PROFESSIONAL CONGRESS SIMULATION FOR TRANSVERSAL SKILLS DEVELOPMENT IN CIVIL ENGINEERING

The development of transversal skills is essential for the curriculum of Civil Engineers in the frame of European Higher Education Area (EHEA) in the Technical University of Madrid. These skills are being developed mainly in 4th course subjects. In this work we present the pilot experience of a simulated professional congress to improve group work and oral skills. We chose Geographic Information Systems, optional subject in 4th course of Civil Engineering Bachelor Degree, because of its inherent interdisciplinary character, involving Informatics, Geography, Engineering and Economy, among other disciplines. The subject is designed to develop both technical and transversal skills, as interdisciplinary work, autonomous learning and analytical thinking.

In the framework of this subject, a simulated congress is done. For this purpose, every task of congress-like activities is replicated. Students are first asked to form groups of three or more people and submit an "abstract" with the proposed theme to develop a collaborative work for the subject. One of the students must be identified as "corresponding author" and will be the responsible for communication with teachers, that act as "organizing committee". Key dates are fixed and published for "Abstract submission", "Notification of acceptance/rejection", "Final paper submission", "Presentation upload" and "Oral session". Author guidelines are also provided for abstracts, final papers and presentations. Communications and notifications are done in a special Moodle section, dedicated to the Congress. Final papers are published in the wiki site http://topo.caminos.upm.es/wiki thus promoting publication skills and social knowledge-sharing.

Once fulfilled the process, every group presents the paper in the Oral Section with 10 minutes time, participating all the members of the group. After every oral presentation, a 5 minutes time is dedicated to questions made by the jury (three teachers) and the public (other students and researchers). Oral session is public open and announced in the UPM. First year results show high acquisition of transversal skills and good satisfaction levels among students.