978‐1‐4799‐6002‐6/14/$31.00 ©2014 IEEE

Fostering Industry-Academia Synergies in the Curricular Development of Engineering

Education

Francisco Falcone, Pablo Sanchís and Antonio López-Martín

Dpto. Ingeniería Eléctrica y Electrónica Universidad Pública de Navarra

Pamplona, España francisco.falcone@unavarra.es

Ana Alejos, Raúl Rodriguez Rubio Dpto. Teoría de la Señal y Comunicaciones

Universidad de Vigo Vigo, España

analejos@uvigo.es

Abstract— One of the main elements in Curricular Development within the European Higher Education Area (EHEA) is to promote ties between Industry and Academia, both in terms of curricular content as well as in terms of methodological approach. In this work, synergy between Industry and Academia is analyzed in the joint development of Final Degree Projects and Master Thesis in several engineering disciplines. The overall results show clear benefits in this interaction to students, industry members and faculty members in terms of educative process as well as to enhance potential collaboration opportunities.

Keywords— European Higher Education Area (EHEA), industry-academia synergy, Final Degree Projects, Master Thesis

I. INTRODUCTION One of the great challenges that Higher Education is

facing is to fulfill alignment between academic development within degree curricula and the requirements that industry demands for their specific needs. In the case of European Higher Education Area, the achievement of transverse competences and the adequate preparation of students to cope with industrial requirements are key goals [1,2]. There has been great effort which is still on going at this point in the preparation of new university curricula, in graduate as well as postgraduate levels, in which these aspects are carefully taken into account. It has been also stated by industry members as well as by professional societies and professional charters that degree development plans as well as university roadmaps are not close to the requirements and needs that are detected by industry in relation with newly graduates. On the other hand, Academia also indicates that in some instances, relation with industry is not easy or even feasible, depending on the particular area of knowledge [3,4]. This situation is mainly due, in the case of academia, to limited professional experience in industry, given by the requirements in the access procedures to permanent university posts. In the case of Industry, the inherent industrial timelines and achievement of company goals often gives little opportunities to explore and gain knowledge of university.

In the particular case of engineering degrees, there is more proximity between academia and industry, given by the fact that in many cases, there is personal relation between the graduate students, the corporate structure of companies and faculty members of university. However, this situation is not homogeneous and strongly depends on personal contacts of faculty and initiatives which strongly rely on research groups, departments or engineering schools. In this context, one of the most effective instruments in order to promote and enhance university-industry synergies in the development of final degree projects and master thesis, in close collaboration between these institutions. This is given by the following factors:

− The students which are in the phase of developing

their final degree projects and master thesis have high degree of autonomy and are very proactive in the development of their work.

− Final degree projects and master thesis can fit well within the diverse development plans of a company, in terms of required time scales as well as due to the required knowledge level exhibited by the students.

In this work, the role of final degree projects and master thesis in the enhancement of Academia-Industry synergies will be analyzed. The results have been obtained by observation in the development of multiple projects within the School of Industrial and Telecommunications Engineering at the Public University of Navarra (UPNA), in Spain. In the following sections, an overview of the context in which engineering curricula has been developed and is implemented will be given, as well as preliminary results, based on a quasi-experimental methodology, on the benefit for both institutions of fostering closer interaction.

II. DEVELOPMENT OF FINAL PROJECTS AT THE SCHOOL OF INDUSTRIAL AND TELECOMMUNICATIONS ENGINEERING

The School of Industrial and Telecommunications Engineering of the Public University of Navarre is located in

Pamplona, Spain. It is the largest center of the university, encompassing approximately 50% of the university in terms of students, degrees, professors, researchers and R&D contracts with public and private funding. It offers currently six four-year degrees in Industrial, Mechanical, Electrical, Telecommunications, and Computer Engineering, as well as several master programs in Renewable Energies, Materials, Applied Engineering, Manufacturing, Communications, Biomedicine and Computer Engineering. The academic offer will be increased in the academic year 2014-2015 by three new master programs in Industrial, Telecommunications and Computer Engineering.

The School of Industrial and Telecommunications Engineering is the principal provider of engineers for the region, Navarre. With a population of approximately 650000 inhabitants, Navarre represents about 1.4% of the total Spanish population. It is among the 5 top Spanish regions in terms of GDP per capita, and the industrial sector is very relevant in terms of economic growth. The most relevant industrial sectors are automotive and renewable energies, which are responsible for the recruitment of a large percentage of engineers educated in the School.

The engineering curricula at the School of Industrial and Telecommunications Engineering has experienced and profound change due to the transformation of the higher education system that is taking place in Europe in the last decade, creating a common European Space for Higher Education (ESHE) aimed to increasing the mobility of students and teachers and of creating a system of qualifications [5-9]. Some major changes of the ESHE are the establishment of a generic two-level degree system (Bachelor and Master degrees) and the introduction of the European Credit Transfer System (ECTS) [10] as a measurement of the workload the student including all the course activities (contact hours, labs, exams, self-study, etc.). In the Public University of Navarre an ECTS corresponds to 25 hours of student work. The new ESHE may potentially improve the learning process of engineering students as it involves a redefinition of the way engineering is taught, which becomes more oriented to practical, cooperative and project-based learning [11-14].

A significant feature of all the bachelor and master degrees adapted to the ESHE is the existence of a final project during the last semester of the program. The number of credits assigned to this final project varies between 12 and 30 ECTS in the programs of the School of Industrial and Telecommunications Engineering of the Public University of Navarre, which represents a workload ranging from 300 to 750 hours. This large number of credits assigned (between 5% and 25% of the ECTS of the total academic program, depending on the degree) is a token of the key role that this project plays on the learning of future engineers. The purpose of the final project is to provide a realistic engineering scenario in which the student can apply the competences and know-how acquired during the previous semesters, becoming the first truly comprehensive engineering work the student faces in his or her career. The number of credit hours assigned and the situation of the final

project in the academic program makes it an ideal opportunity of cooperation between the University and the industry. In the new programs of the School of Industrial and Telecommunications Engineering, this cooperation is strongly pursued. Every year, the School of Industrial and Telecommunications Engineering of the Public University of Navarre establishes bilateral agreements with the most relevant companies of the region in order to offer students to make the final project in these companies, in a wide spectrum of topics in several engineering fields that allow students the freedom to explore their intellectual and personal interests.

The first administrative step carried out is the bilateral agreement signed between the University and the company. In this agreement, the main acquired competences and learning outcomes expected from the stage of the students in the company are listed, as well as a summary of the work to be carried out in the company by the student. Then, once a student is assigned to this particular final project, the responsible person for the company (an employee) and the School of Engineering (a faculty member acting as supervisor) are assigned, and a registration form containing the main data of the project is deposited at the administrative office of the School. Once the project is done, the evaluation is typically carried out in two different steps:

1) To evaluate the competences and learning outcomes related to the performance of the student in the company (ability to carry out assigned duties with minimal supervision, interpersonal and leadership skills, ability to carry out team work efficiently, etc.) two items are considered: the evaluation carried out by the responsible person in the company, following a predefined evaluation form, and a report of the student. The resulting mark is assigned to a number of elective credits, ranging from 12 to 18 depending on the specific engineering program. The evaluation is done by the faculty member responsible of this particular academic program.

2) To evaluate the technical quality of the engineering project carried out in the company, a committee formed by three faculty members (of which one of them is the aforementioned supervisor of the final project) is in charge of judging the work. To this aim, the student must deliver a written report and must do an oral presentation which is followed by questions asked by the committee members. Both oral presentation and written report can be done in Spanish, Basque, English, French, German or Italian. The assessment of the person in the company responsible for the stage is also considered in the evaluation process.

Due to its importance, the UPNa Chair for Renewable Energies represents the most important initiative in the School of Industrial and Telecommunications Engineering in terms of an integrated and unique offer of Final Project Works and Master Theses to be carried out in cooperation between the companies of the Chair and the UPNa. The Chair for Renewable Energies was funded in 2009 between the university and four leading companies of the renewable energy sector, namely Gamesa, Ingeteam, Acciona Energía and Acciona Windpower, and an international recognized

technological center, Cener. In the four acacemic years since 2009, the Chair has launched about 130 projects, with more than 300 students that have applied for one of those projects.

The organization of the Final Project Work and Master Thesis Program of the UPNa Chair for Renewable Energies is commonly shown as an example for other Chairs of the university. Every year in the month of March, the Chair asks the partners for new projects for the coming year. After consulting their internal departments, the companies propose in April their list of projects they want to offer. This list is approved in the Steering Committee of the Chair, consisting of the Head of the Chair, the Dean of the School of Industrial and Telecommunications Engineering, four professors of the School and five members of the companies, each one representing one company. Each project incorporates one supervisor from UPNa and another one from the corresponding company. The projects offered are then introduced to the students in a public session in May. This meeting arouses a great interest from the students. After a short introduction of the Head of the Chair, the members of the companies present themselves the projects offered by each company. Besides giving a closer approach to the projects, the presence of the company members makes it possible for the students to directly ask them their doubts and questions about the projects. After this project introduction, the information of the projects is uploaded on the Chair website. At the end of May, the students have to submit their applications for the projects they are interested in, including a short CV and their personal academic records. Finally, in June the projects are finally assigned in a selection process carried out by the Head of the Chair, the project supervisors, and the representatives of the companies.

Up to this moment, the results of this Program are very satisfactory, and the Chair is now trying to extend the Program to the development of PhD Thesis and broader research projects between the companies and the research groups of the university.

III. EXPERIENCES IN ACADEMIA-INDUSTRY RELATIONS

As previously stated, all of the students which are enrolled in engineering degrees must develop a final degree project (in the case of undergraduate studies) or a master thesis (in the case of graduate studies). In all cases, the developed project must give evidence to evaluators that the students have sufficient technical level, as well as autonomy and responsibility in order to carry out the proposed solution or procedure. There is a vast range of topics as well as of typologies of projects, which will be given by the personal interest of the student, the research groups present at UPNA and the requirements and need of Industrial members. The proposed projects will be mainly developed within the scope of the different research lines, which in some cases will be also related to industrial developments.

Within this framework, final degree projects and master thesis at UPNA developed in collaboration with industry can be given by:

− The student develops a project in which a faculty member, individually contacts industry due to personal contacts (previous projects, employer of previous students, etc.)

− The student enrolls in a project developed within the UPNa Chair for Renewable Energies, which is supported by one of the industry partners of the Chair. Projects deal with technological aspects of the renewable energies, mainly wind and solar photovoltaic energies, as well as their integration into the grid.

− The student, given previous contacts, brings a project idea to develop in collaboration with an industrial partner.

In order to analyze the benefit of developing final degree projects or master thesis in one of the previous modalities, information has been retrieved by direct assessment with students, industry members and faculty members, following a simplified quasi-experimental approach. This methodology has been employed due to the fact that there is a relatively small population of projects under analysis and each one of them is different than the rest of projects developed.

Within the academic offer within the School of Industrial and Telecommunication Engineering at UPNA, results have been obtained for the degrees which are depicted in Figure 1.

Fig. 1 Summary of Engineering Degrees which have been analyzed in terms of industry-academia joint Project development.

Within each one of the engineering disciplines, the topic

in which the projects are implemented are strongly dependent on the research lines developed at UPNA and specially, the business line of the different industrial partners. In the case of Navarra, where the UPNA is located, the main business models in terms of telecommunication, industrial and computer engineering are related with renewable energies, electronic circuit/system design, software development and engineering consulting. A schematic view of the topics is given in figure 2.

Fig. 2 Classification of Project Topics for each one of the engineering disciplines, closely related with the business models of the industrial partners.

In order to gain insight in the development of the projects as well as in the perception of students, industrial members and faculty, several interviews have been conducted with each one of these groups in order to obtain the required feedback. The total amount of projects under analysis has been in the order of 50 projects, in the different categories, from the Universidad Pública de Navarra. The main comments for each one of the groups are synthetically described:

In the case of students, the comments are the following:

− The experience of developing a project is perceived as very positive from a curricular point of view. The fact of stating that the developed project is developed in collaboration with a company is an asset which can play a fundamental role in subsequent job placement by the students.

− Students find interesting to live and understand corporate culture of companies. Not only particular production or management processes, but also the underlying philosophy in an integral manner.

− New tools, such as simulation software, test beds or prototyping methods are used by the students, which again is perceived as a valuable asset within their curricular development.

− Students are faced with the challenge of truly integrating themselves in work teams within the companies, which is initially complex but is overall rated as a positive experience.

− In some instances, the developed project is within the framework of research projects, which can lead to the interest of the students in pursuing research activities, such as a doctoral degree in the future.

In the case of industrial members, the main outcomes are the following:

− The experience of having students working on real project development with the actual industrial teams is seen as positive by industrial members.

− The technical knowledge of students is adequate for fulfilling in general all the tasks which are previously planned. This leads in many cases to future incorporation of these students to new job placements within the companies.

− Integration of students is adequate; however industrial members recommend that more insight should be given to students in their engineering curricula in relation with transverse competences, such as marketing, sales and economic aspects.

− The interaction between industry and academia can enhance mutual knowledge of industrial needs and academic capacities in research terms. This leads naturally to increased possibilities of joint research activities between faculty and industry members.

Finally, in the case of faculty members, the feedback obtained in the following:

− The motivation and interest of students is perceived as high or very high in general. Students are very proactive and responsive in their duties.

− The topics of the projects are usually well balanced in terms of academic goals as well as of industry requirements. Planning is usually adequate in terms of time span as well as of employed resources.

− The industry-academic interaction leads to increased knowledge of industrial needs and industrial capabilities, which potentially leads to new research opportunities for faculty as well as for industry members. Collaterally, this can aid in new candidates among students to pursue doctoral degrees.

These main results are schematically shown in figure 3, corresponding to each one of the groups of interest (students, industry members and faculty).

In order to provide further insight from a different perspective, feedback was also obtained from the Engineering School in the University of Vigo, in Spain.

Fig. 3 Summary of feedback from students, industrial members and faculty of the experience of joint academia/industry final degree projects and master thesis.

Fig. 4 Surveys collected from students and industry partners.

0

1

2

3

4

5

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15

student survey question

rate

(0-5

)

Fig. 5 Summary of answers given to student’s surveys.

0

1

2

3

4

5

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15

company survey question

rate

(0-5

)

Fig. 6 Summary of answers given to industry partner’s surveys.

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 90

0.1

0.2

0.3

0.4

0.5

0.6

0.7

0.8

0.9

1

correlation between student and company survey questions

corr

elat

ion

leve

l (0.

.1)

Fig. 7 Correlation of answers given to the common question of both surveys.

In the University of Vigo, the feedback consisted of

three surveys answered once finished the period of practice by the student, by the industry partner and by the university advisor.

In Fig. 4 we show the questions corresponding to the student’s and industry partner’s surveys. The results for the academic years 2012/13 and 2013/14 are shown in Fig. 5 and Fig. 6 for student and industry partner case, respectively. Each one of the surveys (industry and students) has questions related with their potential interest, with 14 questions in the case of students and 12 in the case of industry. Each answer can be rated from 0 to 5. An amount of 15 students participated in the practices with industry partners. It is noticeable that only 3 of 15 were female students.

Due to that both surveys share nine questions, it has been analyzed the correlation between the answers given by students and industry partners, as depicted in Fig. 7. As closer it is to 1 the correlation value, it indicates a better match between the responses of the two subjects.

Generally speaking the results of the surveys indicate large level of satisfaction and the occurrence of specific problems which appears as outliers of the plots.

IV. CONCLUSIONS In this work, an initial analysis of the benefits of joint

academia/industry collaboration, in the specific case of final degree projects and master thesis is presented. The collaborative environment which is created by students, industrial members and faculty is positively perceived by each one of them, in terms of curricular value, potential candidates for job placements and enhanced research opportunities. Due to the specific nature of each project and the moderate number of projects, a direct interview based approach has been employed in order to obtain feedback in the process. The results clearly state the benefit for students, industry and university in developing coordinated activities, such as final degree projects and master thesis. This outcome is a valuable reference in the adoption of specific strategies in the development of final degree projects and thesis in the new EHEA adapted degrees and masters, where there is no doubt that academia/university synergies shall be exploited. As future work, experimental based research , with the aid of comprehensive questionnaires and Delphi group based assessment will be planned in order to gain more insight in the overall benefits of academia/industry interaction. Moreover, a larger number of questionnaires and interviews are planned in order to increase the fidelity of the obtained results.

REFERENCES

[1] S. Adam, “Using learning outcomes, A consideration of the nature, role, application and implications for European education of employing 'learning outcomes' at the local, national and international levels”, Bologna Seminar, Edinburgh, United Kingdom, 1-2 July 2004.

[2] E. Coyle. Engineering Education in the US and the EU, Chapter 5 in Engineering in Context. Academica, 2009

[3] ENAEE, “EUR-ACE Framework Standards for the Accreditation of Engineering Programmes”, 2008; www.enaee.eu [ENAEE Documents]

[4] ABET, “The ABET criteria for accrediting engineering programmes”, 2009, www.abet.org

[5] “European ministers of education, The European higher education area -Bologna declaration-,” in Joint Declaration of the European Ministers of Education, Bologna, Italy, 1999.

[6] “European university association, Salamanca convention 2001,” in The Bologna Process and the European Higher Education Area, Salamanca, 2001.

[7] “European ministers of education, Towards the European higher education area,” in Commun. Meet. Europ. Ministers in Charge of Higher Education, Prague, 2001.

[8] “European ministers responsible for higher education, The European higher education area -Achieving the

goals-,” in Commun. Conf. Europ. Ministers Responsible for Higher Education, Bergen, 2005.

[9] Bergan, S. and Rauhvargers, A., Eds., “Recognition in the Bologna process: Policy development and the road to good practice,” Council of Europe Higher Education, ser. 4, 2006.

[10] ECTS Users’ Guide, European Credit Transfer and Accumulation System and the Diploma Supplement. Brussels, Belgium: Directorate- General for Education and Culture, 2005.

[11] Salas-Morera, L., Berral-Yerón, J., Serrano-Gómez, I., and Martínez-Jiménez, P., “An Assessment of the ECTS in Software Engineering: A Teaching Experience,” IEEE Trans. Educ., accepted for future publication and available online.

[12] Montero, E., and González, M.J., “Student Engagement in a Structured Problem-Based Approach to Learning: A First-Year Electronic Engineering Study Module on Heat Transfer,” IEEE Trans. Educ., accepted for future publication and available online.

[13] Magdalena, R., Serrano, A. J., Martín-Guerrero, J. D., Rosado, A., and Martinez, M., “A Teaching Laboratory in Analog Electronics: Changes to Address the Bologna Requirements,” IEEE Trans. Educ., vol. 51, no. 4, pp- 456-460, Nov. 2008.

[14] Erdil, E., and Bilsel, A., “Curriculum design to revitalise electrical engineering education at eastern Mediterranean university,” Int. J. Electr. Eng. Educ., vol. 42, no. 3, pp. 234–246, Jul. 2005.