Abstract:

The adaptation to the European Higher Education Area (EHEA) implies a deep change in the teaching/learning methodologies in our degrees, and it is based on the daily work and the acquisition of new competences. Special emphasis is put into the development of transversal competencies (such as teamwork and entrepreneurship) in addition to specialist knowledge, which are increasingly important in view of evolving labour market.
This paper illustrates a teaching experience in the course Information Search and Management, from the Degree of Criminology and Security, where Web 2.0 technologies and tools have been introduced to promote the development of generic competences. First, we put the course into context by describing the set up of the course inside the degree and several aspects that affect the success of the experiment, such as the nature of the course and the methodology followed, the students and the technological infrastructure available. Then, we introduce the different technogical tools used to work each of the target transversal competences: organization and planning, information management, knowledge of a foreign language, teamwork, oral skills, innovation and creativity. We also provide some evaluation criteria used for some of the previous generic competences.
This experience reafirms the suitability of applied computer science courses to work and develop generic competences, at the same time that allows us to detect weaknesses of the applied methods. Using the proposed evaluation criteria for generic competences, over 85% of studens passed the course.

Keywords:

EHEA, Generic Competences, Foreign Language, Evaluation Criteria.