPMCIVIL begins the 2019-20 academic year, the professors responsible for each subject will monitor the functioning and resources use by measuring the access volume and other analytics.

The potential of internal transfer of this global course within the UPM is clear, since the first-year subjects of several engineering degree programs within the UPM are similar. In addition, at the external level, the possibility of implementing a MOOC (Masive Open Online Course ) based on this global course is also considered.

Keywords:

Online course, Autonomous learning, Collaborative environments, Forums, Educational Innovation.