Factors Considered in the Assessment of Computer Science Engineering Capstone Projects and their Influence on Discrepancies between Assessors

A capstone project is an extensive learning experience traditionally developed during a student’s final academic year. Assessing such a complex assignment involves several challenges and is usually based upon the evaluations of at least two different people: the capstone project advisor, and one or more other assessors. Quantitative studies comparing only different assessors' grades and qualitative studies investigating the origin of possible discrepancies have been conducted. In both cases, contradictory conclusions were reached. The objective of this study is to analyze the factors that are given consideration by assessors of engineering capstone projects and the influence of these factors on the discrepancies between different assessors’ opinions of the same project. This study quantitatively examined 162 computer science engineering capstone projects developed by one student and supervised by one advisor. Each project was assessed by the project advisor and a committee. For each project, the advisor and the committee were asked to complete an additional questionnaire on product characteristics, student competences, and project supervision. Competences demonstrated by the student were found to be the most relevant element when a capstone project was evaluated by the advisor and the committee; product characteristics were found to be second in influence. Furthermore, advisors grant minor significance to the advisor-involvement component. Discrepancies between grades seem to be associated with those aspects to which one assessor has access, while the other does not, such as student skills demonstrated during project development or their performance in the oral defense. Both the advisor’s and the committee’s perspectives are important in the assessment of this complex task and they complement one another

The Effects of Adding Non-Compulsory Exercises to an Online Learning Tool on Student Performance and Code Copying

This study analyzes the impact of adding a review exercises module to an online tool used in a software engineering degree program. The objective of the module is to promote students’ self-learning effort to improve their performance. We also intend to determine if this new feature has any effect on the amount of code copies detected in lab sessions when using the same online tool. Two groups of students were compared quantitatively: the first group used the tool exclusively during lab sessions, whereas the second group had the option of employing the tool's new module to enhance their study. The tool allows us to collect interesting data related to the focus of this research: supplementary work completed voluntarily by students and the percentage of students copying others’ code during compulsory lab sessions. The results show that the students in the second group achieved better academic results and copied less in lab sessions. In the second group, the students who invested more effort in doing revision exercises and copied less in lab sessions obtained better results; and, interestingly, the effort invested in completing review exercises did not seem to compensate for the learning effort avoided by copying others’ exercises during lab sessions. The results show the advantages of a tool used with a dual orientation: compulsory and voluntary. Mandatory usage in lab sessions establishes some milestones that, eventually, act as an incentive fostering learning, while voluntary use reinforces students’ perception of the tool's usefulness in terms of learning

Borates or phosphates? That is the question

[EN] Chemical nomenclature is perceived to be a closed topic. However, this work shows that the identification of polyanionic groups is still ambiguous and so is the nomenclature for some ternary compounds. Two examples, boron phosphate (BPO4) and boron arsenate (BAsO4), which were assigned to the large phosphate and arsenate families, respectively, nearly a century ago, are explored. The analyses show that these two compounds should be renamed phosphorus borate (PBO4) and arsenic borate (AsBO4). Beyond epistemology, this has pleasing consequences at several levels for the predictive character of chemistry. It paves the way for future work on the possible syntheses of SbBO4 and BiBO4, and it also renders previous structure field maps completely predictive, allowing us to foresee the structure and phase transitions of NbBO4 and TaBO4. Overall, this work demonstrates that quantum mechanics calculations can contribute to the improvement of current chemical nomenclature. Such revisitation is necessary to classify compounds and understand their properties, leading to the main final aim of a chemist: predicting new compounds, their structures and their transformations.This research was partially supported by Spanish MINECO (grant Nos. MAT2015-71070-REDC and MAT2016-75586-C4-2-P, and MALTA Consolider Team RED2018-102612-T) and Generalitat Valenciana (grant No. PROMETEO/2018/123-EFIMAT). J. Contreras-Garci ' a thanks CALSIMLAB (public grant No. ANR-11-LABX-0037-01), overseen by the French National Research Agency (ANR) as part of the Investissements d'Avenir program (grant No. ANR-11-IDEX-0004-02). M. Marque ' s acknowledges support from the ERC grant `Hecate' and computational resources provided by the UKCP consortium under EPSRC grant EP/P022561/1.Contreras-García, J.; Izquierdo-Ruiz, F.; Marqués, M.; Manjón, F. (2020). Borates or phosphates? That is the question. 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Valoración de los estilos de dirección de proyectos fin de carrera en ingeniería informática

Completamos aquí un estudio realizado sobre dirección de proyectos fin de carrera (PFC) en Ingeniería Informática. Entonces usamos una encuesta para determinar una tipología de estilos de dirección de PFC. Resumimos ahora los resultados de aquel estudio, ampliándolo con nuevos ratios para valorar los resultados de la aplicación de cada estilo en cuanto a calificación, duración del PFC y tiempo dedicado por el director, teniendo en cuenta el tipo de alumno. Estos resultados pueden ayudar a los tutores de PFC a encontrar distintas formas de dirección a utilizar.SUMMARY -- This paper complements a previous study we conducted on capstone projects in Computer Science Engineering. Then we used a survey to determine a typology of supervision styles for that projects. This article summarizes the results of that study, extending them with new ratios to assess the results of the application of each style in terms of grade obtained, duration and time spent by the director, considering the type of student. These results can help supervisors to find other ways of supervision

Using Process Mining to Analyze Time-Distribution of Self-Assessment and Formative Assessment Exercises on an Online Learning Tool

The study of the relationships between self-regulated learning and formative assessment is an active line of research in the educational community. A recent review of the literature highlights that the study of these connections has been mainly unidirectional, focusing on how formative assessment helps students to self-regulate their learning, being much less explored the effect of self-regulated learning strategies on formative assessment. In this context, analyzing automatically captured students’ activities within online learning tools can provide us further insights on the interactions between these two topics. More specifically, this article examines the activity traces of 382 students who used an online tool to learn a programming language. The tool incorporates review exercises for promoting self-assessment (an important self-regulated learning strategy). Furthermore, the tool is used in supervised laboratories where students receive formative assessment. This study uses process mining techniques to analyze the temporal component of student behavior in both types of activities, their interaction, and how self-assessment relates to formative assessment. Some key lessons are learned: activities promoting self-assessment significantly improved students’ involvement in formative assessment activities; increasing selfassessment cannot compensate for a lack of effort in formative assessment. We also underline that, to the best of our knowledge, to date no research has used process mining to consider the time component in the analysis of the relationships between formative assessment and self-assessment

Valoración de los Estilos de Dirección de Proyectos Fin de Carrera en Ingeniería Informática

Completamos aquí un estudio realizado sobre dirección de proyectos fin de carrera (PFC) en Ingeniería Informática. Entonces usamos una encuesta para determinar una tipología de estilos de dirección de PFC. Resumimos ahora los resultados de aquel estudio, ampliándolo con nuevos ratios para valorar los resultados de la aplicación de cada estilo en cuanto a calificación, duración del PFC y tiempo dedicado por el director, teniendo en cuenta el tipo de alumno. Estos resultados pueden ayudar a los tutores de PFC a encontrar distintas formas de dirección a utilizar.This paper complements a previous study we conducted on capstone projects in Computer Science Engineering. Then we used a survey to determine a typology of supervision styles for that projects. This article summarizes the results of that study, extending them with new ratios to assess the results of the application of each style in terms of grade obtained, duration and time spent by the director, considering the type of student. These results can help supervisors to find other ways of supervision

Control of the degradation of silica sol-gel hybrid coatings for metal implants prepared by the triple combination of alkoxysilanes

Hybrid materials obtained by sol-gel process are able to degrade and release Si compounds that are useful in regenerative medicine due to their osteoinductive properties. The present work studies the behavior of new organic-inorganic sol-gel coatings based on triple mixtures of alkoxysilanes in different molar ratios. The precursors employed are methyl-trimethoxysilane (MTMOS), 3-glycidoxypropyl-trimethoxysilane (GPTMS) and tetraethyl-orthosilicate (TEOS). After optimization of the synthesis conditions, the coatings were characterized using 29Si nuclear magnetic resonance (29Si-MNR), Fourier transform infrared spectrometry (FT-IR), contact angle measurements, hydrolytic degradation assays, electrochemical impedance spectroscopy (EIS) and mechanical profilometry. The degradation and EIS results show that by controlling the amount of TEOS precursor in the coating it is possible to tune its degradation by hydrolysis, while keeping properties such as wettability at their optimum values for biomaterials application. The corrosion properties of the new coatings were also evaluated when applied to stainless steel substrate. The coatings showed an improvement of the anticorrosive properties of the steel which is important to protect the metal implants at the early stages of the regeneration process.The financial support of MAT2014-51918-C2-2-R, P11B2014-19 and Plan de Promoción de la Investigación from the Universitat Jaume I (Predoc/2014/25) is gratefully acknowledged. J. García-Cañadas acknowledge financial support from Ramón y Cajal programme (RYC-2013-13970). The experimental support of Raquel Oliver Valls and José Ortega Herreros is also acknowledged

Carga de trabajo de los alumnos en prácticas en empresa y asignaturas simultáneas

Durante los últimos años muchos currículos de informática se han beneficiado de la incorporación de prácticas que se realizan en el seno de empresas. Los planes de Bolonia hacen hincapié en el control de los tiempos de dedicación a las asignaturas mediante la asignación de créditos ECTS. Estos créditos establecen tanto el número de horas presenciales como de trabajo autónomo del alumno. En el caso de las prácticas en empresa esto no es una excepción. En el presente trabajo describimos un modelo de incorporación de prácticas en empresa obligatorias en un Grado en Ingeniería Informática. Tras cinco cursos desde su implantación completa, analizamos la dedicación horaria que los alumnos realizan a las prácticas y la influencia de dicha dedicación sobre las asignaturas que se cursan simultáneamente (y en el posterior Trabajo Fin de Grado). También analizamos la satisfacción del alumnado sobre estas prácticas y citamos algunas tecnologías que usan que van más allá de las introducidas en el aula universitaria. Las conclusiones de este trabajo destacan tanto la importancia que tienen este tipo de prácticas en el currículo de graduado en informática como la necesidad de una cuidadosa coordinación con el resto de asignaturas que se imparten simultáneamente.Recently, many computer science curriculums have benefited from the inclusion of internships that are carried out within companies. The Bologna plans emphasize the control of the time devoted to the courses by assigning them a number of ECTS credits. These credits establish the number of classroom hours and the number of hours dedicated by students autonomously. In the case of internships, the same thing happens. In this paper we describe a model of incorporation of compulsory internships in a Degree in Computer Science Engineering. After five courses since its full implementation, we analyzed the time spent by the students to the internships. We also observe how this dedication influences the effort made by the students in the subjects they attend simultaneously (and in the subsequent Final Degree Project). We also analyze the satisfaction of students on internships and we also highlight some technologies used that go beyond those introduced in university classrooms. The conclusions of this work highlight both the importance of internships in the computer science curriculum and the need for careful coordination with subjects taught simultaneously.Este trabajo ha sido parcialmente subvencionado por el Ministerio de Economía, Industria y Competitividad, proyecto EDU2016-79838-P

Luces y sombras de las estancias en empresa, impulsoras de los trabajos de fin de grado

En diferentes estudios internacionales se observa una influencia muy positiva de las prácticas en empresa sobre los resultados académicos en las asignaturas que las siguen. La colaboración en el plan de estudios con la asociación de empresas de informática más importante de nuestra región dio lugar a una asignatura obligatoria y otra optativa de prácticas en empresa y la posibilidad de realizar el trabajo de fin de grado (TFG) en empresas. De esta forma, un estudiante puede permanecer un curso académico en la empresa a tiempo parcial. En este trabajo analizamos los pros y contras de las estancias en empresa mediante un estudio bibliográfico y el análisis de su influencia sobre los TFG.Different international studies on internships identify a very positive influence on the academic results of the subsequent courses. The collaboration in the elaboration of the degree curriculum with the most important association of computer companies in our territory, gave rise to a compulsory course and an optional one to carry out internships. In addition to the above, students have the possibility to continue in the company by performing a capstone project. Therefore, a student can remain part time a full academic year in the company. In this work we analyze the pros and cons of internships through a bibliographic study and the analysis of their influence on subsequent capstone projects.Este trabajo ha sido parcialmente subvencionado por el Ministerio de Economía, Industria y Competitividad, proyecto EDU2016-79838-P

VIGICOP: autonomous surveillance robots with Sodar detection and autonomous navigator

The main goal of the project described in this paper is to create a security system using autonomous surveillance robots that use SODAR-like detection system sensors, working with acoustic signals in air environment and navigation base on Geographic Information System and Markov's models. The surveillance system based on SONAR provides great information from the environment, even lets you see behind objects (rebounds effects) whose manipulation offers a great added value to surveillance The guide system will implement in one hand a local navigation module directed to avoid obstacles based on classical techniques and using the new SODAR sensor. On the other hand a global navigation module will be implemented using preset trajectories and gradient techniques and an auto-location system. One of the greatest challenges obtained is the definition of the VIGICOPVar variable that defines, depending on the environment and safety parameters, the probability of intrusion. Surveillance experts of GRUPO NORTE (multinational company with security expertise of more than 38 years) have worked In the definition and validation of the model. The monitoring robots will be controlled in a centralized way from an alarm center from where you can manage all information relating to intrusion detected. VIGICOP is the low cost surveillance robot which provides new/full information interactive surveillance informatio