Socrates programme

Main problems encountered and solutions.

Problems: Encountered problems can be split into 3 categories:

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  Management difficulties
  

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  Technical difficulties
  

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  Intrinsic difficulties
  

Intrinsic difficulties

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  In the case of TASK 1-Survey of Engineering curricula in EIE,
  

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  The lack of national statistics is a major obstacle that delayed considerably the work plan activities.
  

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  The manifold of educational structures that exist in the European space contributed to render difficult our task.
  
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  In the case of TASK 2-Development of distant pedagogical resources using new technologies,
  

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  Difficulties to directly design THEIERE modules in English language.
  

Management

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  The size of the network and the diversity of specialities and interests from the partners represented a difficulty for the efficient management of the network. We think however that the decentralised structure that we have used contributed in a great deal to achieve a satisfactory result to a certain degree.
  

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  The hiring of students by the industry at an early stage of their education deturns students from the university and therefore from the educational activities, which is the core of this Network.
  

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  A difficulty to stimulate partners who are not active within the network. Several contacts have been established but in some cases there was no response.
  

Technical Difficulties

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  Retrieval of information was sometimes difficult due to problems in browser accessibility and different operating systems.
  

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  Some tools, used for the development, are not so consistent. For instance Browsers and Java development tools evolve continuously, so, the different versions are not full compatible and from time to time the results, and especially graphical functionalities depend on the target computer. It's a minor problem because this kind of tools is generally available free of charge for academic institutions, and because we try to use as soon as possible the updated version.
  

The harmonisation that will result from our activity is an essential step for the development of accreditation criteria and establishment of common certification procedures between Higher Education Institutions and professional engineering associations.

Our web-site with all the developed material can be an effective tool to promote the attractiveness of the European Higher Education Area, mainly due to the inclusion in our network of partners that come from other continents (Morocco and Turkey) and non-eligible countries of the European continent, as Ukraine.

Some of the partners have launched new projects, based on the co-operation links established in the THEIERE project.