Abstract:

In the Engineering schools belonging to the University of Málaga (Spain), a Master Thesis student usually approaches this work in an individual way. Initially, the advisor explains to them the work to be done with some complementary text to be studied. By means of periodical meetings between both, the work is supervised and finished. Several inconveniences arise when this methodology is followed. Firstly, establishing the meeting may become difficult when the students work (at this phase of their studies, many students work at the same time that the complete their last subjects). In addition, the advisor may repeat the same advices or explanations to the students who are working on similar areas. Even small doubts are often derived to the advisor, who may feel a bit overwhelmed when he/she is responsible for many Master Thesis’s students. This is due to the fact that the followed methodology does not promote the collaboration between students tackling with similar projects. As a consequence, some students may also feel demotivated in many phases of the development. The contributions of this paper are twofold. To start with, this paper analyses the need for a new collaborative methodology to help students to interact when they are doing their Master Thesis. This analysis is based on polled data. Then, a web based platform has been developed in order to promote the collaboration between the students and to reduce the advisor’s load. The requirements and features of the software are exposed. Finally, the first results derived from the use of the platform are presented.

Keywords:

Collaborative Work, Master Thesis, Engineering.