Abstract:

On the large context of knowledge management and specifically at the post graduate education level, it is possible to use technological applications conceptually based on strategies from the business production world, particularly those concerning to the control, monitoring and quantification of processes and the products generated through their development. In this case, a "product" is considered to be a material created and documented by doctoral students during their research. The technological application tool mentioned corresponds to a workflow system designed in order to systematize the formation processes of doctoral students.

This paper will explain the experience gained in the context of the PhD Program in Multimedia Engineering at the Polytechnic University of Catalonia (UPC), from the perspective of the conceptual proposal based in systematizing and automating the research process. The research is also based on the empirical and quantitative experience obtained by using a workflow tool that was implemented in the internet-based platform that manages the production of the research group.

One of the goals for the development of the current study was to know the participation of each member on every project phase that supports the research, through the analysis of quantitative data obtained from the use of workflow tool. As a result, it was possible to define each researcher role at different stages during the project development, and also to know the tasks carried out by every of them.

The design, development, and use of workflows tool were conducted as part of the author’s doctoral project research.

Keywords:

Design, worflow, research process, doctoral education.