Innovative methodology to improve the quality of electronic engineering formation through teaching industrial computer engineering

An innovative educational methodology adapted to the requirements of a new era with new societal and industrial challenges for electronic engineers is proposed in this paper. This active methodology, known as the Educational Innovation Project (EIP), is being studied in the Electronic Engineering (EE) degree of the Higher Technical School of Design Engineering at the Polytechnic University of Valencia, Valencia, Spain. The main objective of the EIP methodology is to improve the process of teaching and learning in order to increase student success. To accomplish this objective, the EIP method addresses various issues. From an organizational viewpoint, different structural aspects of the EE degree have been adapted, such as balancing and integrating lectures and laboratory sessions, advancing into interdisciplinary studies coordinated among all the subjects of the course, and strengthening the work in teams to tackle real engineer problems. The industrial computer engineering (ICE) subject is taken as a reference to show how these aspects have been applied. Regarding the faculty, lecturers participate in an open and permanent process of further training; attitudes toward cooperation and exchanges of experience among them are promoted; and research and reflection on new methodologies is encouraged. One of the challenges of the implementation of the EIP project is the development of multidisciplinary projects by team workers. The knowledge acquired from all the subjects is put into practice through the development of a common project to undertake real engineering problems.