Adoption and impact of management standards - Position paper

Standardization makes its contributions to many aspects of our lives, although often that contribution is unnoticed. For example, management standards, such as the ISO 9000 family, establish a common ground perspective that enlarges companies' markets and boosts its international reaching, technological development, and innovation while supporting continuous quality improvement in products and services both at a national and international level. Notwithstanding the recognized relevance of some management standards, especially the ones that have an associated certification system to support its knowledge (e.g., ISO 9000 family), little is known about the impact of the standards (e.g., ISO 21500 family) adoption in increasing organizations' performance regarding, for instance, quality, safety, efficiency, or interoperability. This hinders the standards' dissemination and potential use and unnecessarily delays its revision and further development. To help fill this gap, this position paper proposes a research project that includes the development of a model and an observatory focusing on the adoption of management standards. The expected contributions are: 1) at a theoretical level, a new conceptual model for the explanation and assessment of the adoption of management standards and related impacts; 2) at a practical level, a new information system (observatory) which is expected to be a tool for understanding the adoption of standards, as well as for monitoring and publicizing the results obtained from standardization practices.This work has been partially supported by Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia (FCT - MCTES) for its financial support via the project UIDB/00667/2020 (UNIDEMI)

Innovation in project management education - let’s get serious!

More educators use serious games (e.g., games where the primary objective is learning rather than enjoyment) to enhance learning due to benefits such as improved understanding and engagement. However, using serious games within project management education is not well understood. The aim of this research is to investigate project management serious games in higher education: i) determine the extent of gamification in PMI-accredited project management programs, and ii) survey university students about their experiences playing project management serious games. Two separate mixed-method studies reveal insights about serious games in higher education and where innovations may be leveraged. Traditional statistics were used to analyze quantitative data, and coding was used to analyze the qualitative data. The results from a global survey of ten PMI-accredited university programs suggest that serious games are embryonic but promising. A case study at one university reveals that students enjoy learning through games but caution against using games to formally assess students’ learning. The paper concludes with recommendations for further research and development

Allanando el Camino Hacia el Éxito: La Experiencia de Incluir la Norma CCII-N2016-2 en la Asignatura Gestión de Proyectos

La Gestión de Proyectos ha evolucionado con la adopción de estándares reconocidos internacionalmente, como la ISO21500:2022 o el PMBOK, entre otros. Sin embargo, la documentación del trabajo de las asignaturas no ha recibido la misma atención. La norma UNE 157801:2007 y la norma CCII-N2016-2 han proporcionado estructuras para la documentación de proyectos de Ingeniería Informática. En este artículo, se explora la integración de estos estándares en la asignatura de Gestión de Proyectos. Se ha adaptado la asignatura utilizando documentación basada en ISO21500 para el diseño del proyecto y la norma CCII-N2016-2 para la elaboración de la memoria. Se realizó una encuesta a los estudiantes para evaluar el impacto de esta adaptación. Los resultados revelaron una percepción positiva de los estudiantes hacia la adaptación implementada. La integración de estándares y la estructura de documentación mejora el aprendizaje al proporcionar a los estudiantes una formación alineada con las prácticas profesionales y una ventaja competitiva en el mercado laboral

Systematic Review of Education Games in Science Learning: Teachers and Students of Basic Education

The lack of ability of students in learning science in elementary schools and the lack of ability of teachers in providing supportive teaching media according to the characteristics of students who have difficulty causing the learning process cannot achieve the desired results. Thus, it affects the learning process, low learning outcomes, and student’ cognitive abilities. Therefore, this study aims to determine the types of educational game-based teaching media in science learning in elementary schools and the effectiveness of using educational game-based teaching media used in science learning in elementary schools. The method used was a systematic literature review using PRISMA diagrams. The database used for the literature search employed three digital libraries, namely Scopus, Springer Link, and WOS (Web of Science). For the selected literature to be relevant, the searcher used the keyword "educational games." In addition, screening was committed to obtaining scientific article publications from 2016 to 2021, which discussed the use of educational game-based teaching media in science learning in elementary schools. The search results for scientific articles contained 36 articles to be analyzed and synthesized. The analysis technique used was a narrative method by grouping the extracted data. The results of this study showed that the types of educational game-based teaching media used in science learning were the mixing method, literature review, qualitative, and experimental method. The use of multi-representation-based teaching materials has been demonstrated to be effective in the science learning process in elementary schools.

A systematic review on the use of serious games in project management education

Project management education is well suited for active learning through serious games, and a lot of research has been published on the use of serious games for project management education. Earlier reviews have focused on the content and features of project management serious games. The objectives for using those serious games have been less reviewed. The aim of this study was to conduct a systematic review to better understand the objectives of using serious games in project management education, with the following research question: Why are project management serious games used in higher education? A systematic review was performed using the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses (PRISMA). A systematic search enabled us to identify 175 articles, of which forty-three met the eligibility criteria. An inductive content analysis of those articles showed that project management serious games are used mainly for pedagogical and practical reasons. From a pedagogical perspective, serious games are mainly used to develop specific skills that are difficult to acquire in classic ex cathedra lectures, such as practical competencies and soft skills. From a practical perspective, serious games are mainly used for proposing a risk-free trial environment. Based on our analysis, we propose a taxonomy of reasons for using PM games in higher education. Our study also reveals that few studies assess whether serious games meet all their objectives, and that more research is needed on how to implement them into a coherent pedagogical scenario

Gamificación de un entorno educativo en Ingeniería de Software: caso de estudio para la accesibilidad digital de PcD

Motivation is an essential aspect of performance and team productivity as key factors of success in software engineering. Hence, to achieve effective teaching of Software Engineering, it is required to structure an educational environment with new teaching and learning strategies. Classroom gamification has become an alternative strategy to improve the motivation and the commitment required by work teams. This paper presents a software tool to create gamified experiences in the classroom with a methodological structure designed to gamify a software engineering educational environment. The most relevant result of this work is the design of a gamified environment and an experience that, in accordance with the Educational Project of the Universidad Católica del Norte (UCN), is used in the Software Engineering Advanced Topics course where students develop software products for non-profit organizations made up of people with disabilities and their familie

What is project governance? Disclosing the source of confusion and revealing the essence of governance

The governance of project work is well discussed in the extant literature that explores the relationship between projects and their parent organisations. And governance is a well-known term amongst senior management, project practitioners, and stakeholders. However, as this thesis reveals and attempts to address, ‘what is governance’ is actually the subject of much confusion across scholarly literature, practitioner publications and project managers themselves. Identifying and resolving such confusion is fundamental to progressing the discipline because, as proposed by this thesis, governance is the system by which projects are directed and controlled. This thesis by publication: 1. Identifies the definitional confusion surrounding project governance, governance generally and many other associated project management terms. 2. Develops a ‘refined’ definitional method for resolving confusion concerning conceptual definitions. 3. Applies this method to develop refined (internally consistent) definitions of governance and related and associated terms. 4. Reveals the lack of genericity at the core of some project management practitioner documents and methodology. 5. Identifies and resolves 10 different issues that cause definitional confusion in conceptual terms. 6. Provides a philosophical justification for the resolution of each of these issues by critically examining Aristotle’s, Mill’s, Wittgenstein’s, and Popper’s work in relation to definitions. 7. Develops a set of axioms and definitional rules for avoiding conflict resulting from definitional confusion. 8. Proposes a theory of meaning for conceptual terms in management