Abstract:

In order to meet the increase of students who wish to make work time compatible with studies, in the academic year 2010-2011, Universidad Europea de Madrid started a hybrid model of higher education called Personal University that allows students to choose what percentage of courses study online, blended and on-site (100% in person). Thereby, every student may choose to study part of their curriculum 100% online, other part blended (attending classes on weekends with a 50% or less of attendance), and the rest 100% in person attending classes from Monday to Friday.

This type of teaching is aimed to working adults that require flexibility and schedules tailored to their professional lives. Other flexibility options offered to the student include the possibility to enroll or to change the enrollment at the beginning of any term (quarter) and the rate of learning according to the time they can devote to their studies (within set limits of minimum and maximum credits to enroll). Furthermore, these studies offer a number of additional customized services according to the profile and qualifications of the student, and a high level of interaction with the University, professors, colleagues and companies through technological services developed for this purpose.

Modifications to the existing systems and processes had to be made in order to implement this model, and also define new ones where none existed. Given the magnitude of the project and the investment required, the implementation of the model is being developed gradually. Thus, during the past year 9 degree programs were given in online and blended learning study option with a total of 81 courses, 44 professors and 413 students. In this course, this number has increased to 20 degree programs, 153 courses, 201 professors and 868 students.

In order to offer to our students a hybrid education based on the three above-mentioned characteristics (flexibility, customization and interaction), new developments and adaptations of information systems and processes had to be carried out. Among others:

- An academic management model to enhance the quality, effectiveness and efficiency of the University's administrative processes and services, taking into account that the student is not at the Campus.
- Online teaching model that determine a pedagogical framework for online and blended teaching.
- Model of design and production of multimedia contents on which the processes involved in the development and content management were defined.
- Virtual teaching model that defines the processes and best practices developed by professors in eLearning.
- Modification of the academic management information system to include the possibility of choosing courses in different study options (online, blended and campus- based), as well as enrollment and other processes involved.

In this paper we focus on the case of the Computer Engineering degree. Firstly, we describe the changes made in order to tailor the curriculum design to the hybrid model. Later, the content development model will be explained from the general procedure to its application to the Computer Engineering program. Then, we will analyze the application of the teaching model and the obtained results. And finally, the results of the monitoring process of these courses will be analyzed, as well as the teaching assessment and the results of the professor interviews, from which the corrective measures applied in the ongoing course were obtained.

Keywords:

Adult education, e-learning, Higher Education, Curriculum Design.