Proceedings of the 1st Workshop on

Methods and Cases in

Computing Education

Held in Salamanca (Spain), October 22nd 2008.

Published by the Spanish Chapter of the ACM Special Interest Group on Computer
Science Education with the collaboration of the Pontifical University of Salamanca.

www.upsa.es www.sigcse.es

ISBN 978-84-691-8558-2

Methods and Cases in Computing Education by Spain ACM SIGCSE Chapter is licensed under a
Creative Commons Reconocimiento 2.5 España License.
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Foreword
By Juan-Manuel Dodero, president of the ACM SIGCSE Spanish Chapter

The ACM SIGCSE Spanish Chapter is the chapter of the Association for Computing Machinery
(ACM) Special Interest Group on Computer Science Education (SIGCSE) serving Spain. It
started operations in 2008. The chapter provides a forum for common problems among
educators working to develop, implement and evaluate computing programs, curricula and
courses, as well as syllabi, laboratories, learning technologies, and other elements of
teaching and pedagogy. The Chapter supports activities complimentary to SIGCSE, the ACM,
and other ACM activities in the Spain area.
The Chapter is organized and operated for educational and scientific purposes, its aim being
to increase knowledge about computing education, as well as to serve as a means of
communication for those interested in this discipline. The workshop on Methods and Cases in
Computing Education (MCCE) is the first of a series of events intended to the dissemination
of the activities of the chapter members. As such, it will publish articles dealing with the joy,
pain and hope of our daily teaching and research experiences in computing education. The
MCCE workshop thus constitutes a forum open to anyone wanting to contribute to the
chapter aims. The birth of the Chapter and, specially, the first edition of the MCCE workshop,
have the main objective of contributing to the discussions on the European Higher Education
Area held among the Spanish Higher Education community. For the first edition of MCCE,
held at Salamanca, a number of nine contributions were selected after a peer review process
carried out by the chapter committee members.

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Table of contents
Exploring the impact of planning and design in the development of
programming laboratory practice...................................................................7
Jesús Cáceres Tello, Santiago Pérez Cámara, Juan José Sánchez Peña

Introducing Information Systems to Computer Science students – how to

explain the difference?.................................................................................13
Miguel-Angel Sicilia

Educational resource development for Software Engineering and

Information Systems core subjects...............................................................19
Elena Orta, Juan Manuel Dodero, Mª Teresa García, Nuria Hurtado,
José Luis Isla, Mercedes Ruiz

Case study: Glacial Discharge to learn Statistics...........................................29

Carmen Domínguez Álvarez, Ascensión Hernández Encinas,
Araceli Queiruga Dios, Isabel Visus Ruiz

A Case study of the adaptation of Problem-Based Learning for programming

subjects ........................................................................................................33
Víctor Manuel Álvarez García, María del Puerto Paule Ruiz,
Juan Ramón Pérez Pérez

Continuous Assessment in Software Engineering........................................41

Francisco J. García Peñalvo, Miguel A. Conde González,
Sergio Bravo Martín

A preliminary evaluation of the impact of using a visual tool in a compilers

course............................................................................................................47
Daniel Rodríguez, Salvador Sánchez-Alonso

Using learning object repositories for teaching Statistics.............................53

Julià Minguillón, Maria Antònia Huertas, Angel Alejandro Juan,
Teresa Sancho, Victor Cavaller

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6
Exploring the impact of planning and design
in the development of programming
laboratory practice
Jesús Cáceres Tello, Santiago Pérez Cámara, Juan José Sánchez Peña
Computer Science Department, University of Alcalá
Ctra. Barcelona km. 33.6 – 28871 Alcalá de Henares (Madrid)
{jesus.caceres,santiago.perez,juanjo.sanchez}@uah.es

Abstract
Emphasizing planning and design in small-scale, individual programming assignments has been
the subject of methods as the Personal Software Process (PSP), mostly targeted to education in
process-orientation. However, there is a lack of evidence about the impact these practices have in
the quality of the final product in concrete educational settings. This paper reports on data
gathered in the context of a data structures laboratory-based course, contrasting the outcomes of
students that followed a process similar to the PSP with those that did not. The results point out
that attention to some process activities rather than going straight to programming correlate with
better outcomes.

1. Introduction
Assignments in beginning courses (CS1) requiring non-trivial programming in some cases
result in poor grades and early drop-out of continuous assessment tracks. Particularly, in
courses beyond “introduction to programming”, students are faced with practice-oriented
courses that require not only considerable time devoted to understanding the theories and
techniques explained in the lectures, but also a change in the way of analyzing and dealing
with problems of increasing complexity. This requires significant effort and represents a
challenge to many students. The evidence of this difficulty can be attributed to several
hypothetical causes, one of them being the lack of a proper, disciplined approach to
programming. One way to investigate that connection would be that of introducing some
small-scale process to students so that they approach programming assignments in a
disciplined way, controlling effort and carrying out design prior to coding and testing.
The introduction of such small-scale processes can be done by methods as the Personal
Software Process [1]. Using such processes can be considered valuable in itself as a
preparation to a broader Software Engineering context, but the focus here is only on how
such practices may impact the quality of the product of programming assignments. To do so,
the research reported here contrasted the grades in programming assignments of two
groups of students. Concretely, second semester CS1 students of a “Data Structures”
introductory course were divided in two groups randomly, and the PSP was introduced only
to one of the groups. The course required a significant amount of programming in the form
of assignments, with a total 7.5 credits (with one credit accounting for 10 lecture hours). The
profile of the students in these courses is characterized by having passed introductory
programming courses, but they have still not been introduced to Software Engineering
processes of any kind.
The Personal Software Process (PSP) has been used elsewhere in educational contexts [3] as

7
a method for software process improvement, where a major objective is to reduce the
number of defects in conducting practices in the laboratories of programming. The PSP is a
methodology promoted by the Software Engineering Institute (SEI), oriented to professional
practice: “the PSP can be used by engineers as a guide to a disciplined and structured
approach to developing software”. It considers aspects such as planning, quality, productivity
and cost estimates and has been studied from the viewpoint of individual productivity [2].
This covers all the activities that the individual developer undertakes to achieve quality in
software by creating a series of documents called scripts, which gather quantitative data on
effort spent, among other information, for the purpose of self-learning and self-assessment.
The PSP methodology is applicable to non-trivial programming assignments as those often
found in Data Structure courses.
The rest of this paper is structured as follows. Section 2 provides the methodological details
of the study reported here. Section 3 discusses the results, and conclusions and future
research directions are provided in Section 4.

2. Objectives and method

The case reported in this paper had several objectives related to educational research:
1. That the students appreciate and use an appropriate methodology as is the PSP
which emphasizes disciplined coding, emphasizing design and reviews.
2. That the students obtain and analyze daily data for self-control of their capabilities
and improvement with time.
3. To introduce students on the importance of disciplined practice in the form of
processes, as a preparation for Software Engineering courses.
The PSP entails the gathering of detailed data, and the instructors developed a digital form
for facilitating data collection, covering only the data that was considered significant for the
objectives set. That data gathering form was integrated in the virtual classroom (using the
Moodle open source platform; http://moodle.org/) used as a supplement to face-to-face lab
sessions.
The experience was conducted with 60 students of the four-year Computer Science degree
offered by the University (in Spanish, the degree is named “Ingeniería en Informática”). The
students were enrolled in the mandatory “Data Structures” course, second semester, first
year. The students were divided in two groups of the same size, one of them serving as
control group. The control group was not instructed about the PSP, and they were not asked
to use it. However, both groups had had the same lectures, assignments, instructors and
teaching materials.
Fig. 1 shows the form PSP, with a first section of identification data ( "Datos de Registro")
which identifies both the student as the identifier of the assignment which corresponds to
the data provided. The second section (“Registro de Tiempos”) is where the student
recorded time spent at each stage in minutes, providing optionally any relevant comments.
The third section (“Registros Totales”) summarizes the total number of minutes spent on
each phase for the assignments development may indicate that the activities have been
carried out in each.

8
 Fig. 1: Data gathered for each of the assignments.

The phases selected were the following:

1. Planning (“Planificación” in Fig. 1) stage consisting of the time spent by students
reading practice and seeking information relating to its final execution.
2. Design (“Diseño” in Fig. 1) stage where the student creates the modular design of his
application as well as the designs of required user interfaces.
3. Coding stage (“Codificación” in Fig. 1), the time spent by students writing the
application code.
4. Compilation stage (“Compilación” in Fig. 1), time needed for the compilation and
initial debugging of code.
5. Testing stage (“Testeo” in Fig. 1) where students perform the necessary test for the
application.
The following table shows the assignment description. The weight of each assignment was
the same except the last with a weight slightly higher than others because of increased
complexity.

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 Table 1: Description of the assignments.
Assignment Start End
Objectives Weight
ID week week
ASN1 Definition and management of stacks 30% 1 4
ASN2 Definition and management priority queue 30% 5 9
ASN3 Definition and management of binary trees 40% 10 14

The following table summarizes the times spent by students in each of the phases for each of
the assignments. Data in the table are means and standard deviation is provided in
parentheses.
Table 2: Average and standard deviation for each phase and assignments
Assignment ID Planning Design Coding Compilation Testing
ASN1 4.5 (3.3) 11.5 (5.5) 135.0 (35.9) 44.4 (11.7) 14.2 (8.6)
ASN2 10.1 (3.8) 22.6 (6.8) 105 (37.3) 34.3 (11.0) 18.8 (8.4)
ASN3 15.4 (2.0) 34.2 (6.8) 87.7 (28.8) 27.1 (9.3) 18.3 (4.68)

The language used in this studio was being Pascal and the tool for developing was the free
software FreePascal (http://www.freepascal.org/). The evaluation of the assignments was
based on three fundamental criteria:
1. Correctness.
2. Consistency, clarity and source code comments.
3. Documentation, following rules previously established about how to describe the
structure of the code.

3. Discussion
The main question explored was if process-oriented approaches result in increased
programming quality. In consequence, data analysis is oriented to contrast the time spent in
process phases (except coding) and the grades obtained in each assignment.
Fig. 2 shows the time spent in each phase (measured in minutes) per each assignment. In the
last assignment, showed in Fig. 2 (c), students increased their times in the early stages of
development. In contrast, time devoted to coding is reduced in some cases up to 30%.
Fig. 3 compares the average grades obtained in each of the assignments in the PSP and
control groups. Overall, it is apparent that there is an increase in the quality of the outcomes
in the case of using PSP, which seems to increases as the course advances.
Fig. 4 depicts the changes in time spent along the development of assignments. There is a
clear increase in all phases of planning and design contrary to what happens with the other
phases in which there is a clear decline in time spent by students.

10
 200 180
180 160
160 140
140 120
120 100
100 80
80 60
60 40
40
20 20
0 0
0 1 2 3 4 5 0 1 2 3 4 5

Stages in the development of Practice Stages in the development of Practice

(a) (b)
160
140
120
100
80
60
40
20
0
0 1 2 3 4 5
Stages in the development of Practice

(c)
Fig. 2: Time spent by students at each stage and assignment
10
9

8
6,38
Qualifications

7
5,37
6
5 4,38 4,6
4 PSP Group
4,2 4,3
3 Control Group
2
1
0
First Second Third

Pratice s

Fig. 3: Grades obtained in each of the groups

160
140
120 Planning
100 Design
80 Coding
60 Compiling
40 Testing
20
0
ASN1 ASN2 ASN3

Fig. 4: Changing times each phase

11
The data presented above provides some evidence on the appropriateness of using
methodological approaches in programming assignments, and on the importance of
planning and design.

4. Conclusions
Introducing process orientation early in student assignments can be considered potentially
beneficial as a tool for a more disciplined approach to programming .
This paper has reported on a comparative study in which the PSP method was used as an
individual process for developing assignments in a Data Structures first year course. The
contrast with a control group showed significant improvement in grades correlated to the
time spent by students in the design and planning phases. This may be interpreted as
evidence on the positive effect of process orientation in programming assignment
development.
Future work should contrast also the grades with source code metrics, and the contrast
should be repeated in the future to increase the reliability of the conclusions presented here.
Also, future studies should attempt to uncover the main reasons why process orientation
appears as useful in small programming assignments.

References
1. Grove, R.F. (1998) Using the personal software process to motivate good
programming practices. ACM SIGCSE Bulletin, 30(3), pp. 98-101.
2. Hayes, W., and Over, J. W. (1997). The Personal Software Process (PSP): An Empirical
Study of the Impact of the PSP on Individual Engineers. Technical Report CMU/SEI-97-
TR-001, ESC-TR-97-001. Software Engineering Institute. December.
3. Wohlin, C. and Wesslen, A. (1998). Understanding software defect detection in the
Personal Software Process. In: Proceedings of the Ninth International Symposium on
Software Reliability Engineering, IEEE Computer Society, p. 49.

12
Introducing Information Systems to Computer
Science students – how to explain the
difference?
Miguel-Angel Sicilia
Computer Science Department, University of Alcalá
Carretera de Barcelona km.33.6
28871 Alcalá de Henares (Madrid) SPAIN
msicilia@uah.es

Abstract
Educating Computer Science students in Information Systems (IS) requires a shift from a more
theoretical problem-solving education to the organizational context, which is closer to the social
sciences and to management. Information System degrees have not been offered in countries as
Spain to date, and only with the new regulatory change of the Bologna process it may be possible
that IS establishes as a separate academic discipline. In consequence, IS in our national context is
not recognizable by most of the students, which tend to confuse IS with the management issues
of Software Engineering. Teaching IS topics to CS graduates thus requires first clarifying the scope.
This paper reports on a concrete approach that has been used two times in a postgraduate course
on introduction to IS to CS students.

1. Motivation
The discipline of Information Systems (IS) is considered by the ACM/IEEE/AIS curricula
(http://www.acm.org/education/curricula-recommendations) as one of the branches of
computing, with a clear focus on technology management and information technology as a
resource for organizations. In spite of being a discipline with a tradition in many countries, it
has still not reached a status of independence from other computing disciplines in countries
as Spain.
The Spanish regulatory system before the “Bologna process” of European convergence led to
a generalist long degree, often of five years, and two shorter three-year degrees with a focus
on “systems” and “management”. While the latter short degree typically includes some
business management or accountancy courses, the structure and core contents of the three
degrees in most of the cases were closer to a Computer Science curriculum, or to a core of
Computer Science with emphasis either on Computer Engineering or Software Engineering.
In any case, the discipline of IS in Spain was not recognized as independent, and research
groups focused on IS topics were scattered. With the recent regulatory change in Spain
following the so-called “Bologna process”, the opportunity for having IS degrees has opened,
and there is an increasing awareness of the importance of further developing the discipline
at the national level. The recent creation of a Spanish chapter of the Association for
Information Systems (AIS) is a consequence of that increasing interest. However, as of today,
teaching introductory IS to computing graduates in Spain poses the supplementary challenge
of communicating the differences of IS with other computing disciplines as Computer
Science or Software Engineering. The ACM/IEEE/AIS “Overview Report” of the Computing
Curricula 2005 explains the difference by drawings as the one provided in Fig. 1.

13
Fig. 1. ACM/IEEE/AIS graphical representation of IS in the overview report of the Computing
Curricula 2005.
Fig. 1 clearly shows that IS covers mostly organizational issues and a part of more
application-oriented software and infrastructure contents. While these abstract
representations are useful to delineate the boundaries, they are not easily understood by
students that have never introduced systematically on the core IS topics. Particularly, our
classroom experience has uncovered a frequent misunderstanding of IS as the
“management” part of Software Engineering (SE). Software Engineering management is
defined in the SWEBOK guide (http://www.swebok.org/) as: “the application of management
activities—planning, coordinating, measuring, monitoring, controlling, and reporting—to
ensure that the development and maintenance of software is systematic, disciplined, and
quantified”. This definition refers to the application of management to software
development, which is clearly different from the management of information technology and
information resources as a strategic or operational resource, the main focus of IS. Most SE
management issues are clearly in scope of the consideration of the IS professional, but the
reverse is not always true, since SE management is of a narrower and more technical scope.
The difficulties described so far require a careful consideration of the introduction of IS to
students new in the discipline. This has lead us to considering several strategies to devise
“the first lecture” on IS which should have the role of making clear the differences. Using
general definitions of IS or contrasting with graphics as in Fig. 1 has limited effectiveness,
since they are really abstract and they do not help grasp the essence of the difference to
many students. This paper describes the way of introducing IS to CS graduates that we have

14
positively experienced in two consecutive years of a Ms. C. Degree in IS when teaching
introduction to IS. The idea was that of focusing on problems that uncover the perspective
of IS as radically different from a CS or SE standpoint.

2. Focusing on the role of information technology

The core of IS is the intersection of information technology (IT) and organizational needs. In
consequence, this relation is a core focus of any IS introductory material. The first question
that arises when comparing that relationship is about the value of IT for organizations. The
fact is that IT in itself has constituted a competitive advantage to some enterprises in the
past, but mainstream IT is closer to a commodity. A controversial but still fresh paper that
can be used to introduce the relationship is the “ IT Doesn't Matter” paper by Nicholas Carr
[1]. The paper supports the position that IT has become a commodity for companies, like
electricity. Carr's arguments have been widely criticized and the paper has the feature of
triggering discussion and controversy. The discussion can be put in context by reviewing
theories of competitive advantage. Porter's famous five-forces framework [5] can be used as
a theoretical background to construct arguments in favor or against Carr's position, and the
resource-based view of the firm [7] can be used as a complement. Another important
feature of Carr's paper is that there are many replies available through the Web, so that
students can review and analyze existing criticisms to construct their own position on the
topic.
The discussion on the value of IT inside organizations thus connects with models of value
and competitive advantage of technology, raising a new class of problems that are not
usually taught in Computer Science degrees. Irrespective of the validity credited to Carr's
claims, the important morale of the discussion is that IT from the IS view is a mean towards
an end, and business and organizational needs are the drivers of the selection and
implementation of technology. This can also be easily linked to the current models of e-
business value [2], thus connecting with another important objective in IS curricula1: the
introduction of e-commerce and related business issues.
A view on the middle is that IT can be considered a complementary resource that combined
appropriately leads to increased productivity, but investment in IT without these other
resources (as technology management and operation skills) does not produce by itself the
desired effects. Studies in this direction as the one by Brynjolfsson & Hitt [3] complement
the view on the role of IT, and they also serve to illustrate the empirical methodology typical
of many IS research studies.

1 http://www.aisnet.org/Curriculum/

15
3. From the role of IT to IS management decisions
Cases have been reported as a useful tool in IS education [8]. The idea of case-based learning
is providing a contextualized scenario and supporting the students in analyzing the problems
and recommending responses. Once the relationship of IS and business has been clarified,
the second important aspect is confronting the students with the kind of decisions they
would eventually need to take if they reach a position as IS managers. The second teaching
pattern applied for the introductory IS track is focusing on a decision-making problem. The IS
management function deals with decision-making on a particular class of problems that are
different to purely technical ones. In consequence, the strategy to highlight the difference is
searching for a decision-making topic that is (a) up-to-date and somewhat interesting to
students and (b) related to some kind of socio-cultural issue and not depending solely in
elements that are common in SE management.
In our classroom experience, we have used the case of offshore outsourcing. For example,
the short article by Ramingwong & Sajeev [6] about the risk of “keeping the mum” in
offshore outsourcing provides the ingredients required for raising the discussion and guiding
the students to understand the methodological differences between IS and CS. The article is
obviously current and it raises student interest, since they are usually concerned in general
by offshoring and its effects of national economy. Also, the paper refers to Hofstede's
Cultural Analysis [4] which includes several indices that pertain to the socio-cultural domain,
as power distance index, individualism, long-term orientation or masculinity. This confronts
students with methods coming from the social sciences, which are seldom used in the
context of SE management. The presentation of one such paper should be preceded by a
brief introduction on the surrounding topic, offshore outsourcing in this case, which also
provides room for raising issues related to cross-national regulations and operation
optimization as elements to be considered in the offshoring decision of functions difficult to
manage as software development. Then, the students can be faced to a combined analysis
mixing pure economical analysis (including communication costs) with technical
considerations (e.g. level of quality for the software produced) and also socio-cultural risk
analysis.
The approach described represents a pattern for the given teaching situation that can be
tailored to future requirements or particular characteristics of the learner profile. The salient
features of the pattern is that it introduces the shift of focus in IS including the centrality of
organizational needs and value, the change in methodologies and the emphasis on decision
making.

4. Conclusions
Introducing the IS view to students coming from more CS-oriented curricula requires shifting
the view from the theory of computation and the technical quality of technological artifacts
to a consideration of the value of IT as an organizational resource. This paper reports on a
successful two-years experience in introducing such topics by first raising the discussion on
the strategic value of IT and then moving to some more specific problems that are faced by
IS managers and that are not of a technological but of a socio-technical nature.

16
References
1. Carr, N. (2003) IT Doesn't Matter. Harvard Business Review, 81(5), pp. 41-49.
2. Currie, W. (2004) Value Creation from E-Business Models, Elsevier, Burlington, MA.
3. Brynjolfsson, E. and Hitt, L. (2000) Beyond Computation: Information Technology,
Organizational Transformation and Business Performance, Journal of Economic
Perspectives, Vol. 14, No. 4, pp. 23-48.
4. Hofstede, G. and Hofstede, G.J. (2004) Cultures and Organizations: Software of the
Mind. 2nd ed. McGraw-Hill, NY, 2004
5. Porter, M. (1979) How Competitive Forces Shape Strategy. Harvard Business Review
(May-June 1979), pp. 137-145
6. Ramingwong, S. and Sajeev, A. (2007) Offshore outsourcing: the risk of keeping
mum. Communications of the ACM 50(8): 101-103
7. Wernerfelt, B. (1984). A resource-based view of the firm. Strategic Management
Journal, 5, pp. 171-180.
8. Whiddett, R. J., Jackson, B. X. & Handy, J. A. (2000). Teaching Information Systems
Management Skills: Using Integrated Projects and Case Studies. Computer Science
Education, 10 (2), pp. 165-177.

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18
Educational resource development for
Software Engineering and Information
Systems core subjects
Elena Orta, Juan Manuel Dodero, Mª Teresa García, Nuria Hurtado, José Luis Isla, Mercedes
Ruiz
Department of Computer Languages and Systems, University of Cádiz
C/Chile, 1 11003 – Cádiz, Spain
{elena.orta,juanma.dodero,mayte.garcia,nuria.hurtado,joseluis.isla,mercedes
.ruiz}@uca.es

Abstract
In the context of the European Higher Education Area adaptation process, a number of teachers
of Software Engineering and Information Systems core subjects of the Computer Engineering
degree begin an initiative for the collaborative development of a set of educational resources that
will be used or supplemented in diverse courses of such core subjects. This initiative has been
implemented as the proposal of a project, which has been accepted in the context of a call for
Higher Education innovation projects for teachers and researchers of the University of Cádiz
(EUROPA Project) to be developed along the academic year 2008/09.

1. Introduction
This paper describes the initiative of a group of teachers of the Department of Computer
Languages and Systems of the University of Cádiz (UCA) teaching diverse courses on the core
subjects of Software Engineering and Information Systems within the first and second cycles
of the Computer Engineering degree of the University of Cádiz. These courses have being
involved for years in an adaptation process to the new educational model proposed by the
European Higher Education Area (EHEA) [1]. As a result of this process, the educational plans
and methodologies of these courses have been redesigned. This process of change has been
orchestrated through the participation of the teachers in different innovation projects for the
EHEA convergence. In this moment and within the scope of this adaptation process, we are
developing, in a coordinated and collaborative way with teachers and students, materials
and educational resources adapted to the EHEA with the goal that they can be reused in
related subjects. In the same way, we intend to continue working in this process of
adaptation by increasing the use of information and communication technologies (ICTs) in
the teaching-learning process, facilitating the coordination of the involved courses,
promoting students’ autonomous learning and fostering their active participation in the
learning process through their implication in the creation process of the educational
resources.
Our proposal is materialized in a project named “Educational resource development for
Software Engineering and Computer Systems core subjects”, which has been accepted in the
context of a call for projects on Higher Education Innovation for Teachers and Researchers of
the University of Cádiz (EUROPA Project), which will be developed along the year 2008/09.
Section 2 presents the context, motivation and goals of this initiative, as well as a short
review of the participation of the members of the team in previous activities of adaptation

19
to the EHEA. Section 3 describes the experience that we intend to carry out, its scope, the
tools used, the methodology taken and the detailed resources that will be developed. Finally,
section 4 shows the conclusions of this paper.

2. Context, motivation and goals

The construction of the EHEA and its structuring through the European Credit Transfer
System (ECTS) proposes a new educational model in which the educational plans and
methodologies must be based on students’ learning, in opposition to the traditional teacher-
centered model. A change is sought in the higher education model, where the student is the
main character, and the most important thing is what she should learn and how to guarantee
that she has learned it.
Aware of these changes, a group of teachers belonging to the Department of Computer
Languages and Systems of the UCA with several years of experience in activities and projects
for the EHEA adaptation process have shared our experiences and carried out a new
initiative inside this process.
The fundamental goal of this proposal is the development of materials and educational
resources adapted to the EHEA in the courses of the core subjects of Software Engineering
and Information Systems in the first and second cycles of the UCA Computer Engineering
degree.
This general goal is stated explicitly in the following specific objectives:
● To improve the teaching and learning educational methodologies with the purpose of
promoting the autonomous learning and the active participation of students in the
learning process.
● To foster the inclusion of ICTs in the teaching-learning process.
● To help students to acquire the generic and cross competences of core subjects of
Software Engineering and Information Systems in the EHEA context.
● To facilitate the coordination of the subjects.
● To promote the collaborative development of materials and educational resources.
● To develop materials that can be shared in several courses related with the
mentioned core subject.

3. Previous works
Table 1 recapitulates the docent innovation projects and EHEA adaptation pilot projects
where the authors of this paper have participated. The main actions that we have carried out
in the framework of such projects fit in the field named Change and Innovation in Teaching
and Learning Methodologies for the EHEA adaptation.
Table 1. Teaching innovation projects and EHEA adaptation pilot projects.
Teaching innovation projects and EHEA adaptation pilot projects
Teaching innovation project in the subject of “Advanced Programming” (Computer Science
Engineering, 5th year) [3]. First Call for projects to support innovation and improvement
educational experiences. Education Planning Vice-rectorship. Technical College, University

20
 Carlos III of Madrid. School years 2002/03 and 2003/04.
Teaching innovation project “Education Improvement of the Computer Science subjects of
the University of Cádiz”. UCA. School year 2004/05.
Teaching innovation project “Application and Evaluation of Computer Science education
improvement actions towards the EHEA” [4]. UCA. School year 2005/06.
Teaching innovation project “Adaptation of the Computer Science subjects to the EHEA” [5].
“Proyecto Europa” Call for projects, UCA. School year 2005/06.
Teaching innovation project “Educational Methodology Adaptation in the subjects of
Software engineering I and Software Engineering II to the EHEA”. “Proyecto Europa” Call for
projects, UCA. School year 2005/06.
Teaching innovation project “Active Learning in Data Base Management and design subject”
[6] “Proyecto Europa” Call for projects, UCA. School year 2005/06.
Teaching innovation project “Educational Methodology Adaptation in the subjects of
Software engineering I, Software Engineering II and Software Engineering to the EHEA”.
“Proyecto Europa” Call for projects, UCA. School year 2006/07.
Teaching innovation project “Competence acquisition for software project direction”. [7]
“Proyecto Europa” Call for projects, UCA. School year 2006/07.
EHEA adaptation pilot project in the subject “Algorithms analysis and design” (Computer
Science Engineering, 1st year). Education Planning Vice-rectorship. Technical College,
University Carlos III of Madrid. School years 2005/06 and 2006/07.
EHEA adaptation pilot project in the subject “Advanced Technology in Data Bases”
(Computer Science Engineering, 4th year). Education Planning Vice-rectorship, Engineering
College, UCA. School years 2005/2006, 2006/2007 and 2007/2008.
EHEA adaptation pilot project in the subject “Requirements Engineering” (Computer Science
Engineering, 4th year). Education Planning Vice-rectorship, Engineering College, UCA.
School years 2005/06, 2006/2007 and 2007/2008.
EHEA adaptation pilot project in the subject “Planning and management of Computer
Science Projects” (Computer Science Engineering, 5th year). Education Planning Vice-
rectorship, Engineering College, UCA. School years 2006/2007 and 2007/2008.
EHEA adaptation pilot Project in the subject “Web engineering” (Computer Science
Engineering, 4th and 5th years). Education Planning Vice-rectorship, Engineering College,
UCA. School years 2006/2007 and 2007/2008.

4. Description of the initiative

The work presented in this article essentially consists in the development of materials and
educational resources adapted to the EHEA in the courses pertaining to the core disciplines
of Software Engineering and Information Systems. The main goals of this work are: to
improve the quality of the materials and educational resources currently used, to promote
students’ active learning as they develop them, to facilitate coordination and collaboration
between these courses and to promote the reusability of materials and educational
resources as they are developed.
In this section we define the scope of our proposal and provide a global vision of the learning
contents and activity development tools that will be used. Next we describe the working
methodology and finally we detail the materials and educational resources to be developed
as well as the involved courses.

21
4.1. Scope
The scope of this work includes courses pertaining to the core disciplines of Software
Engineering and Information Systems currently taught in the first and second cycle degrees
of Computer Science at the UCA Engineering School, i.e. Technical Engineering in Computer
Science (with specialization on Management or Systems) and Computer Science Engineering.
These degrees are currently taking part in pilot projects of adaptation to the EHEA.
The UCA teaching model for these degrees is classroom-based. However, the Moodle [2] e-
learning platform is supported by the UCA to host all the courses that participate in this
initiative.
Table 2 shows the courses and degrees in which they are taught. The overall number of
students for these courses is 307.
Table 2. Courses taking part in the experience.

Course Year/ ECTS Nature Discipline

Semester
Degree: Technical Engineer in Computer Science (Management) (ITIG) (first cycle)
Software Engineering I (SEI) 3rd/1 6 Core SE
Software Engineering II (SEII) 3rd/2 6 Core SE
Degree: Technical Engineer in Computer Science (Systems) (first cycle)
Software Engineering (SE) 3rd/1 6 Compulsory SE
Degree: Computer Science Engineer (second cycle)
Data Bases Advanced Technology (DBAT) 4th/1 6 Core SE
Requirements Engineering (RE) 4th/1 6 Core SE
Planning and Management of Computer
5th/2 6 Core SE
Science Projects (PMCSP)
Web Engineering (WE) 4th and 4.5 Optional SE
5th/2

The teachers who impart these subjects make up the working team of this project, all
belonging to the UCA Department of Computer Languages and Systems.

4.2. Tools of creation of contents and learning activities

To reach our aims we will use diverse learning contents and activities development tools that
facilitate the development of the materials and educational resources and make it possible
for teachers to work collaboratively with students. Hereby they promote the autonomous
learning of the student and foster their active participation in the learning process. The
development tools are the following:
● Wikis are shared web contents about a certain topic that is collaboratively written by
a group of users, who can edit the shared contents so that the contributions can be
commented, extended and/or corrected by the rest. The creation of a wiki for our
project will facilitate the coordination of the courses of the core subjects of Software
Engineering and Information Systems, as well as the development and reuse of
materials and educational resources among the teachers and the students [8].
● LAMS (Learning Activity Management System) is a tool for designing, managing and
delivering online collaborative learning activities. It provides teachers with a visual
authoring environment for creating sequences of learning activities [9]. The use of
LAMS in our educational methodology is intended to facilitate students’ collaborative

22
 learning as well as to stimulate their active participation in the learning process.
● Standards-based reusable content development tools. Standards-based educational
resource deployment will facilitate reusing learning resources among the courses
involved in the project. In order to achieve this goal, tools that deploy SCORM [10]
compliant learning contents will be used. Currently there exist different tools that
allow creating SCORM-compliant learning contents, such as eXeLearning, which
outstands for its usability.

4.3. Work methodology

The work methodology for this project is structured in the following phases:
1. To identify the contents of the materials and educational resources to develop in
each of the courses included in the experience.
2. To analyse the existing relations among the different courses in order to plan the
development of common materials that can be developed together or re-used and/or
complemented among the different courses.
3. To develop the planned material using the tools and technologies commented
previously.
4. To evaluate the materials and learning resources. The fundamental aims of this last
phase are: a) to assess the students’ level of satisfaction with the developed
materials and learning resources, and b) to measure the level of reuse of the
resources among the different subjects that take part in this experience.

4.4. Materials and teaching resources

We have completed the first two phases of the work methodology and the results are
summarized in this subsection. Table 3 identifies the following information for the materials
and teaching resources that we will be developed:
a. Resource: name and a brief description of the contents of the resource
b. Resource type: content (C) or learning activity (A)
c. Author: either teachers (T) or students (S) under teachers’ supervision.
d. Mode: single person (P) or group of people (G).
e. Tool: development tool used to create the material or resource.
Table 3. Description of the materials and teaching resources.

Resource Type Author Mode Tool

Standard ISO/IEC 12207-1 C,A S G eXeLearning
A document that describes the activities lifecycle software according to ISO/IEC
12207-1 standard
System requirements specification C,A S G Document
Preliminary document of system requirements specification
Functional model realization process C T G Presentation
Presentation that explain step by step the process of realization of the functional model
in the structured approach
Document
Software Testing C,A T G
Wiki

23
 Introduction to the types of software tests and how to use unit and integration test
frameworks for developing web applications
Structured analysis problems C T G Document
Solutions to problems of structured analysis
Structured design problems C T G Document
Solutions to problems structured design
Structured approach questionnaires C,A T G Potatoes/Moodle
Questionnaires on theory and practice of structured approach
Flash
Object-oriented analysis process C,A S P
SCORM
Presentation of the process of object-oriented analysis in UML
Object-oriented analysis problems C T G Document
Solutions to problems of object-oriented analysis
Object-oriented design problems C T G Document
Solutions to problems of object-oriented design
Object-oriented approach quest. C,A T G Potatoes/Moodle
Questionnaires on theory and practice of object-oriented approach.
Examples of DRS and DAS A S G Document
Documents of system requirements specification and requirements analysis of real
systems
OCL examples A T P Document
Formal specification of textual restrictions on objects modeled with UML.
Web systems requirements
C T P Presentation
engineering
Study of the characteristics requirements and techniques elicitation for web systems.
Data models A T G LAMS
Activity to review the main data models.
Current trends in databases C,A S C Wiki
Set of web pages designed to describe the principles, structure and main applications
of current uses of databases.
Conceptual
Object-oriented databases C,A S G
Maps
Conceptual maps that reflect the most relevant aspects of object-oriented databases.
Conceptual
Object-relational databases C,A S G
Maps
Conceptual maps that reflect the most relevant aspects of object-relational databases .
Object-relational transformation C T P Presentation
Document with the rules to transform a diagram of persistent classes to a logical-
relational schema (SQL3) and specific (Oracle).
Professional profile for managing
C, A S G LAMS
software projects
Activities to define collaboratively the features of the professional profile of a project
manager.
Software project manager candidate
A S G Video
provision and selection
Activities to define job vacancies, profiles of candidates and representation of the
selection process for project management positions.
Selection of the life cycle model C, A S G LAMS
Activities to review the life cycle models and case studies to select a life cycle model.
Presentation
Software project viability study A S G
Video
Activity to develop and present a software project viability study. The presentation is
recorded on video to watch and analyze it further.
Software project proposal A S G Document
Activity to develop a technical document of a software project proposal.
Document
Software project plan A S G Presentation
Video
Activity to develop and present the project plan document. The presentation is
recorded on video to watch and analyze it further.

24
 UML for web applications C S P SCORM
Material on the UML profile for the analysis and design of web applications.
MVC pattern C T P SCORM
Material on the Model-View-Controller architectural pattern-based web application.
Agile development methodologies A S G LAMS
Descriptions of agile development methodologies and examples based on the Scrum
methodology.
Web development frameworks C S G Wiki
Documents about web application development frameworks based on the MVC pattern
and using different programming languages (Ruby, Java, Python, etc.).
Object-relational mapping pattern C T P SCORM
Technique and tools to map an object-oriented model onto a relational database.

Table 4 shows the relationships between courses and learning materials described in Table 3.
For each resource is specified the course in which it is created (C), the courses that reuse it
(R), and the courses in which it is changed (Ch).

Table 4. Relations between courses and learning resources.

Resource \ Course SEI SEII SE DBAT RE PMCSP WE

Standard ISO/IEC 12207-1 C R R
System requirements specification C C
Functional model realization process C
software testing C R Ch
Structured analysis problems C
Structured design problems C
Structured approach questionnaire C
Object-oriented analysis process C R
Object-oriented analysis problems C,R C,R
Problems object-oriented design C,R C,R
Object-oriented approach quest. C,R C,R
Examples of DSR and DAS R R R C R
OCL examples R R C
Web system requirements engineering C R
Data models C
Current trends in databases C
Object-oriented databases R R C
Object-relational databases R R C
Object-relational transformation R R C
Professional profile for managing C
software projects
Software project manager candidate C
provision and selection
Selection of the life cycle model R R C
Software project viability study C
Software project proposal C
Software project plan C
UML for web applications R R C
MVC pattern C
Agile development methodologies R C
Web development frameworks C
Object-relational mapping pattern C

5. Conclusions
This paper describes the initiative of a group of teachers of the University of Cádiz to share
their previous experiences related with the EHEA adaptation process and developing, in a

25
coordinated and collaborative way, materials and educational resources adapted to the
EHEA. These educational components will be used in the courses of the core subjects of
Software Engineering and Information Systems of the first and second cycles of the UCA
Computer Engineering degree. The fundamental objectives have been commented along
with the methodology and tools that will be used. All the learning contents and activities
that are thought for development in this project have been analyzed and described.
With the development of this project the following results are expected:
● To improve the coordination and collaboration among courses of the core subjects of
Software Engineering and Information Systems.
● To facilitate the reuse of the materials and educational resources among courses.
● To increase the student's motivation, to foster autonomous learning and their active
participation in the learning process.
● To help students obtaining the generic and cross competences of the core subjects of
Software Engineering and Information Systems in the context of the EHEA.
● To increase the use of ICTs in the teaching-learning process.
● To get better the academic results of the students in these core subjects.

References
1. Declaración de Bolonia (19 de junio de 1999). Comunicado de la Conferencia de
Ministros Europeos responsables de la Educación Superior,
http://www.eees.es/pdf/Bolonia-ES.pdf.
2. Web site of Moodle. http://moodle.com.
3. Dodero, J.M., Fernández, C., Sanz, D: An Experience on Students’ Participation in
Blended vs. Online Styles of Learning” SIGCSE Bulletin, 35(4), pp. 39-42 (2003).
4. Ruiz, M.: Una experiencia de autoformación para la innovación en la docencia de la
informática y su adaptación al EEES. I Jornadas de Innovación Educativa: las enseñanzas
técnicas ante el reto del EEES, pp. 357-367. Escuela Politécnica Superior de Zamora
(2006).
5. Alonso, J.A., De Castro, C., Domínguez, J., García, M.T., Guerrero, E., Hurtado, N., Medina,
I., Núñez, B., Orta, E., Palomo Duarte, M., Palomo Lozano, F., Pizarro, J., Rioja, C.:
Adaptación de las asignaturas de las titulaciones de informática al EEES. Actividades de
los grupos de formación del profesorado de la Universidad de Cádiz 2005-2006, pp.
179-189. Universidad de Cádiz (2007).
6. Ruiz, M.: Utilizando aprendizaje activo colaborativo en la docencia de las bases de datos.
I Jornadas de Innovación Educativa: las enseñanzas técnicas ante el reto del EEES, pp.
65-76. Escuela Politécnica superior de Zamora (2006).
7. Ruiz, M.: Aprendizaje basado en la experiencia para la dirección de proyectos software. II
Jornadas de trabajo sobre experiencias piloto de implantación del crédito europeo en las
universidades andaluzas. Granada (2007).
8. Godwin-Jones, R.: Emerging Technologies. Blogs and Wikis: Environments for Online

26
 Collaboration. Language Learning and Technology, 7(2), pp.12-16 (2003).
9. Dalziel, J.: Implementing Learning Design: The Learning Activity Management System.
Proceedings of the 20th ASCILITE Conference,pp. 593-596. Adelaide, Australia,
(December 2003).
10. SCORM 2004. 3rd Edition Overview. Advanced Distributed Learning.
http://www.adlnet.gov/20043ED/Index.aspx.

27
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28
Case study: Glacial Discharge to learn
Statistics
Carmen Domínguez Álvarez, Ascensión Hernández Encinas, Araceli Queiruga Dios, Isabel
Visus Ruiz
Department of Applied Mathematics, E.T.S.I.I. de Béjar, Universidad de Salamanca
Avda. Fernández Ballesteros 2, 37700 - Béjar (Salamanca)
{karmenka, ascen, queirugadios, ivisus}@usal.es

Abstract
Our aim, as university teachers, is to make students acquire new knowledge, and what is more
important: new competences to be good professionals. In this way, the information and concepts
learned during the graduate studies is integrated into prior knowledge and students acquire the
appropriate meaningfulness with respect to what is already known. We employ some tools in the
specific subject of Statistics so that our students can build up their learning through the different
collaborative activities and tools offered, and through communications tools between teachers
and students. In this paper we describe an evaluation of the results of the use of new
technologies for the particular case of teaching mathematics in Industrial Engineering. We
present a case study where students could apply their knowledge and competences to the
specific glacial discharge problem.

1. Introduction
The Bologna Accord (Bologna, 1999) proposes the creation of the European Higher
Education Area (EHEA) with a view to unifying university studies in Europe. Emphasis is
placed on the creation of a common European space as being key to promoting citizen’s
mobility and employment.
The use of new technologies in university teaching is considered to be a pre-requisite for
countries to adapt to the EHEA. The use of Information and Communication Technologies
(ICT) in higher education allows students to acquire an integrated training so that they gain
the knowledge necessary to cope with the technological, scientific or similar problems they
will have to confront in their professional careers.
The role of the student has also changed, since traditional educational models do not fit in
well with the learning process via ICT. Indeed, ICT have thus become a new instrument for
supporting and helping traditional teaching, allowing the process of learning to be
personalized and enabling students to gain deeper knowledge of their lines of inquiry and
become more motivated to learn; apart, that is, from understanding the material better
(Kirschner, 2001).
ICT facilitate interpersonal communication and provide immediate access to all types of
information. In universities, both instructors and students must adapt to a methodological
sea-change in the teaching-learning process; this will presumably afford both groups huge
advantages. Some ICT applications have been shown to allow individualized follow-up and to
increase student motivation, also improving students’ results (Carrasco et al., 2005). As
examples, some ICT applications that we use are on-line tutorials, the proposal of activities,
and individual contributions by students in which they use the Internet as a resource.

29
The origin of the changes promoted in the subjects we teach lies in the need to improve the
actual teaching of them, with a view to facilitating the assimilation of content by our
students. Our teaching experience has shown us that the use of these tools brings students
closer to the subjects in which such resources are used. The aim of the present work is to
report the results of the use of ICT in the subjects we teach —in particular Statistics— and to
offer an assessment of those results.
This work is structured as follows. In section 1, we discuss the role of mathematics in the
teaching of engineering; in 2 we look at the new technologies that we use as tools in our
endeavors to meet the specifications of the EHEA. In section 3, we explore the content and
importance of linear algebra in the career profiles of future engineers; this is where we
perform the assessment. In section 4 we report the assessment made —in questionnaire
form— at the University Engineering College in Béjar (Salamanca, Spain). Finally, we report
the conclusions drawn for the study.

2. The Industrial Engineer faced with Math subjects

An important task for engineers is to learn how it is possible to model daily events and
objects with mathematical tools. It is considered that problem solving is an important part of
their education; by interpreting such problems as a context within which they can apply
mathematics to aspects of the “real world”, they can learn how to make practical use of their
mathematical skills (Lantz-Andersson, 2008).
Industrial engineering studies are based on a solid initial technical knowledge,
complemented with enhancements that, depending on the choice of the student, go deeper
into the study of specific technical problems (related to automatic devices and electronics,
mechanics, electromechanics, or materials) and problems in industrial organization.
However, in the training of industrial engineers, emphasis tends to be placed on the
generalist, polyvalent and integrative nature of the teaching, and on the development of
skills to learn and solve the technical, organizational, and management problems that are
inherent to any industrial or services company. Owing to their multidisciplinary education,
industrial engineers are able to develop a career in any technical industrial activity.
Notwithstanding, their knowledge mainly enables them to work in fields such as project
engineering, technical assistance services, Quality management, I+D, CAD/CAE/CAM
Installations System Management or Simulation of mechanisms.
Moreover, the engineers at our institution (the E.T.S.I.I. in Béjar) receive instruction in
programming languages such as C, C++, Java, or Visual Basic, and in the use of software
packages for symbolic calculus and those specific to maths, such as Mathematica, Maple or
Matlab. Moreover, most of the students have wide knowledge of tools like access, excel, and
so on.
Engineers working in industry must acquire and develop basic knowledge and skills, in which
the ability to work in interdisciplinary teams, an ongoing interest in new knowledge through
the students’ own work, the ability to address the different problems of the company for
which they work, and criteria to use the mathematics necessary to solve specific problems
must all be combined.
As well as having knowledge of applied mathematics, engineers must be able to apply maths
from the perspective —and indeed attitude— of a true engineering professional. Knowledge

30
of mathematics helps engineers to systematize logical and analytical thinking, with the help
of other disciplines that will in turn help them to structure their synthetic thinking and
awaken their creativity.

3. Proposal to applied acquired knowledge

We propose an application in statistics, our goal is to get a combination of knowledge, skills
and behavior utilized to improve performance, we emphasize the importance of learning
environments based on new technologies, encountering theory through personal impact,
the power of role models, and the need for a greater focus on the transfer of learning to the
world of work after graduation (Petrovich, 2005).
Concerning the beginning of the course there are some knowledge and competences that
the students in initial courses must dominate, that is the main reason to propose this kind of
work (Delgado García, 2005). With this proposal the students will find an environment within
the Learning Construction mode (Brooks, 1999) within the pedagogical objectives of
teaching, whose aim is to establish coherent relationships between what must be learned
(new models) and what is already known (prior knowledge). In this way, the information
learned is integrated into prior knowledge and acquires the appropriate meaningfulness with
respect to what is already known (Weiss, 2006).
Nowadays, the authors of this paper are investigating existence of flows and drainages both
endoglacier and subglacier in the subpolar glaciers, in fact, with data from different stations,
like Svalbard, Greenland or Ellemere, all of them in North and south poles, we analyze the
relation between glacial discharge and the global warming (Eraso, 2001).
That is why give the students data from a monitoring station that we have implemented, the
King George island in Antarctica, the data includes the period from November, the 30th,
2005, at 9h, to June, the 4th, 2006 at 16h. The studied variables are the specific discharge
(m3/sec km2) and the temperature. Considering the temperature as meteorological variable,
and the glacier discharge as hydraulic one, the software that will be used by students could
be choose between Mathematica, Maple, Matlab, or MS Excel that sometimes is easy to use
(Lantz-Andersson, 2008).

The data has been saved in a text file. There are three columns for one data per hour: date
(including hour), temperature, and glacial discharge. In order to solve the proposed problem,
the student has to do the daily averages of the discharge and temperature variables. That
will reduce the number of data, since he will remain with a single data per day, instead of 24.
Later, a descriptive study should be done, related to both variables separately: average,
median, mode, rank, variance, standard deviation, and graphical representations, as much of
specific discharge as of temperature (Álvarez, 2004). Finally, the student should calculate the
straight line of regression of the variable discharge (y) on the variable temperature (x),
represent the cloud of points and the straight line of regression in the same graph.

4. Conclusions
The issues and theory involved in the activities described here are essentially the same as
those used in traditional classes, with the exception that now the technologies used offer a
much greater possibility for students to participate, and they make possible to developed a

31
problem based learning and competence learning mode at the same time.
Teachers inform and teach students about the existence, usefulness and value of the new
technologies and what is more important: how to use them in a work in their future career. It
should be noted that a large number of students finish their first year at university without
having looked at the institution’s web site and without having used its e-mail service.
Accordingly, it cannot be taken as a given that all students will have extensive knowledge of
or frequently use the Internet and the ICT in general.
With this proposed work, that could be done in groups or individually, students learn how to
applied the acquired knowledge and competences to a real problem: the balance between
temperature and glacial discharge.

Acknowledgments
This work has been supported by the Project “Memoria D. Samuel Solórzano Barruso” 2008.

References
1. Álvarez Contreras, S. J., Estadística Aplicada. Teoría y Problemas. Editorial Clag, s.a. Madrid
(2004).
2. Bologna Declaration: Adaptación del sistema universitario español a sus directrices, 1999.
Bolonia (Italia), http://www.crue.org/apadsisuniv.htm.
3. Brooks, J., Brooks, M.: In Search of Understanding: The Case for Constructivist Classrooms,
Revised Edition, ASCD (1999).
4. Carrasco, E. Gracia y C. de la Iglesia. Las TIC en la construcción del espacio europeo de educación
superior. Dos experiencias docentes en teoría económica. Revista Iberoamericana de Educación,
36/1 (2005).
5. Delgado García, A.M., Borge Bravo, R., Garcá Albero, J., Oliver Cuello, R., Salomón Sancho, L.:
Competencias y diseño de la evaluación continua y final en el espacio europeo de educación
superior. Programa de Estudios y Análisis. Ministerio de Educación y Ciencia (2005).
6. Eraso A., Domínguez M.C., El Calentamiento Global visto desde los glaciares subpolares de la
Antártida. Consideraciones sobre su repercusión en la subida del nivel del mar; RIESGOS
NATURALES, 44, 819–829, Ed. Ariel, España, 2001.
7. Kirschner, P.A.: Using integrated electronic environments for collaborative teaching/ learning.
Research Dialogue in Learning and Instruction, 2, 1 (2001) 1–10.
8. Lantz-Andersson, A., Linderoth, J., Säljö, R., What’s the problem? Meaning making and learning
to do mathematical word problems in the context of digital tools, Instructional Science (2008).
9. Petrovich, A., Lowe, M., Developing Cultural Competence, Journal of Teaching in Social Work,
vol. 25 (¾), 2005, pp.157.
10. Weiss J., et al. eds., The International Handbook of Virtual Learning Environments, Springer, 14,
(2006).

32
A Case study of the adaptation of Problem-
Based Learning for programming subjects
Víctor Manuel Álvarez García, María del Puerto Paule Ruiz, Juan Ramón Pérez Pérez
Department of Computer Science, University of Oviedo, Spain

Abstract
This article describes a case study of the adaptation of the Problem-Based Learning (PBL) method
for a programming subject. For this study, we focused in a Web Programming subject which is
part of the academic program for the Computer Science degree at the University of Oviedo. We
propose a method adapted to programming learning and based in implementations by other
Universities. The article analyses pros and cons resulted from applying this method in Web
Programming, as well as results obtained from the study, including grades and appreciations from
teachers and students.

1. Background: Problem Based Learning in the classroom

In 1982 Barrows, one of the fathers of the Problem-Based Learning (PBL), defined it as “A
learning method based on the principle of using problems as starting point for the
acquisition and integration of new knowledge”. The goal of PBL is to stimulate students
active learning, in the sense that it is the student who, by him/herself, has to find out what
he/she needs to learn in order to get the solution for a given problem. Teachers are
responsible for providing students with problems before they have acquired the knowledge
and act as facilitators during the learning process, motivating a self-searching and a self-
learning necessary to solve the problems.
The Medical School of McMaster, in Canada, was the first in proposing the use of Problem-
Based Learning for its courses, which was latterly adopted by other medical institutions. But,
although PBL was initially associated to the medical field, it has being evolved and adapted
to different areas of application. This situation has provoked many variations in the method
in respect to the first proposal. However, the core features [1] can be summarized in the
following six points:
1. Learning is student-centered
2. Learning occurs in small student groups
3. Teachers are facilitators or guides
4. Problems are the organizing focus and stimulus for learning
5. Problems are the vehicle for the development of clinical problem-solving skills
6. New information is acquired through self-directed learning
The method described in this article takes these features and adapts them to students
enrolled in a web programming course, proving Problem-Based Learning also valid for
teaching programming subjects.

33
2. Choice of a new learning method for a programming course
We took as a base for this case study the Web Programming course. Web Programming is an
optional subject worth 6 credits (60 hours) and corresponding to the third course of the
Computer Science degree at the University of Oviedo. The main goal of this subject is to
introduce students to the field of Web application development, focusing in practical aspects
of design and programming. Timing is equitable splitting in theory and laboratory classes,
although theory is mainly used to introduce the work the students have to perform in the
laboratory. The number of students is usually low (between 20 and 30) and, in the particular
case of the academic year 2006/2007, when this experience was performed, 22 students
were enrolled in this course.
Students had all programming experience from other programming courses and freely take
Web Programming with the aim to improve their programming skills in a field with good
professional perspectives. But in this context, we considered that a learning method based in
traditional classrooms settings and the realization of batteries of exercises in the laboratory
was not the most useful to achieve the goals and full fill students expectations. Overall, we
found the following reasons to change the learning method:
1. Students did not feel enough motivated with traditional learning methodologies.
2. We wanted to develop professional competences like self-learning and team work
through the realization of laboratory work.
3. We wanted the students to be capable of showing a real understanding of the
subject, and not only knowledge and comprehension capabilities according to
Bloom's taxonomy [2].
Overall, we aimed to experiment a different learning method to improve the level of
satisfaction, develop professional competences and improve the level of analysis [2] of the
students. That is why, in the academic year 2006/2007, we took the decision of changing the
previous methodology.
We considered that an active method was more suitable for our purpose due to its proved
effectiveness for students to learn, apply, integrate and retain information [3]. The choice of
Problem-Based Learning among other active methods was based in:
1. The study of scientific evidence of results obtained by the PBL method in other
Universities, as it is documented in an article written by Bridges and Hellinguer in
1997 [4].
2. PBL fit very well into the learning goals of the subject, which was mainly practical.

2.1 Problem-Based Learning adapted to programming subjects

Taking as reference AIRE, a four steps adaptation of Problem-Based Learning developed by
the University of Alcalá (http://www.uah.es/problembasedlearning/), and our own
experience as Software Developers, we developed a method for teachers adapted to the
characteristics of the programming subject.
The main characteristics of this method are the following:
1. Define the reasons and purposes for doing Problem-Based Learning, the procedures
to use and expectations.

34
 2. Establish a size for the teams, each team have a representative with well defined
functions.
3. Describe the problem as a type of software application the students have to develop
and a set of characteristics to be met. The specific problem to be solved is to be
choose by each team.
4. Document best practices to help students meet their goals.
5. Define a set of milestones or control points to be met during the life-cycle of the
project. Control points include the delivery of documents, prototypes and
components. One control point consists in a public exposition of the project by all
team members.
6. Define a evaluation method which takes into account the team and individual work
during the course.
7. Prepare a “mini-lecture” to introduce the problem and the method described in the
previous points to the students.
Following this method, we wrote a master document for the students, which included all the
information needed for the organization, development and revision of a software project.
This includes diagrams, definition of the problem, goals, control points, deliveries, evaluation
and best practices. Best practices are a few recommendations to assure the good progress of
the projects and control point meetings. They included essential tips like how to follow the
classes, how to organize team work or how to deliver the work, and less significant
recommendations like how to include bibliography in a document.
The course started with a “mini-lecture” which introduced the problem and explained how
the course would be organized. Then we passed the master document to the students, who
were asked to create groups of three people to work in a four months project.
In the academic year 2006/2007, we asked the students to develop a web emulator for a
voice-based application. We defined a set of basic characteristics for the project, but the
final problem and more specific characteristics were choose by each group of students and
supervised by the lecturer or facilitator, who had to agree in the final specifications. This
scenario, gave the students the freedom to choose the problem they wanted to solve, but
also kept the context and purpose for the laboratory work the lecturers had previously
decided.
Moreover, the students were also responsible for choosing a name for the group, a
representative or team leader, and the technologies and methods to apply during the
development process.
It is important to remark two aspects:
1. The project required to accomplish a number of common characteristics for a
software application, but the final project was choose by the students.
2. Knowledge to solve the problem was not initially given by the lecturers, the students
were responsible to obtain this knowledge while progressing with the project, always
with the reference and direction of their lecturers, but also with the freedom and
commitment for choosing the techniques and procedures they wanted to apply for
each case.

35
The four months project was divided into milestones, deadlines or, in PBL terminology,
control points, with specific tasks to be accomplished and deliveries which included
documents, prototypes and different components of the application.
Besides these deliveries, teams were also asked to make a public exposition of their projects,
where they had to explain the lecturers and their fellow students the reasons for choosing
their projects, scopes, which technologies they were going to apply for the solution and
which goals they were pursuing. All the team members participated in this exposition, and
members from other teams participated also by making inquires which might be of their
interest or useful for their own work.
We have to highlight the role performed by the team representative during the development
process, as he/she was responsible for the internal coordination of the team, the
communication with the lecturer, as well as for having the deliveries presented on time. For
this reason, team representatives were granted with a bonus grade.
As for the evaluation, control points were considered a fundamental part of the work and
they provided the 25% of the individual grade of the subject. The rest 75% were divided into
the grade for the group work (50%) and the knowledge test (25%). Group work was
evaluated as the final result of the project as a whole, taking into account aspects such as
characteristics of the project, deliveries and technologies and methods applied during the
development process. The test was given once the learning period was completed. Bonus for
team representatives consisted in a 10% over the grade for their group work.

3. Results
The results taken from this experience were very positive, both from the lecturers and the
students. Regarding the academic results obtained after the four months development
period, all the teams succeeded in meeting the control points and got a minimum grade of
7/10 for their group work. Only 3 out of 22 students failed to pass the individual test and two
of them chose to repeat this test in order to high their grades.

Fig 1: Academic results

36
Fig. 1 shows a range for grades in a scale 0 to 10. All the students passed the subject and
most of them have punctuations between 7 and 8.9. There is a 5% portion of the graphic
which corresponds to the student who only obtained 4.5 out of 10 in the individual test and
preferred not to do a second attempt. The rest 14% have a grade between 9 and 10, which
corresponds to students with high grades in all the sections of the evaluation.

Fig 2: Comparison between Knowledge Test grade and Group Work grade.
Relation among independent variables 'Knowledge Test grade' and 'Group Work grade' are
shown in Fig 2. All the students but one passed the Knowledge test, which is a good indicator
that most of the students acquired the knowledge required to obtain the learning goals,
which they applied in turn to their group work with the goal of getting a remarkable group
grade (>=7). However, highest group grades don't seem directly related to highest test
grades. This result make us consider that, despite of all the students individually obtained
the minimum learning goals we had planned initially, the division of group work, provoked
some students to focus more deeply in certain tasks than others in a way that, once
individual tasks were finished, they could put them in common to obtain the final work.
Although it is obvious that students required to have a minimum knowledge of the work
made by all the team members in order to perform this integration, we think that this
division of tasks and the individual commitment to the project have deeply influence the
individual and group results.
Moreover, Fig 2 shows highest individual grades matching the average for group grades and
average individual grades matching the highest for group grades. In our opinion, this result
reflects that students who are not the most brilliant in the class can create a group with a
good level of understanding and which performs well, while most brilliant students are not
necessarily an asset for obtaining good group performances.
Regarding our appreciations as lecturers, we would like to remark the following results:
1. We perceived an increment in the students motivation.

37
 2. Freedom to choose a problem provide of many, some of them brilliant, ideas.
3. Team work proved to be very positive for the learning process.
4. Students showed capable to affront a real problem.
We think that the immediate reward in the grade for meeting control points encouraged
students to keep their work up-to-date. Control points were successfully met by all the
teams and communication with the lecturer were very fluid.
The introduction of freedom for the election of the problem and techniques generated a
general brainstorming in class from which many good ideas were taken. One of the ideas
have even been continued by one of the original team members to develop a GNU/GPL
voice-based RSS reader (Feedo; http://feedo.sourceforge.net) for his Final Year Project.
We consider that team work was also very positive for the learning process. Students
discovered new competencies which were not included in the program for the subject, such
as developing skills for cooperative and collaborative work and make public expositions.
Division in teams and team leadership also increased the level of competition in order to
obtain better grades. However, team work also showed disadvantages, like students who
didn't perform well in the team work and were covered by their fellow students, something
very difficult to detect by the lecturer and which can be compensated by the individual test.
In any case, the most rewarding result was that, at the end of the course, students showed
capable to affront a real problem and work in teams to solve it.
From the students point of view, learning while solving a real problem was also very
rewarding and they reported us to feel satisfied with overcoming difficulties while doing
their work. Control points and team work were very welcome, as they resemble the work in
the 'real world', with their respective pros and cons. One of the main disadvantages of team
work is coincident with the lecturer point of view and consists in having students not
performing at a good level but obtaining the same grades as their colleagues for their group
work.

4. Conclusions
The use of a method based in Problem-Based Learning can be applied successfully to
programming learning. Students are encouraged to develop skills like the ability to work as a
team member as well as work efficiently under pressure and meet deadlines, which will be
crucial for their professional life. Learning concepts in the moment they are needed have
also proved to be very positive for the learning process, as it makes students obtain a
practical vision of the knowledge they have acquired.
PBL propitiates a high level of motivation among students. Control points are seen as an
immediate reward, easier to accomplish than long term deliveries. Freedom to chose the
project and what technologies are more suitable for obtaining solution, as well as freedom
to join and manage a software team, also encourage students to perform a good work in
order to achieve the shared goals established by their group. Besides, group tasks are
assigned among members, who have to work together and coordinated to achieve the goals,
making this whole process to be seen more as a real software development than a
traditional laboratory work.
One of the inconveniences of this method is the possibility of having students who don't feel

38
enough motivated or integrated in the group. However, individual evaluation allows teachers
to detect students who didn't achieve the required knowledge during the course and try to
find the causes. Generally, the results obtained from the evaluation suggest a big success of
this method with only one student not passing all the sections evaluated.
Teachers felt very comfortable with the method during the course, as they perceived how
the communication with their students was improved as well as a good response from the
students during their work in the laboratory. The satisfaction was also very high since
teachers came from an business environment and PBL made possible to adapt professional
techniques to be used in the classroom. We consider that more experiences need to be
performed, including timing estimations, in order to improve the method described in this
article and introduce it into the European Higher Education Area (EHEA). But overall, we feel
very motivated with the outcome as the experience resulted in a very rewarding and even a
enjoyable one.
Acknowledgment
This paper has been partially funded by the University of Oviedo under the project
UNOV-08-MB-14.
References
1. Barrows H. (1996) Problem-Based learning in medicine and beyond: A brief overview.
In Wilkerson L., Gijselaers W. H. (eds) Bringing Problem-Based Learning to Higher
Education: Theory and Practice, San Francisco: Jossey-Bass Publishers, pp. 3-12.
2. Bloom, B.S. (Ed.) (1956) Taxonomy of educational objectives: The classification of
educational goals: Handbook I, cognitive domain. New York ; Toronto: Longmans,
Green. 1956
3. Bonwell, Charles C. and James A. Eison. (1991) Active Learning: Creating Excitement
in the Classroom, ASHE-ERIC Higher Education Report No. 1. Washington DC: The
George Washington University, School of education and Human Development.
4. Bridges, E, and Hallinger, E. (1997) Peabody Journal of Education, Vol. 72, No. 2, New
Ways of Training for School Leadership, pp. 131-146

39
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40
Continuous Assessment in Software
Engineering
Francisco J. García Peñalvo, Miguel A. Conde González, Sergio Bravo Martín
Universidad de Salamanca, Facultad de Ciencias,
Plaza de los Caídos s/n, 37008 Salamanca (España)
fgarcia@usal.es, mconde@usal.es, ser@usal.es

Abstract
European convergence towards European Space of Higher Education demands an important
innovation process in the academic assessment system. In this sense, continuous assessment
presents some advantages which are exposed in this paper due to it introduction as an additional
assessment in Software Engineering subject.

1. Introduction
As result of the convergence towards European Space of Higher Education [1] (from now on
ESHE), subjects assessment gets a new approach. In the first place assessment is not limited
to check final results, but presents an educational approach based on learning in a way
which allows to value if a learner has obtained the knowledge and competences previously
established. Secondly, the teacher must assess the assimilation of knowledge and skills
development by students, not only at the end of the process but over the period school
through regular activities. With this new approach, the evaluation becomes a teaching
activity continued, progressive and sometimes evolutionary, in order to adapt to the learning
ability of students.
The purpose of this communication is to present the process of continuous assessment in
place, since the academic year 2005-2006, in Software Engineering subject at the program of
Computer Science Education at the University of Salamanca, as well as share the results to
serve as an example and reference in the implementation of evaluation systems that
improve the current in the way of adaptation to ESHE.

2. Teaching Approach of Software Engineering software

Computer Science Education at the University of Salamanca is organized into two study
programs based on an initial three-year cycle (Basic Engineering Degree) and a second cycle
of two (Senior Engineering) and a second cycle of two (High-Level Degree). The student
makes his first contact with the Software Engineering in the first. This course tries to raise
awareness among students on a range of disciplines that are applied regularly and
systematically in the work of design and construction software [2].
The subject is taught in the first quarter of the course and consists in 60 hours 4.5 theoretical
and 1.5 practical).
Looking at his approach under the new rules of European convergence, the approach of the
subject taking equivalence of official credits to European Credit Transfer System (ECTS) is
chosen, involving change in teaching methodology. This change in methodology is an

41
increase in the work of assimilation and self student, assuming 112.5 hours for these aspects
on the theory and 45 hours in the practice. The total number of work hours is 157.5. This
number would be between 150 and 180, according to the new rules, depending on whether
the each credit has 25 or 30 hours. The work of assimilation is optimal considering the
nature of the subject.
In order to understand the different concepts is necessary that the student was capable of
performing a job for reflection, assimilation and practice of different underlying concepts of
the subject. Encouraging these disciplines, and considering that in most cases students apply
every effort to end a learning process whose aim is only pass the subject, it becomes
necessary to apply a methodology for continuous assessment.

3. Assessment Process
The implementation of continuous assessment in the context of this subject is a major
challenge, therefore should be implemented on two large groups with approximately 100
students each one. To do this, the first decision taken was raised as an optional element,
which nobody would be forced to follow, and those who follow it and fail would have the
opportunity to complete a final exam. The next step was to design a protocol for its
development.
To understand the process of continuous assessment is essential to know the official
assessment (OA) established in the course. This method consists of two parts, theory and
practice, which was evaluated separately and contributing both with 50% of the final grade:
● Firstly, the theory is assessed through a final exam that consists of two parts: a test
and a set of theoretical and practical assumptions. Both should be approved
independently.
● Moreover, the practice carried out in working groups, is assessed through a
presentation and defence against the professor.
In addition to the traditional evaluation system, students can be optionally chose a
continuous assessment (CA), in which attendance and active participation play an important
role. This pattern is determined by the following process:
● Related to the test part in the theoretical exam:
● 3 tests will be conducted during the theoretical classes, which shared the
contents of the different learning units of the program of the subject. Pass
these tests will mean the elimination of part test for the theoretical exam, if
student gets a score greater than or equal to 5 in all these tests. Average score
only be calculated if in all tests the score is greater than 3.
● Regarding the part of the set of theoretical and practical assumptions from the exam,
student can get points added to the score obtained in this section of the review.
● In practical workshops:
● All groups must hand the exercise defined at the end of the meeting (and
printed using any of the modeling tool proposals). If fraud is detected is
deducted 1 point.
● The volunteer groups defense the works performed and make reports

42
 with delivery in 15 days. Both the defense and the report can contribute
up 0.5 points each one. If there are no voluntary groups, the teacher will
choose randomly a group. In this case both the defense and the report
could negatively rate (up to -1), this report would be mandatory.
● Continuously and successful collaboration can contribute up 0.5 points.
● Regarding the delivery of exercises
● May be delivered up to 3 modeling exercises, with instructions obtained
from the literature (and unresolved). After its review in tutoring hours
might contribute up 0.75 points.

4. Results and conclusions

From the academic year 2005-2006, the subject of Software Engineering incorporates
continuous assessment as additional modality that the students can use to pass it. The
teaching team sets out a series of indicators based on numerical counts stemming from the
results of the examination session on January, highlighting:
● Total students who pass on continuous assessment.
● Total students who fail on continuous assessment.
● Total students who pass on official assessment.
● Total students who fail on official assessment.
There’s no doubt, the large number of students enrolled, guarantee the reliability of the
results. Fig. 1 provides a chart showing the evolution of these indicators over the last three
years:

Fig. 1. Evolution results of the continuous and official assessment

If we look in detail the figure we can detect that:

43
 ● The percentage of students who pass the subject in the form of continuous
assessment is considerably higher, in all years, the percentage of the official. The
average percentage of passing at the three academic years is doubled, 60% on
continuous assessment compared to 33% of the official.
● Regarding to the failing the situation is completely inverted. In this case, the
percentages of students who fail in continuous assessment are much lower than
those of the official. Emphasize the academic year 2007-08, in which the proportion
of failing in continuous assessment is 14% while in the official reaches 86%.
As discussed above, if the student does not pass the subject in the form of continuous
assessment, may still be submitted to the official assessment. In order to see the level of
incidence of continuous assessment in the official assessment will take further annotations
on the following indicators:
● Total students who fail the subject in the form of continuous assessment but they
pass by official evaluation.
● Total students who pass the subject exclusively by the official evaluation.
According to the results obtained, we can conclude that the process of continuous
assessment is presented as an additional advantage by offering greater guarantees to finally
pass the subject [3].
Among the advantages that also get the student, we consider the following:
● Gradual assimilation of the contents subject and progressive development of the
established powers.
● Knowledge about the teacher assessment, and the degree of demand required to
pass.
● Information on the pace of learning needed to assimilate the contents and put them
into practice through various workshops scheduled during the course, as well as in
practice mandatory.
● Preparing to face successfully the final test according to the official assessment of the
subject.
From the teacher point of view, the evaluation system provides continuous on-line
information about subject that can contribute to improving or even redirect the process of
student learning. However, the effort and workload of teachers are increased significantly,
worthy of being valued and taken into account in case of wanting implants. Similarly,
excessive care must be taken in several subjects that do not coincide with this evaluation
system in the same period school because they can get to saturate the student.

Acknowledgments
We want to thank members of the Group of Research in Interaction and eLearning of the
University of Salamanca for their collaboration in the form of critical feedback in the
development of this article. This work is partially supported by Spanish Ministry of Education
and Science through the research project KEOPS (TSI2005-00960) and by the Regional
Ministry of Education of Junta de Castilla y León through the project SA056A07

44
References
1. European Ministers of Education, The European Higher Education Area - Bologna
Declaration, Bologna on the 19th of June 1999.
2. García, F.J. and Moreno, M.N. 2004. Software Modelling Techniques for a First Course in
Software Engineering: A Workshop-Based Approach. IEEE Transactions on Education, Vol.
47, No. 2, May 2004.
3. González-Rosende, M.E. 2008. La Evaluación Continua en el Espacio Europeo de
Educación Superior.

45
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46
A preliminary evaluation of the impact of
using a visual tool in a compilers course
Daniel Rodríguez and Salvador Sánchez-Alonso
Department of Computer Science, University of Alcalá,28805 Alcalá de Henares, Madrid, Spain
{daniel.rodriguezg, salvador.sanchez}@uah.es

Abstract
During the last academic year (2007-2008), theoretical lectures on the Compilers module were
complemented with a visual tool to reinforce some of the more difficult concepts in the module.
JFlap, a visual tool aimed at visualizing automata models which can also be used in a compiler
course to trace, visualize and in-depth study the parsing methods taught in the course, was the
tool of choice. This paper reports on the experience we carried out at the University of Alcalá
where students were shown how to use JFlap, although its use was not compulsory. At the end of
the term, a survey was conducted around students to discover its use while learning the subject
and compared with their marks in the exam. The results show that students using JFlap
frequently achieved better results than both students that do not use JFlap at all and those that
make only sporadic use of it. Based on both qualitative and quantitative results, JFlap can be used
as a help in a course like this, the user satisfaction using this kind of tools from an student’s
perspective being fairly positive.

1. Introduction
Compilers is one of the compulsory subjects in the third year of the Computer Science
degree at the University of Alcalá. It is composed of theoretical lectures (2 thirds of the time
is dedicated to this) and laboratory work (one third of the time is spent in the lab). Per week,
students have to attend to two classes of two hours of duration with a break of
approximately 10 minutes in the middle, and one laboratory of two hours. The work in the
laboratory is composed of 3 assignments to be completed during the term. We used
JLex/JFlex [3] and CUP [1], the Java version of the popular Lex [4] and YACC [2]. While the
first assignment is mainly related to grammars using only JLex, the second one is about
joining JLex and CUP with a very simple grammar. The last assignment usually extends the
previous one with a more complex grammar. Last year around 100 students were enrolled in
the course, divided into two groups.
During the academic year 2007/2008, theoretical lectures were complemented with a visual
tools to reinforce some of the difficult concepts in the compilers module. Students were
encouraged to learn the theoretical subject with the help of JFlap [5], a graphical software
which was used as a demonstration tool during the lecturers. However, its use was not
compulsory. At the end of the course, we surveyed the use of JFlap and compared the marks
of those students who used it against the marks of those who did not.

2. Context, Subjects and Questionnaire

As stated previously, the compilers module is a compulsory subject composed of theoretical
and practical classes. During a term lasting approximately 15 weeks, there are 2 classes of 2
hours of theory and one session in the laboratory per week. In the laboratory, students have

47
to finish 3 assignments, using JLex and CUP. These assignments must be completed with
some coursework at home. The syllabus is a standard first year compilers’ course with some
emphasis in the syntactic analysis from LL(1) to LALR(1). Although approximately 4 weeks are
spent in this section of the module, a large number of errors were related to this part of the
course (e.g., doubts in generating the First and Following sets, confusion with the different
types of tables to use depending on the syntactical analysis, parsing of the inputs, etc.). As a
result, lectures were complemented with JFlap to show students a tool able to help with
lexical and syntactical analysis. Being the first year that the tool was introduced, it was not
compulsory to use it for any assignment or practical work. Fig. 1 represents a screenshot of
JFlap with the grammar, automaton, First and Follow sets and analysis tables. JFlap can also
show how to step-by-step parse an input string that will be either accepted or rejected
according to the grammar.

Fig. 1: The JFlap tool.

At the end of the course, we surveyed its use between students to decide whether to adopt
the use of such a tool more intensively next year. The survey was conducted using a
questionnaire after the exam to gather the maximum number of responses. Out of 116 of
students enrolled in the compilers module (in two different groups), 94 students took part in
the survey. The questionnaire was not anonymous as wanted to correlate the use of the tool
with the marks in the exam. Their final mark was, of course, not affected by their answers in
the questionnaire. This was clearly explained to them at the beginning of the experience.
There was no time limit to answer the questionnaire (shown in Appendix A).

48
3. Hypothesis
Our initial hypothesis is that students using JFlap would understand better the subject in
general, and the syntactical analysis in particular. Student’s knowledge is measured by their
marks in the exam. It is worth noting that although the final mark is composed of the mark
of exam and the laboratory, in this study we only considered the mark in the exam as it is
closer to the theoretical issues we want students to master with the use of the tool. In the
questionnaire, we also considered the number of exercises students did using the tool, None,
Sporadic (between 1 and 3) and frequent (more than 4).
Therefore, we consider the null hypothesis as there is no difference between the means for
the different groups.

4. Results
We analyzed the results taking into account the different groups depending on their use of
JFlap (None, Sporadic, Frequent). Descriptive statistics (Table 1) show that different groups
follow a normal distribution, existing some difference among the means but not statistical
difference between the variance of the means (this was performed using the F-test two
sample for variances).
Table 1: Descriptive Statistics for the Different Groups
Usage Count Avg Variance Std.Dev Min Max Range Std.Skewness Std.
Kurtosis
None 56 6.14 4.22 2.05 1.21 9.47 8.26 -1.07 -0.47
Frequent 19 7.65 2.52 1.58 3.88 9.39 5.51 -1.80 0.354
Sporadic 19 6.08 3.53 1.87 3.67 9.64 5.97 0.96 -0.87
Total 94 6.43 4.05 2.01 1.21 9.64 8.43 -1.29 -1.07

Fig. 2 and 3 show the scatter and box-and-whisker plots for the different groups.

Fig. 2: Scatter Plot

We considered the ANOVA (One-Way analysis of variance) to compare the means of the
different groups to accept of reject the null hypothesis. As shown in Table 2 the ANOVA
decomposes the variance of the marks into two components: a between-group component
and a within-group component. The F-ratio, which in this case equals 4.73859, is a ratio of
the between-group estimate to the within-group estimate. Since the P-value of the F-test is

49
less than 0.05, there is a statistically significant difference between the mean mark from one
level of use of JFlap to another at the 95.0% confidence level.

Fig. 3: Box and Whisker Plot

Table 2: Analysis of Variance
Source SS Df Mean Sqr F-Ratio P-Value
Between groups 35.57 2 17.78 4.74 0.01
Within groups 341.63 91 3.75
Total (Corr.) 377.20 93

To compare which means are significantly different from which others, a multiple
comparison procedure was followed. This is represented in Table 3. The bottom half of the
output shows the estimated difference between each pair of means. A diamond asterisk has
been placed next to 2 pairs, indicating that these pairs show statistically significant
differences at the 95.0 confidence level. At the top of the figure, 2 homogeneous groups are
identified using columns of X’s. Within each column, the levels containing X’s form a group of
means within which there are no statistically significant differences. The method currently
being used to discriminate among the means is Fisher’s least significant difference
procedure. With this method, there is a 5.0% risk of calling each pair of means significantly
different when the actual difference equals 0.
Table 3: Multiple range tests for mark by use of JFlap
Usage Count Mean Groups
None 56 6.14 A
Sporadic 19 6.08 A
Frequent 19 7.65 B
Contrast Difference +/- Limits
None - Frequent ◊-1.51 1.022
None - Sporadic 0.058 1.02
Frequent - Sporadic ◊1.57 1.24
◊ denotes a statistically significant difference

5. Conclusions
Theoretical lectures in Compilers at the University of Alcalá were complemented with JFlap,
a visual tool targeted at reinforcing some of the difficult concepts in the module. We

50
reported herein on an survey carried out during the last academic semester. During this
period the use of JFlap was introduced to students, although its use was not compulsory. The
main objective of this survey was to assess whether its use among students affected their
performance comparing their marks in the final exam. The results show that students using
JFlap achieved better results than students not using JFlap or using it sporadically, according
to both qualitative and quantitative results.
As the main conclusion, it can be said that the use of JFlap is of help in a course like the one
assessed. Student satisfaction is high at the same time, as it is reported in the free text
comments section of the questionnaire, as the use of JFlap is linked to higher levels of
confidence to facing final evaluation.

References
1. S. E. Hudson, F. Flannery, C. S. Ananian, D. Wang, and A. W. Appel. Cup parser generator
for java. Princeton Univ., Princeton, NJ, 1999.
2. S. C. Johnson. Yacc - yet another compiler compiler. Computing Science Technical Report
32, AT&T Bell Laboratories, Murray Hill, NJ, 1975.
3. G. Klein. Jflex–the fast scanner generator for java. URL: http://www. jflex. de.
4. M. E. Lesk and E. Schmidt. Lex—a lexical analyser generator. pages 375–387, 1990.
5. S. Rodger. JFLAP: An Interactive Formal Languages and Automata Package. Jones and
Bartlett Publishers, Inc., USA, 2006.

51
Appendix A. Questionnaire about JFLAP — Survey
Name:
1. Have you used FLAP as a study tool for this subject?
Yes □ No □
If the answer to the above question is yes
(a) According to the subjects studied during the course, JFLAP was used for
Regular expressions: □ Grammars: □ Both: □
(b) Estimate the number of exercises that you did using JFLAP
1––3:□ 4––10:□ More than 10: □
(c) Taking into account the following scale
1:"Not at all" 2:"Low" 3:"Average" 4:"High" 5:"Very High"
Please, score to the following statements:
i. JFLAP helped me to understand the creation of the First and Following
sets:
1: □ 2:□ 3:□ 4:□ 5:□
ii. JFLAP helped me to understand the differences between the
ascendant and descendant analysis:
1: □ 2:□ 3:□ 4:□ 5:□
iii. JFLAP helped me to understand how to create analysis syntactic tables:
1: □ 2:□ 3:□ 4:□ 5:□
iv. JFLAP helped me to understand conflicts:
1: □ 2:□ 3:□ 4:□ 5:□
v. JFLAP helped me to understand how to generate LR(0):
1: □ 2:□ 3:□ 4:□ 5:□
vi. JFLAP helped me to understand how to analyze the inputs according to
the different analyzers:
1: □ 2:□ 3:□ 4:□ 5:□
vii. JFLAP helped me to understand how to construct syntactic trees
1: □ 2:□ 3:□ 4:□ 5:□
(d) JFLAP global evaluation. I consider the JFLAP tool quality as:
1: □ 2:□ 3:□ 4:□ 5:□
(e) I consider that lecturers of this module should use JFLAP in following year:
1: □ 2:□ 3:□ 4:□ 5:□
(f) Other comments:

52
Using learning object repositories for
teaching Statistics
Julià Minguillón1, Maria Antònia Huertas1, Angel Alejandro Juan1, Teresa Sancho1, Victor
Cavaller2
1Computer Science, Multimedia and Telecommunication Studies

Universitat Oberta de Catalunya

Barcelona, Spain
2Information and Communication Science Studies

Universitat Oberta de Catalunya

Barcelona, Spain

Abstract
This paper describes an experience regarding the use of learning object repositories for
supporting online students in a virtual learning environment. Before the introduction of the
learning object repository, all learning resources were made available through a specific space
within the virtual classroom, as part of the digital library of the university. Resources were
classified according to their nature (textbooks, examples, exercises, software, data, etc.) and
stored in compressed files, so students could download them as a whole package. Nevertheless,
by using this traditional method it was impossible to know the real usage of these learning
resources, as most students downloaded all the packages at the beginning of the academic
semester and never visited the digital library again. Students also complained about the lack of
additional descriptions, which makes the contextualization of each resource in the learning
process very difficult. In subjects with a large amount of learning resources (several hundreds),
such as Statistics in the Computer Science degree, we propose to use a learning object repository,
as it seems clear that it is a basic element of any virtual learning environment, providing users
with high quality contents, properly described and supported by means of metadata, taxonomies
and ontologies. The integration of such repositories into the learning process is a key issue for
ensuring a proper use, not just being a mere space in which to find educational resources. This
will help students to better understand the basic key topics in Statistics and it will also provide
online instructors with information about the real usage of the learning resources in the virtual
classroom.

1. Introduction
There is currently growing interest in taking advantage of Information and Communications
Technologies in general, and the Internet in particular, to develop and share quality teaching
materials among universities worldwide. Projects such as the MIT Open Courseware (http://
ocw.mit.edu) and MERLOT (http://www.merlot.org ) are clear examples of this phenomenon.
In the field of mathematics and statistics, the interest in creating and developing web
repositories with quality content that is easily accessible and usable by the university
community is becoming increasingly widespread, giving rise to initiatives such as MathWorld
(http://mathworld.wolfram.com), MathForum(http://mathforum.org), Joining Educational
Mathematics (http://www.jem-thematic.net), etc.
Although this sphere may seem highly focalized, it is one of the key factors in the success of a
repository. This is shown in the example of DLESE (http://www.dlese.org), a resource
repository for natural sciences which, based on an initial working community, has built up a

53
true learning community around it. The aim is thus to explore, select, develop and establish
guidelines and recommendations for these technologies, standards and taxonomies that will
effectively facilitate the creation of web repositories that are open (content that is
completely accessible and free of charge), high quality (content that is created and reviewed
by university professors), and collaborative (content developed by professors at different
departments and/or universities). The contents of these repositories will be classified
following a specific taxonomy and using keywords so that they can be easily located either
via a portal directory or by using the repository’s own search engine. These repositories
should be capable of hosting and indexing a whole range of materials: texts with theoretical
and practical explanations of concepts, solved exercises, examples of applications,
multimedia documents (videos, recordings, etc.), examples of using mathematical and/or
statistical software, and so on. Finally, these repositories should follow guidelines on scale
and standards that allow their resources to be shared with other open repositories that use
international standards.

2. Teaching Statistics in VLEs

The proliferation of PCs, the continual evolution of computer products (in terms of both
hardware and software) and the Internet phenomenon in the last few years have all
engendered a series of transformations which are helping to redefine the university
education panorama in every area of knowledge, and especially in the area of mathematics
and statistics. On a global level, numerous teaching groups have stressed how important it is
to use ICT to improve the quality of mathematics teaching (Conference Board of the
Mathematical Sciences, Mathematical Association of America, Mathematical Sciences
Education Board, National Council of Teachers of Mathematics, etc.), and, as advocated by
certain authors [1,2], the use of these technologies is a key factor in the future of
mathematics teaching.
In terms of Spanish universities, there is an obviously growing interest by mathematics and
statistics departments in incorporating information and communications technologies in
their teaching of the different degree courses [3]. The upsurge of ICT in general and Internet
use in particular has brought with it the emergence of numerous virtual learning spaces for
mathematics which, in many cases, strengthen or complement the teaching methods based
on classroom attendance. As well as the emergence of these virtual spaces, there is
increasingly intensive and curricular-integrated use of statistical and mathematical software,
which encourages students to be more creative (giving them the chance to experiment and
work with advanced concepts and techniques), and highlights the applied aspect of
mathematics and statistics in modeling and problem-solving in other areas of knowledge.
Meanwhile, it is worth remembering the other major factor that is also decisively involved in
the process of transformation that university mathematics teaching is undergoing:
universities are currently going through a time of significant change, driven by the
implementation of a European cultural framework that imposes the need to maintain and
strengthen a series of social and ethical values, by the progressive adaptation to the most
recent technological and socioeconomic changes, and, most importantly, by the convergence
towards an integrated European university system. As highlighted by certain authors [4], the
main philosophy behind the configuration of a European Higher Education Area (EHEA) is to
put the study programs of different European countries on an equal footing, which will

54
encourage the mobility of both students and teaching staff between the various European
universities and will be very beneficial for what the EHEA describes as "mutual learning".
Thus the construction of this EHEA represents a huge challenge: adapting old structures
(especially traditional ones in the field of mathematics teaching) in order to facilitate the
transparency and comparability of higher education, making it easier to recognize
qualifications and making them more uniform throughout the length and breadth of the
European Union. It is very likely that the new framework defined by the EHEA will involve
significant changes to educational curricula. In some universities, efforts are already being
made by different mathematics departments to share their teaching experiences and unify
the criteria of convergence to the EHEA, giving thought to both the general and specific skills
that each area of knowledge needs to develop through the use of mathematical and
statistical information.
Therefore, due to the influence of the EHEA, the new configuration of learning environments
—both online and classroom-based— are centered on the students rather than the teacher,
resulting in a reduction in the number of master classes and an increase in group working
experiences, i.e. collaborative learning [5]. Also, there is a greater emphasis on the teaching
director as the supervisor of the students’ work, promoting the use of all kinds of learning
resources (web sites, online libraries, learning objects, etc.) and the appropriate technologies
for each subject (specific software, learning platforms, etc.). Likewise, the acquisition of
transversal skills and competencies in other subjects is being introduced. In this respect,
some specialists have already formulated proposals that point towards strengthening the use
of mathematics as a transversal tool for use in other disciplines [6].

2.1. The UOC case

The Universitat Oberta de Catalunya (in English Open University of Catalonia) is an institution
which has emerged from the knowledge society. The mission is to provide people with
training throughout their lives. The university’s principal aim is to ensure that each student
satisfies his/her learning needs in a virtual environment, gaining the maximum benefit from
their own efforts. To this end, it offers intensive use of information and communications
technologies (ICT), thereby enabling us to overcome the barriers imposed by time and space
for offering an educational model based on personalized attention for each individual
student. Within the UOC Virtual Campus, each subject has a virtual classroom for teaching
and learning process and they are the virtual meeting point for learning activities, following a
student centered model [7]. A digital library provides students with all the resources they
need during their learning process. Although this solution satisfies some basic requirements,
such as accessing digital content, it does not contextualize such content within the learning
process. We propose to improve the semantics of the repository integrated in the virtual
classroom for providing students with the most appropriate resources according to the
learning context and his/her particularities (preferred learning style, used device, disability
issues, and so).
In the particular case of the Computer Science Degree, there are a lot of courses which
involve the study and use of mathematics and statistics. Among them, we have chosen
Statistics because it has several interesting characteristics: it is a multidisciplinary subject
across several degrees, it involves around three hundreds of students (in Computer Science
only), and it has a large quantity and variety of learning resources, such as textbooks,

55
examples, exercises, simulations, data sets, software tools and even multimedia
presentations. All these learning resources are linked together through the Teaching Plan, a
document which helps students to follow the preplanned schedule integrating all the
learning resources into the learning process. Nevertheless, students usually complain about
the lack of flexibility of the schedule and the excessive number of learning resources, which
makes them unable to follow the course. Preliminary studies show that students prefer more
flexible systems which allow them to find the appropriate resources when they need them,
instead of having all the resources available from the beginning. Learning resources should
be properly tagged and contextualized within the learning process; any learning resource
should be able to answer the following questions, among others: "what is this? ", "what is
this related to? " and "what is this intended to? ". Other interesting possibilities are rating
(usefulness, understandability, and so) and annotation (comments, errata, and so).
The concept of the repository is fundamental to the achievement of some of these
functionalities, such as building true learning communities around a given theme or area of
knowledge. Following the maxim of David Wiley, "learning is not just about content", which
means it will be necessary not only to provide students with simple, effective access to this
content, but also the tools necessary to participate in its joint creation and subsequent
evaluation [8], strengthening the development of transversal skills such as those that are
information-related, the ability to make critical appraisals, and a capacity for decision-
making. The repository, when properly integrated in the learning process, must allow
students to advance in their personal development in such a way that the whole set of
educational resources that can be used in the planned teaching activities is constantly
available. The repository is not simply a technological tool, but something that enhances the
use of educational resources, involving the student in the whole process. The repository is
the equivalent of a fishing rod, rather than the fish that represent the educational resources
provided with each activity and once they are used up, the context for their use is lost. In
contrast, the repository helps students to understand the relationship of each educational
resource within a context, whether explicitly because of the information it contains or
implicitly, through its exact location by means of the taxonomy and keywords designed for
that purpose. Instead of being isolated elements, the educational resources in a repository
become parts of a greater design, the actual process of learning, which integrates activities
and other elements necessary for the optimum acquisition and development of the skills for
that particular area of knowledge. The repository can be based on a very specific initiative
which addresses the needs of a particular area of knowledge, but it can also go on to
transcend that and provide solutions at a higher level, whether institutional or even national
[9].

2.2 Project goals

The aim of this project is based on a combination of the following factors:
1. The transversal presence of mathematics and statistics in numerous degree courses:
To a greater or lesser extent, subjects under the mathematics and statistics umbrella
form part of the educational curriculum for numerous university degrees relating to
diverse areas of knowledge: experimental sciences, technical teaching, social sciences
and health sciences. In addition, because of their instrumental nature —something
that is absolutely essential in today’s Information Society— this area of knowledge is

56
 also important in other postgraduate training courses such as Master’s and doctorate
programs. Meanwhile, subjects with a mathematical or statistical nature are,
generally speaking, among those in which students perform least well, which is why
they deserve special attention. In particular, the educational resources in these
subjects need to be constantly updated in line with methodological improvements,
curriculum changes and the different profiles and prior knowledge of the students. It
is feasible to use the same teaching content or resource in several areas of
knowledge, either as a case study in itself in one particular field, or as an example of
the instrumental use of a mathematical or statistical concept in other subjects. The
concept of a repository should allow efforts to be united in this transversal direction.
2. General interest in integrating ICT in mathematics teaching in universities:
Developments in computer systems and, in general, in information and
communications technologies have facilitated new ways of teaching mathematics to
university students and are providing professors with teaching tools that are
constantly evolving: virtual environments, collaborative learning platforms,
mathematical and statistical software, Internet-based educational resources, etc.
These technologies are being used with increasing intensity in both university
distance learning and traditional classroom-based teaching, the second of which is
increasingly using online educational elements to complement conventional face-to-
face teaching. Despite the apparent explosion and success of these technologies,
they often create content that already exists or is used without any criteria (turning
the technology into an end rather than a means), so it is essential to carry out a study
that helps to establish the ground rules for the effective use of these technologies
and ensure that the resources generated are re-used.
3. The need to adapt to the European Higher Education Area (EHEA): The EHEA
represents an excellent opportunity to unify academic criteria and facilitate the
standardization of university qualifications in the Old Continent, yet at the same time
it represents a new challenge for most European universities, which within a very
short span of time will need to adapt their teaching practices to the new directives
based on the principles of quality, mobility, diversity and competitiveness (the
criterion of employability). The fields of mathematics and statistics are not immune
to this challenge and, in fact, because of their intrinsic characteristics these fields are
destined to play a key role in developing many of the generic skills that future
European students will need to acquire: methodological skills (organizational
strategies, troubleshooting and decision-making), technological skills (information
management, computer technologies, etc.), critical appraisal ability, skills in system
operations, the ability to take a global and multidimensional view of the facts, the
ability to analyze complex and diffuse facts, the ability to see all the parts of a whole
and how they relate, etc. Therefore, in the field of university teaching of mathematics
and statistics, it will be necessary to examine and reappraise teaching methodologies,
adapt academic content to each degree course, and focus on integrating information
technologies in the educational process. The processes involved in acquiring and
developing general and specific skills in a particular subject should be done using a
different approach, not based on content as the center of the learning process, but
rather on designing activities that allow students to advance in that subject, working
jointly on the location, adaptation and creation of the educational resources needed

57
 in each case.
4. Availability of UOC teaching material in digital format: Over the last few years, the
UOC has generated a considerable number of resources in this field. Most of them
follow the editorial model of production and design, based on modules, which are
learning units with one or two credits designed for learning a specific topic of the
course contents. The cost of generating quality digital resources with this system has
been high; the process of creating and editing them takes on average one year, and
maintaining and updating them to changes in the course subjects is complex and
costly, given that it once again entails the whole editorial process. Many resources
have also been generated as examples, exercises, activities, experiments and self-
assessment tests associated with the subjects in question, resulting from the
teaching activities of each academic semester. At present, these resources are mainly
dispersed among the materials of the different course subjects; they are not
classified or placed in any order, and it is not easy for them to be reused either by
students or professors. This means that many students are missing out on the use of
these resources and are not getting the benefit from them expected by the teaching
staff. Equally, the teaching staff do not have the adequate search criteria for
identifying the resources that could be reused for creating new educational
resources. This means it is essential to design and create efficient web repositories to
make these resources available in the form of digital learning objects that can be
rapidly located and are in a format that allows them to be reused.
5. UOC policy for creating and managing educational resources: In 2007 the UOC
embarked on a process of reflection on the new European Higher Education Area,
setting up a series of working groups on various key issues related to the correct
adoption of the model proposed in what has become known as the Bologna Process.
One of these working groups was tasked with defining the technological and
methodological needs of the learning process in terms of creating and managing
educational resources, detecting current inadequacies and proposing specific
solutions for improving them. The results from this working group clearly indicated
that a centralized management model based on an editorial policy was needed to
generate a set of quality resources, but that in the long term this structure would
block all the new opportunities offered by information technologies today to create
and share educational resources. Therefore, a decentralized model for creating and
managing educational resources based on themed repositories (depending on the
area of knowledge, e.g. Mathematics and Statistics) which would allow greater
participation of all those involved in the educational scenario (authors, editors,
teachers and students) seems to be the only viable option for guaranteeing the
sustainable growth of the process of publishing quality educational material. This
decentralized model is based on integrating the different repositories in the same
virtual learning environment in a way that is totally transparent for the user, as is
already the case with the UOC’s Digital Library, where the same search interface can
be used to locate any kind of resource. In this respect, the concept of a repository
solves two of the problems facing many universities today: the first is how to
promote the reuse of the educational resources generated during the teaching
process in each academic semester, involving both professors and students, as well as
the knowledge created collaboratively; the second is having a service that allows

58
 educational experiences to be developed according to the needs of each user, taking
into account their individual requirements and idiosyncrasies by means of adaptable
educational syllabuses created from a combination of the educational resources
available at any given time in the repository. In the first place, the creation of web
repositories of educational content simplifies the process of creating and publishing
new educational material for teachers; and secondly it facilitates students’ access to
the resources they need during their course. These repositories should also allow the
available resources to be shared more efficiently between different universities, with
the aim of increasing the overall quality of the resources used in the learning process.
This is particularly valid in an area as important as Mathematics and Statistics, where
students demonstrate a lot of gaps in their knowledge which can be identified and
partly solved by the intensive use of information and communications technologies.

3. Evaluation
The use of learning object repositories for supporting learners in blended or pure virtual
learning is becoming a common reality in learning management systems. Previous studies
show that just allowing students to download all the resources is not effective from a
pedagogical point of view, specially if the number of available resources is large (hundreds or
even thousands) [10]. Learners need some guidance to use such learning resources within
their learning process. The use of repositories provides instructors with a powerful tool for a
better understanding of the learning process, as described in [11]. The usage data gathered
from the repository can be used to establish relationships between the usage of learning
resources and academic performance, but also for improving the way of describing such
learning resources. In order to evaluate the results of the project, some pilot tests will be
carried out on the subjects of mathematics and statistics. During these tests, the students
and teaching staff will be able to use the repository we have created in accordance with the
following conditions:
● Students can use the repository to locate the resources they may need in their
learning process, using the taxonomy and set of content descriptors created for that
purpose integrated in the search interface of the repository implemented.
● Similarly, teachers can use the repository to select and recommend resources to their
students as well as using them to propose certain activities. It is hoped that the use
of the repository will considerably improve the ease of generating new quality
material suitable for certain specific uses and at a given time during the course, as
well as the option of personalizing students’ learning process.
The following activities will be used to gather data for evaluating the pilot scheme. First,
questionnaires drawn up by the researchers on this project, which will be sent to the
teaching staff of the subjects for them to evaluate the effectiveness of the repository and
also identify any inadequacies. Two studies will be designed: one prior to the use of the
repositories, to coincide with the end of the semester prior to the pilot experiment, and
another after the experiment. The first study will assess the quantitative indicators relating
to the use of basic and complementary resources for that subject (frequency of use,
resources chosen, timescales, efficacy of the search for resources in view of satisfaction with
them, etc.), and qualitative indicators (level of satisfaction with resources, usability of the
interface, general satisfaction, etc). In the second study, the questionnaires will be sent out

59
prior to the start of the pilot scheme, and the quantitative indicators will evaluate the
effectiveness and use of resources (frequency of use, type of use, resources chosen,
timescales, search efficiency, etc.) and qualitative aspects (level of satisfaction with the tool
and the meta-data, usability of the interface, general satisfaction, etc.) will be clearly
identified in the design of the questionnaire. A comparative analysis will be made of both
results. Second, questionnaires drawn up by the researchers of this project, which will be
sent to students to evaluate the level of effectiveness and satisfaction with the repository.
There will also be two studies: one prior to the use of the repository, thus relating to the use
of resources currently available to students, and the other after the pilot scheme. The
quantitative indicators (frequency of use, resources chosen, effectiveness of search, etc.) and
qualitative ones (level of satisfaction with the tool —and the meta-data in the second study
— usability of the tool, general satisfaction with the educational resource, etc.) will be
formally defined when the questionnaires are drawn up. The design of these questionnaires,
as well as those in the previous section, will be carried out jointly by expert researchers in
mathematics teaching and expert researchers in quantitative and qualitative methodologies
used in educational research on the Internet. A comparative analysis will be made of both
results. Finally, these data will be cross-referenced with other quantitative data extracted
from the actual use of the repository, available in the log files of the content management
server. The analysis of the quantitative indicators obtained will offer an initial evaluation of
efficiency. The team of researchers includes experts in this particular methodology. The
analysis of the previous experimental data will be carried out by a team of experts in these
methodologies and will allow an evaluation of the efficiency of use of the digital repositories
in improving the motivation, performance and satisfaction of users as compared to the
previous situation of using educational technology, as well as the effectiveness and usability
of the tool itself (including the search interface).

4. Conclusions
The increasing large number of available learning resources for teaching Statistics makes
impossible to manage them unless a coherent system is provided along with the learning
process. In this paper we have described the introduction of a learning object repository in a
virtual classroom of a pure online university, trying to fulfill two basic goals: assuring
preservation and increasing reusability of learning resources, which are one of the most
valuable assets of any university. With respect to the students, the repository will provide
them with a personalized source of exercises, examples and so, but also with a
contextualized map which may be a useful guide for understanding all the relationships
between the concepts in the Statistics course. Regarding teachers and instructional
designers, the system will gather usage data that can be analyzed to better understand how
students evolve during the learning process, helping also to identify those learning resources
which may be more (or less) useful to students.
Current and further research in this topic includes the creation of a complete taxonomy of all
the mathematical resources used in the Computer Science degree by means of an upper
ontology which allows us to establish a hierarchical classification of the knowledge domain.
This would allow learners to better contextualize what they are doing when using the
learning resources (examples and exercises involving formulas). The integration of the
repository in a personalization system which adapts the learning process to the specific
characteristics of each learner is also an interesting issue that must be addressed.

60
Acknowledgments
This paper is partially supported by Spanish government grants under refs. E-MATH++
EA2008-0151 and PERSONAL(ONTO) TIN2006-15107-C02.

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 This document was finished in Cádiz,
24 of September of 2008

ISBN 978-84-691-8558-2

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