Abstract:

The Doctorate Programs on Environmental Engineering of two Spanish Universities, Cantabria and Basque Country, were merged in 2005 into an inter-university one, and a Quality Mention by the Spanish Accreditation Agency ANECA was obtained in 2006. Doctorate studies were, then, converted into a research-oriented Master Program. The inter-university characteristic of the Program and the geographic dispersion of the students, actually living in four different Spanish provinces, made the need of flexible and effective communication services a priority.

For that purpose, starting on the academic year 2007/08, an experimental Moodle (Modular Object-Oriented Dynamic Learning Environment) platform was started up at the School of Engineering of Bilbao. Software selection was made based, first, on the Moodle organization approach and, second, on the use of "official" Moodle servers at both Universities, basis of their "Virtual Campus". The idea of having an own platform was appealing to the teaching staff, as mistakes and problems were easy to solve, leaving some freedom degree to try new teaching approaches, and also learning "on the job". Some hidden test courses were provided for trial and error tests and for self-learning.

This year another Master Program has been started, this one with a professional orientation, sharing some courses with the research-oriented one. Both Programs follow the new design, following the European Higher Education Area directions. Teachers have adapted quite easily not only to this new teaching/learning approach but also to the use of the new communication system, conveying the information to the students and gathering their study results. Most of the staff is now competent enough with the platform, allowing them to interact easily with the students. Some of the teachers have followed courses on Moodle development, and now are able to use many more activities included on the platform. There is an interest on extending the range of such activities in order to virtualize, partially or completely, the teaching, avoiding the travel needs between the Universities or reducing them to a minimum.

The use of a platform has enhanced the teaching ability of our staff, incorporating an easy and fast communication service, which is still under development. The experimental platform has allowed an easy contact with the administrator, reducing the stress and simplifying the learning curve. A very positive point is the ability of moving all our courses, once settled down and tested to the official Moodle platforms of the Virtual Campus our Universities. Also, the contents of all the subjects are stored and allows for an easy inspection for a quality assurance check.

Keywords:

moodle, master program, ict.