Challenging students to develop work-based skills: A PBL experience

[ES] In today’s changing world the skills and habilities required for getting a job are rapidly changing. New trends such as globalization, data science, artificial intelligence and the never ending expansion of information and technology communications are changing the demands of the labour market. Accordingly, new skills are needed in order to succeed and get a job. As noted by the OECD, educators’ challenge lies in helping students develop their unique capacity to create, innovate and add value, skills that distinguish humans from machines. With this aim in mind, this study reports the results of a challenge-based activity (based on project-based learning) targeted to undergraduate students in Business Administration. The results reveal a positive impact of the methodologies on students’ learning process, their satisfaction and a positive improvement on a series of skills, namely teamwork, writting and oral skills, digital skills, capacity to identify and solve problems, capacity to work autonomously, analytical capacity and capacity to think criticallyManresa Matas, A.; Berbegal-Mirabent, J.; Gil-Domenech, D. (2020). Challenging students to develop work-based skills: A PBL experience. En 6th International Conference on Higher Education Advances (HEAd'20). Editorial Universitat Politècnica de València. (30-05-2020):561-568. https://doi.org/10.4995/HEAd20.2020.11108OCS56156830-05-202

SMART-QUAL: a dashboard for quality measurement in higher education institutions

Purpose – The paper aims to define a dashboard of indicators to assess the quality performance of higher education institutions (HEI). The instrument is termed SMART-QUAL. Design/methodology/approach –Two sources were used in order to explore potential indicators. In the first step, information disclosed in official websites or institutional documentation of 36 selected HEIs was analyzed. This first step also included in depth structured high managers’ interviews. A total of 223 indicators emerged. In a second step, recent specialized literature was revised searching for indicators, capturing additional 302 indicators. Findings – Each one of the 525 total indicators was classified according to some attributes and distributed into 94 intermediate groups. These groups feed a debugging, prioritization and selection process, which ended up in the SMART-QUAL instrument: a set of 56 key performance indicators, which are grouped in 15 standards, and, in turn, classified into the 3 HEI missions. A basic model and an extended model are also proposed. Originality/value – The paper provides a useful measure of quality performance of HEIs, showing a holistic view to monitor HEI quality from three fundamental missions. This instrument might assist HEI managers for both assessing and benchmarking purposes. The paper ends with recommendations for university managers and public administration authorities

Switching TNF antagonists in patients with chronic arthritis: An observational study of 488 patients over a four-year period

The objective of this work is to analyze the survival of infliximab, etanercept and adalimumab in patients who have switched among tumor necrosis factor (TNF) antagonists for the treatment of chronic arthritis. BIOBADASER is a national registry of patients with different forms of chronic arthritis who are treated with biologics. Using this registry, we have analyzed patient switching of TNF antagonists. The cumulative discontinuation rate was calculated using the actuarial method. The log-rank test was used to compare survival curves, and Cox regression models were used to assess independent factors associated with discontinuing medication. Between February 2000 and September 2004, 4,706 patients were registered in BIOBADASER, of whom 68% had rheumatoid arthritis, 11% ankylosing spondylitis, 10% psoriatic arthritis, and 11% other forms of chronic arthritis. One- and two-year drug survival rates of the TNF antagonist were 0.83 and 0.75, respectively. There were 488 patients treated with more than one TNF antagonist. In this situation, survival of the second TNF antagonist decreased to 0.68 and 0.60 at 1 and 2 years, respectively. Survival was better in patients replacing the first TNF antagonist because of adverse events (hazard ratio (HR) for discontinuation 0.55 (95% confidence interval (CI), 0.34-0.84)), and worse in patients older than 60 years (HR 1.10 (95% CI 0.97-2.49)) or who were treated with infliximab (HR 3.22 (95% CI 2.13-4.87)). In summary, in patients who require continuous therapy and have failed to respond to a TNF antagonist, replacement with a different TNF antagonist may be of use under certain situations. This issue will deserve continuous reassessment with the arrival of new medications. © 2006 Gomez-Reino and Loreto Carmona; licensee BioMed Central Ltd