Abstract:

This paper presents a mobile application for the Student Module of ReProTool. ReProTool is a software tool that is used for the ECTS and the Bologna Process re-engineering of academic programmes. The design and development of the tool was carried out as part of an eighteen months project (February 2012 - July 2013) co-financed by the European Regional Development Fund and the Republic of Cyprus through the Research Promotion Foundation.

The Student Module provides students with facilities for providing considerable input for the re-engineering of programmes and courses. Students can provide their workload for the courses they study and send feedback to their lecturers. Based on this data, lecturers could reflect on the course and its delivery and improve the course considerably.

More precisely, the student module caters for:
(a) recording the number of hours students spend every week in a course,
(b) calculating the total number of hours spent by each student in each course,
(c) calculating the average total number of hours spent by all students in the course and thus calculating the average student workload that is translated into the course ECTS as estimated by the students,
(d) allowing students to provide on a weekly basis their out-of-class workload,
(e) producing statistics and charts,
(f) allowing students to provide feedback to their lecturers and finally
(g) allowing students to reflect on their work and future plans for studying and create an e-portfolio.

The tool was developed as a web-based application. The mobile application presented herein, has been developed to allow students to access the tool through their mobile phones. The functionality of both the tool and the mobile application are exemplified through the use of screenshots. The architecture of the tool and the mobile application, as well as the underlying technologies used for their development are also explained.

Keywords:

Bologna Process, Learning Outcomes, ECTS, Programme Design, Software Tool, Mobile Applications.