Title: Complementing education with competence development: an ICT-based application

Authors: Andrea Bikfalvi, Josep Llach Pages, Jussi Kantola, Pilar Marques Gou, Nuria Mancebo Fernandez

Addresses: Department of Business Administration and Product Design (OGEDP), Universitat de Girona, Av. Lluis Santalo s/n, Escola Politecnica Superior, Campus Montilivi, 17071 Girona, Spain. ' Department of Business Administration and Product Design (OGEDP), Universitat de Girona, Av. Lluis Santalo s/n, Escola Politecnica Superior, Campus Montilivi, 17071 Girona, Spain. ' Department of Industrial Management and Engineering, Tampere University of Technology at Pori, Pohjoisranta 11, P.O. Box 300, FI-28101 Pori, Finland. ' Department of Business Administration and Product Design (OGEDP), Universitat de Girona, Av. Lluis Santalo s/n, Escola Politecnica Superior, Campus Montilivi, 17071 Girona, Spain. ' Department of Business Administration and Product Design (OGEDP), Universitat de Girona, Av. Lluis Santalo s/n, Escola Politecnica Superior, Campus Montilivi, 17071 Girona, Spain

Abstract: Nowadays, university policies highlight the importance of complementing teaching activities with competence development in the framework of the European Higher Education domain. A previous step for this concerns the development of an effective, efficient, practice-oriented, and user-friendly competence evaluation tool. The main objective of this article is to illustrate the use of a competence self-evaluation tool and to explore the implications of such Information and Communication Technology (ICT) tool for education. We use a web-based tool designed to assess and develop social and personal competences, which is applicable to the learning process. We apply it to a Spanish university, with students considered as project managers of their studies. We obtain some validation of the tool as an instrument for self-evaluation, with effects on the attitude towards learning, providing knowledge on the contribution of the learning activities to developing competences. We also discuss a series of implications at different levels of the education community: university management, teaching centres and, just as important, students.

Keywords: competence development; self-evaluation; evaluation tools; management of education; knowledge management; ICT; information and communications technology; information technology; higher education; competence evaluation; learning process; Spain; project management.

DOI: 10.1504/IJMIE.2007.015123

International Journal of Management in Education, 2007 Vol.1 No.3, pp.231 - 250

Published online: 17 Sep 2007 *

Full-text access for editors Full-text access for subscribers Purchase this article Comment on this article