Abstract:

The final master's thesis (FMT) or final project is the academic activity with the greatest weight in the study plan of the Master's Degree in Industrial Engineering (MDIE), with a load of 12 ECTS (300 hours of workload). Students often have difficulties in defining a FMT proposal, delaying its development and presentation. This delay is reflected in the quality indicators of the degree measured in the University's Quality Assurance System, especially in the graduation rate, which in the last year reached historical lows. Difficulty in accessing to the former students projects, that would allow viewing the expected scope, is detected as causes of this delay.

On the other hand, the FMT is a tangible result that can summarize the learning achieved by the master's students, and in most cases they are not disseminated after the academic defence or viva. In other areas especially related to creative activities, this type of tangible constitutes what is called a portfolio, a presentation of work that shows the skills of a person or group in a specific area. It is necessary to emphasize that the MDIE is qualifying for the profession of Industrial Engineer, and the FMT usually approaches a realistic project that could even be applied in some cases, so that disclosure can have a positive aspect associated with solving problems close to reality industrial.

We report here the results of a Masters coordinator project recently developed, on the one hand, to reduce the time that students dedicate to choos and start the final master's project, by observing examples of ideas that former students of the same degree followed. These ideas or summaries of the graduate FMT are being recorded so that access to the information is enjoyable, informative and intuitive (Web of short summaries of the FMT with diagrams and graphic information, video-summaries or short printed publications), being able to contemplate the access to the full document of the FMT that could be published in a repository with the consent of the authors. On the other hand, this same information serves as informative material for the degree, since it will be available for potential interested parties to access the master's degree to visualize the learning opportunities it offers, being able to develop and promote lines of work, in addition to being a showcase for the University of Cádiz, which enhances the value of its students and resources.

Keywords:

Engineering, Master's thesis.