“Introduction to ICT Engineering” is the first of four project-oriented courses distributed along all the degrees in TelecomBCN, at the Technical University of Catalonia (UPC). This course was given for the first time during the spring semester of 2010, and currently we are reaching the end of the sixth edition. Following the 4th CDIO standard, it provides the framework for engineering practice in product and system building, and introduces essential personal and interpersonal skills. Among its main goals we can cite “to make students understand the engineering context and acquire motivation through the exposure to complex ICT system building”. The course conception and design was already detailed in a communication in the 6th international CDIO conference. It was first implemented, according to the original design, in Feb 2010 with a reduced number of students; but after this initial experience and six editions, the course achieved its regular operation by including many modifications, mainly motivated by the feedback we got from faculty and students. This paper describes how the initial design has been dynamically adapted to the specificities of a 300 students-per-year course, especially regarding contents, methodology and assessment. The evolution of pass rate and student satisfaction is also detailed.
Proceedings of the 9th International CDIO Conference, Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Harvard University School of Engineering and Applied Sciences, Cambridge, Massachusetts, June 9 – 13, 2013.