Review of EHES (European Higher

Education Space) in Spain including CS2013

Update

1

Manuel Castro, Ph.D.IEEE Fellow

President, IEEE Education SocietyProfessor of Electrical Engineering

UNED, Madrid, Spain

SPECIAL SESSION on Computing EducationPresentation given to TALE 2013, Bali, Indonesia

August 2013

IEEE Education Society – Special Session on Computing Education

Europe is changing but the change today is not as expected

Some results of the implementation of the European Higher Education Space like homogenization are not going ok

We have degrees of 3 or 4 years Masters of 1 or 2 years BUT we have mobility of students AND problems in the mobility of professionals

3

IEEE Education Society – Special Session on Computing Education

And the worst is some Education Policy people is thinking about change again

http://www.taringa.net/posts/imagenes/14140072/...

…Si-te-gustan-los-simpsons-entra-imagenes-de-peliculas.html

We are now finishing the change maintaining in parallel the old system and the new one (with the same staff)

4

IEEE Education Society – Special Session on Computing Education

And in Spain we have an unsolved problem of competences inside the Computer Engineering

Industrial Engineers (we include there the Electrical and Electronics under this umbrella Engineering as well as Management) and Communications Engineers have assigned major part of the Computer Engineering competences (mainly Communications Engineering under the software development)

5

IEEE Education Society – Special Session on Computing Education

And we are waiting for a political solution Computer Engineering now in Spain is

generally assigned to Engineering and Technical Universities, but at the beginning they come from Computer Science (from Physics Faculties)

6

IEEE Education Society – Special Session on Computing Education

Some Universities are starting the accreditation under the ABET scenario (we in Spain has mandatory accreditation under the ANECA Spanish agency as part of the European ENQA agency)

But now the Computer Engineers do not have real practical competences (as in Spain only the real competences are for projects under economic responsibility and software one did not)

7

IEEE Education Society – Special Session on Computing Education

In the new degrees structure of the EHEA we have in Computer Engineering:◦Grade in Computer Engineering Oriented to software management (as old 3 years title)

◦Grade in Information Technology Engineering Oriented to systems management (as old 3 years title)

ACM curricula and recommendations used for the organization

8

IEEE Education Society – Special Session on Computing Education

Grade in Computer Engineering◦240 ECTS total (4 years)

all subjects 6 ECTS (two terms/year)

◦60 ECTS of basic engineering subjects

◦132 ECTS of mandatory computer subjects

◦28 ECTS elective subjects

◦18 ECTS in the Term-project

Minor differences (6 ECTS less in elective) in Grade in Information Technology Engineering

9

IEEE Education Society – Special Session on Computing Education

And we did both degrees at UNED using Distance Learning And of course, face-to-face Tutors As well as part of face-to-face practical work And some part of automated practical work

The view inside CS 2013 of Computing resources, Teaching Faculty, Undergraduate Teaching Assistants and Online Learning are maintained now

10

IEEE Education Society – Special Session on Computing Education

To conclude, major problems now arise in the non definition and non assignment of the professional competences (in Spain) to the Computer Engineering professionals

Changes in subjects, updating some or eliminating may be assumed and implemented

ALL public Engineering Faculties in Spain mix research and teaching, and some private one are more oriented to teaching only

11

IEEE Education Society – Special Session on Computing Education

http://www.ieee.org/edsoc/

12

mcastro@ieec.uned.eshttp://www.slideshare.net/mmmcastro/