A Curricula Model for Supporting a Design-Centric Computing Engineering Education

摘要

The constant evolution present in the information and communication technologies (ICT) as a result of the changing environment is a big challenge for computing engineering (CE) professionals that face a demand for solving increasingly new and complex technological problems. This technological evolution imposes, among others, a process evolution within the organizations, the information multiplication to be integrated and processed, an increase in competitions to respond faster to global needs, and an increasing demand for systems integration. As a result, CE programs have an undeniable and constant necessity to evolve their curricula to keep up to date. We have defined, put into production, and validated a curricula design model based on competences to facilitate the design and implementation of CE programs. The frame for competence definition is stable, allowing a fast adaptation to the continuous change. The curricula design model turns around a set of competences defined in terms of the life cycle of problem resolutions, which is structured around projects. We illustrate how to design project-based CE programs that aim students to incrementally develop competences for understanding complex problems and for designing solutions around them.