A proposal to develop and assess professional skills in Engineering Final Year Projects

Abstract

In this paper we discuss the result of piloting a methodology for Engineering Final Year Projects (FYP) assessment that takes into consideration professional skills acquisition. The FYP is structured around three milestones; skills are assigned to each milestone according to the tasks required in each phase, and a list of indicators have been designed for every phase. The criteria are specified in a rubric and are made available to students. The FYP implementation includes evaluation methods and a homogeneous assessment throughout the project development in order to provide students with valuable project implementation support, to facilitate the project organization, to improve the quality of projects and thereby to reduce the academic drop-out rate. The proposed methodology has been implemented and piloted at the Barcelona School of Informatics, and the conclusions can easily be generalized to any other Engineering degree. This paper presents the results of the FYP for 1,569 students. The average percentage of students finishing FYP in previous degrees was 65% on average, whereas in the case of the Bachelor Degree in Informatics the percentage rose to 90% with the methodology proposed in this paper. In addition, 95% of these students finished their FYP in less than one year, compared to only 65% who finished it in less than one year in previous Degrees.