About 200 nursing professionals from
more than 60 Spanish universities attended the first day of the conference in
the main lecture hall. The event was presented by UIC Rector Dr. Pere Alavedra,
who provided a brief introduction and welcomed all those attending, Pilar Tazón, the President of the
CNDCUE, and Cristina Monforte, the Director of the UIC Nursing Department. This
year's topic was about final projects and how they can be implemented, managed
and evaluated.

Dr. Cristina
Monforte then handed over the floor to keynote
speaker Gloria Estapé, a professor at the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona
(UAB) in the Department of Business Economics, which forms part of the Faculty
of Economics and Business Studies. Dr. Estapé is also a member and coordinator
of the UAB's Innovative Teaching Interest Group on Final Projects. She read the
paper Final Projects: Objectives, Competences and Teaching Model in Studies
Adapted to the European Higher Education Area. 

Dr. Estapé described the specific role
final projects should play in university degree programmes. She focused on the
approaches these projects can have, such as a practical approach that connects
the student to the reality of the profession, or a more theoretical,
experimental approach aimed at students with an interest in research. She also
spoke about the positive and negative aspects of a final project.

Dr. Estapé said that one of the positive
aspects is that the final project is considered a subject. She said, “It is
assigned a specific credit load and students have to prepare it in the same
teaching period in which they study other subjects”.

She also said that the final project has
a course description, a fixed academic calendar, tutor schedules and ongoing
assessment.

In reference to the negative aspects,
she said, “It is not as visible as other subjects because planning is done
independently, more professors act as tutors and it is more difficult to
assess, because the criteria are more homogeneous”.

After the keynote speech, another paper
was read with the title Experiences Implementing the Final Project in
Undergraduate Programmes in Nursing, Physiotherapy and Diet and Nutrition by
Dr. Emilia Sánchez, the Assistant Dean of
Postgraduate Programmes and Research in the Faculty of Health Sciences at Blanquerna, Universitat Ramón Llull.

Dr. Sánchez explained the system followed
at the Universitat Ramón Llull
on planning this project and highlighted the importance of final projects,
which, she said, “are projects that help students process the knowledge they
have acquired during the degree programme”. She also said, “It is a personal,
individual project led by a tutor that has to be defended and then assessed”.

Dr. Sánchez explained what the project
means for students. “It is their first formal adventure in the world of
research; to this end, they are asked to use a bibliography correctly, assign
themselves tasks and consider the importance of their research”, she said.

Finally, she mentioned the four
fundamental pillars of the final project: the students, the final project
committee, the tutors and the jury of two or three members.

The last activity of the conference was
a group of papers on proposals about final projects moderated by Pilar Fuster, a professor in the
UIC Nursing Department.