Digital and Global View of Engineering Education Using Remote Practical Competences

This paper reports on two noticeable approaches to digitalizing and globalizing engineering by applying information and communication technologies (ICTs) to engineering education. In the first approach, a new European and interinstitutional online master´s degree program was developed and prepared among five different institutions from four different European countries via an online-distributed platform. The program is offered online across five European institutions and is oriented to labor market needs for qualified graduates. In the second approach, a massive open online course was developed and openly delivered to the public. It is devoted uniquely to acquiring practical competences by building and experimenting with electronic circuits online. In both of them, ICTs are intensively adopted in order to deliver theoretical contents to students anywhere and anytime without geographical or time constraints. Similarly, remotely accessed laboratories are adopted in order to allow online experimentation. The development and implementation of both approaches are discussed in this paper. Experiences, comments, and conclusions are provided.