Abstract:

Bachelor’s Degree Final Project (DFP) is a subject generating some controversy as it is a special matter in the study plans of Engineering University Degrees. This paper introduces a review of the Spanish higher education legal framework since the entry in the European Union, and the subsequent convergence to the European Higher Education Area (EHEA), up to the present time. This review has particularly focused on the DFP evolution over time. Methodologically, this work studies the laws, study plans and internal regulations to understand how the DFP has been conformed and redefined as well as how its importance has increased through the professionalization process of the University Degrees since the Bologna Declaration. Additionally, DFP rules and regulations nowadays into force at the Universitat Politècnica de València (UPV) and their adaptation to the particularities of the Design Engineering School (ETSID) and its different Engineering Degrees have been particularly studied and described. As a result, a critical review is presented considering some aspects conforming the current DFP regulatory system at the ETSID.

Some of the criticized aspects are:
1) the incompletely assimilated change from the predecessor subject “Final Project” to the new one DFP,
2) the absence of a normative including the different types of works suitable to be accepted as DFP and
3) the absence of a rubric including all the evaluable aspects of a DFP.

Finally, the objective of this review is to promote a debate allowing the analysis and improvement of the DFP framework in the ETSID. It is also expected to be a reference for other Degrees, Schools and Universities in their respective internal DFP framework reviews and updates.

Keywords:

Degree Final Project, Bachelor, Regulations, Assessment, Review.