Abstract:

The School of Marine, Nautical, and Radioelectronics Engineering of the University of Cadiz (EIMANAR) is in the process of transitioning to the new educational system according to the European Higher Education Area (EHEA). It is very important to introduce new technologies in some professional courses that are fundamental in the training of the future Merchant Navy Officer. Its application to real cases, in an objective and practical way, offers us the possibility of improving student learning and performance.

Astronomical Navigation or Navigation II, is a core subject in the Undergraduate of Nautical Science and Maritime Transport, which is the Academic Degree required to obtain the Professional Title of Deck Officer of the Merchant Navy, which is endorsed by the Merchant Navy Directorate. This is the first time at EIMANAR will be implemented an experimental practice in this subject. For the practice, the new technologies combined with conventional navigation practices. It will facilitate the student's understanding of the fundamental concepts of astronomical navigation. As new technologies, we will use low-cost GPS navigation receivers, Google Earth tools and free-tools like Geographic Information Systems such as QGIS for positioning, time management, and nautical cartography. To manage the nautical almanac we will use free software tools and artificial intelligence to obtain online data. The practice is mandatory and will be evaluated jointly with the astronomical navigation practices and other practical work of the course that will be sent through the Virtual Campus which together will have an evaluation of 20% of the final grade.

With this practice, we expect to improve student’s knowledge on the course, and to provide the following advantages in benefit of the learning process:
- Introduce in deck cadets the use of new technologies and artificial intelligence and their applications in real and professional cases.
- Learn and/or update fundamental concepts of astronomical navigation, provided during the theoretical classes and apply them objectively with the aid and use of new technologies.
- Check the progress in the student learning during the practical, through controls carried out through the Virtual Campus.
- Provide new teaching material in digital format, in addition to the use of new media and applications to improve the understanding and study of this subject.

At the end of the course, the success of this initiative will be evaluated using a comparative analysis of the grades obtained in previous courses and we will conduct a survey on student satisfaction with this new methodology.

Keywords:

Maritime training, navigation practices, GPS, Google Earth, artificial intelligence, astronomical positioning.