Abstract:

The paper presented below describes a pilot test that will be implemented in the next academic year in engineering studies at the University of the Basque Country. The purpose of the pilot test is to know from a real situation the kind of data generated during the development of a capstone degree project (TFG) based on the resolution of a business challenge. The data obtained from the pilot test will be used to design a digital challenges management system that will provide, in addition to the general data of each challenge or project, the needed information to evaluate the students' competencies.

The digital management system, called IEK Cloud, will manage all the information generated in the process, from the moment in which a business challenge is posed, until the evaluation of the capstone Project done to solve the challenge. The final aim of IEK Cloud is to obtain the necessary information to improve the entering in labor market of the students, the quality of capstone projects and the evaluation tool to assess entrepreneurship and lifelong learning competencies. And it will also be used to adjust the model and for decision making about the challenges bank. Being the information generated by the communication between the participating agents in each challenge, the information is broad and of very different nature, the pilot test tries to know the nature and format of this information to establish afterward the best mechanisms to extract and treat it.

The activity involves three agents for each challenge: the student, the senior tutor from the company and the university tutor (the capstone project tutor). The interaction between the student and the company’s senior-tutor tries to establish a knowledge sharing between the student and the company, the student will provide knowledge about digital questions and the company through the senior tutor will provide the know-how of the industry, establishing an intergenerational knowledge exchange. The interaction between the capstone project tutor and the student follows a pattern already known in the university environment: it is a supportive relationship for the project development.

The challenge generates a motivating environment for the student, necessary to develop motivating and innovative capstone projects in a real environment, that favors the development of the Project-based learning methodology, being the student the center of their own learning and impelling the entrepreneurship.

The ultimate goal is to create an information management system that will include the entire university, and which will manage information with little support staff intervention in order to facilitate its sustainability over time. However, in this first exploratory stage and for the pilot test, a system has been developed with the intervention of a coordinator (support staff) and digital tools that university already has, such as the virtual classroom (egela) and a digital portfolio (egela-portfolio). Both tools have communication systems that will serve to generate the information that will be analyzed and will be established their relevance for the IEK Cloud.

Keywords:

Business Challenges, Capstone Project, Digital Competences, Entrepreneurship, Lifelong Learning, Digital Platform.