Mission
Contributing to the enhancement of quality education at UPC by means of promoting improvement and innovation in teaching and learning in higher education and by providing training for academic staff in new educational resources.

Goal and Acting Lines
Main goal is providing academic staff with practical solutions to facilitate an easy use of ICT and an effective adoption of proved teaching and learning methods so that the focus goes on the significant student’s learning.

To achieve this goal the Institute is organised in 3 acting lines which result in several activities:
1- Academic staff training
2- Support to teaching projects
3- Use of ICT in university education

Our Subject Areas of Interest (Hot Topics of Interest)
-Collaborative/Cooperative Learning
-Problem-Based/Project-Organised Learning
-Active methodologies
-Teaching Portfolio
-Mentoring
-Peer Review
-Web-Based Teaching and Learning
-Web-based Open Learning Environments
-E-Based Educational Materials
-European Higher Education Area implications on organising teaching
-Student Workload and ECTS (European Credit Transfer System) Development
-Competency-Based Teaching and Learning
-Competences for Life-Long Learning
-Learning Measurement (Evaluation and Assessment)
-Student Portfolio
-The New Role of Lecturers
-Communities of Practice and Knowledge Management

The Activities
• Courses, Workshops, Action Programmes targeted to academic staff
Workshops: under the guidance of a specialist, participants study and discuss a relevant topic on higher education teaching practices
Action programmes: participants adapt to their subject a specific teaching innovation and further discuss on results
• Initial Training Programme (known as ProFI –Programa de Formació Inicial)
A comprehensive training programme targeted at university lecturers that start their activity at the university
• The Factories (http://www-ice.upc.es/factoria)
Teaching resources facilities located in all UPC campuses libraries. They make available updated hardware and software and help from specialised people to adapt any document or educational project into an ICT based framework.
• Multimedia Training (Blended Learning Training)
Several options of courses with different levels of difficulty targeted to academic staff
• Support to groups of interest in related topics
• Organisation and participation in international seminars
• Internal and external to UPC collection of examples of innovative practices in teaching
• Assistance in integrating technology into teaching and development of technical projects
• Support to adapt to European Higher Education Area teaching requirements
• Promotion of UPC academic staff teaching innovations and initiatives
• Information on new trends and developments in university education and academic staff training

Some Figures
Date of creation: 1970’s
Institutes of Education Sciences were created by law in Spanish universities. They were initially centres for research and promotion of specialisation in education, the target groups were pre-university teachers and university lecturers.

Milestones:
1997 - UPC reorganises the Institute, which is now to deal with university lecturers. UPC creates a parallel structure to work in pre-university teachers training.
2001 – The UPC Resources Centre for Teaching Support goes into the Institute. The centre deals with technological computer based and multimedia support.
2003 - The Institute is recognised in the new statutes of UPC as a structural unit of the university together with Research Institutes, Schools, Faculties and Departments.

Amount of training activities implemented during the past three years:
Increase of training hours: from 3149 hours in 2001 to 7248 hours in 2003.
During the last year (2003), 55 training activities (workshops, action programmes, seminars, conferences, tailored courses) targeting 797 academic staff participants.
Some of the topics developed:

• Planning tasks
• Student Motivation
• How to improve your speaking
• Improving Writing Communication
• Alternatives to Explanatory Classes
• Preventing Stress
• How students learn
• Learning Evaluation
• Designing a Teaching Project
• Voice Improvement
• Teaching Portfolio
• Co-Evaluation
• Active Learning
• Cooperative Learning Techniques
• Professional Development
• Questionnaires for Continuous Improvement (SEEQ)
• Analysing a Recorded Class
• Evaluation Instruments
• Establishing Course Objectives
• Problem Based Learning
• Maths Games
• Enhancing Subject Area Expertise via the Internet
• Editing Web-based Teaching Material
• Blended Learning
• Using a Virtual Campus
• Flash MX
• Flash 5
• Dreamweaver 4

Amount of projects supported during 2003:
• ICT based Teaching Innovation (The Factories)
A total of 352 supporting actions and 68 web or CD based materials produced.
Actions performed: Production of teaching materials, Image and video processing (Images digitation, Images processing, Video recording and digitation, Video editing).
Tools: Dreamweaver, Office, Flash, Acrobat, Illustrator, Easy Prof, Maple
• Teaching Innovation Projects
A total o 9 full projects supported and 56 advise requirements answered
General topics: Blended learning methodologies, Production of electronic based teaching materials and resources, Project management, Cooperative Learning.

The Team
The team is made up of academic, academic-related, administrative and secretarial staff. It is a 17 people team of professionals in the fields of Computers, Education, Training, Multimedia, Administration and Management, under the direction of a 3 member academic board of UPC professors. The team is qualified to provide support in ICT, Multimedia and Educational Methodologies.

The Role within UPC
Within UPC, the Institute is acting as an agency, providing consultancy, assistance, resources and training to academic staff of the university.
It complements the activities developed by other bodies of UPC in supporting the teaching activity of academics.
The key role of the Institute in facilitating that existing resources at UPC are put forward to support teaching and learning is currently increasing.
The need for the Institute role is supported by the fact that UPC is not delivering Pedagogy degrees.

The Decision-Making Process
The Institute reports to the Rector and to the Governing Board of the university. The Director of the Institute is appointed by the Rector on the basis of a three year mission.

The External Concern
In the framework of its strategic objectives for the year 2004, the Institute is intending to foster its external relations in the perspective of acquiring a collection of teaching practices of excellence well adapted to the new trends and requirements of the European Higher Education Area.
The concern is to put in place a strong network of relevant contacts in other universities in order to inform the academic staff of UPC of current experiences of interest on teaching and learning solutions in Spain and all countries abroad.

Location
On the first floor of Vèrtex building. This building is part of the UPC North Campus in Barcelona.

Contact us
info.ice@upc.edu

Postal address:
Institut de Ciències de l’Educació
Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya
Edifici Vèrtex 1rst Floor
Plaça Eusebi Güell, 6
08034 Barcelona
Spain

Telephone number: +34 – 93 401 60 66
Fax number: +34 – 93 401 56 16

The UPC
Called in English Technical University of Catalonia, the UPC (Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya) is a multi-technological Catalonia-based university with 27.899 students (only undergraduates), 2.500 academic staff and 1.299 administrative and academic-related staff (year 2002-2003 figures).
With its 6 campuses and 3 associated locations around the region, the university is well introduced in the civil society and industrial network of Catalonia.

Compared to Spanish universities, UPC is a medium to high size university and is one of the 50 public universities among a system of 71 Spanish universities in total. UPC is among the most relevant fully technical universities in Spain and the Mediterranean area and the only one in its kind in the Catalonia region. Following the Spanish University Reform Law (1983), UPC is an independent body and has full powers in most of the aspects of the university life.

If you wish to tour (“fer un passeig”, in Catalan) the Technical University of Catalonia, visit the following UPC site in English:
http://www.upc.edu/english/la-upc/presentacio/passeig/passeig.swf

Other activities of UPC related to the Institute activities

Premi a la qualitat docent (Prize to quality in teaching)
http://www.upc.es/catala/la-upc/presentacio/bases_q_docen03.htm
Servei de Biblioteques i Documentació (Libraries and Documentation Service) http://bibliotecnica.upc.es/
Jornada de reflexió i debat sobre el model docent de la UPC en l’Espai Europeu d’Educació Superior (UPC Teaching Choice in the framework of European Higher Education Area Exchange Day)
http://www.upc.edu/eees/
Fundació Politècnica de Catalunya (Technical Foundation of Catalonia)
http://www.fpc.upc.es
Oficina de Formació i Accés (Training and Access Office)
http://www.upc.edu/info/ofa/pac/frame.htm

“The above information is a package especially designed for purposes of information to our English speaking visitors. It is a comprehensive overview of what the ICE-UPC is. This information is up-dated only when relevant major changes occur in ICE-UPC. If you may require any further detail or more precise information on any aspect, please, contact us at info.ice@upc.es. Looking forward to your comments.”