Abstract:

This paper is based on a " Project of Didactic Innovation" focusing on learning experiences through postgraduate research within the scope of the labor reality. In this sense, the results of the innovation project will be used for the elaboration of quality indicators for the Masters and PhD programs of the Faculty of Information Sciences of the Complutense University of Madrid. The participants belong to eight different countries from Europe and Latin America which supposes a wide range of experiences based on different environments.

The main objectives of the project consists of:
- development of didactic methodologies for Master and Thesis works directly related to the professional environment;
- proposals to promote employability and entrepreneurship among students through tools for analysis of professional skills.
- use the results of the project for the purposes of the Master and Ph.D programs in the area of Communication.

It is well known that successfully designed assessment should be an important part of the learning process. This is always a complicated task, especially in the field of the professional skills, which demand experiential testing. In 2007, Hewitt (2007, 2008) proposed five key criteria in the design of credible assessment tasks for professional skills in an academic environment which are the starting point for our project. These criteria: validity, reliability, alignment with learning objectives, integration and practicality, will be in the bases of our demand experiential testing.
Our research team will focus also on the different professional skills models like these developed, for example, in the University of Adelaide or the Bond University Law Schools. We consider that the preferred skills assessment regime is one in which students are able to receive regular feedback on their performance relevant to strict criteria from academics with specific training and experience in skills assessment. In all these assessment processes, public institutions and non-profit organizations, participating in the project, will be involved. They will help us to establish a debate on the new labor realities in Spain and in other countries.
After the experiential testing, our research team will try to develop road maps to be used in our postgraduate programs. Here, we will take as a starting point the results of other academic experiences like the "Improving Learning Strategically" (Rust, 2001;Reid, Nagarajan, Dortins, 2006; Hewitt, 2015).

Our postgraduate students are offered the opportunity to realize their academic work as an exercise of professional practice analyzing real cases in the real context of the labor activity. By the involvement of our partners in the project (Hospital 12 of October, the ONCE Foundation, etc.) roadmaps will be developed aimed to improve the research training of postgraduate students through an applied knowledge. As part of this process, initiatives and tools for assessing student satisfaction will be developed and also, for pursuing their involvement in the processes of quality assessment.

The methodology of the project is based on internal and external collaborative networks. Since this is a long term project at an early stage, in this paper we present the initial proposals initiating a debate on guidelines results of other projects with similar objectives.