Systems of Higher Education in an international Comparison: Spain<title> <link rel="stylesheet" href="../CSS/2col_leftNav.css" type="text/css" /> </head> <body> <div id="masthead"> <h1 id="siteName"> Systems of Higher Education in an international Comparison: Spain</h1> <h1 id="subTitle"> Universidad Politécnica de Madrid, Universidad Carlos III, Universidad Politécnica de Valencia</h1> <div id="globalNav"> <a href="../educationalsystem/school.html">Educational System</a> | <a href="../universitylife/living.html"> University Life</a> | <a href="../work/internship.html">Work</a> | Madrid | <a href="../valencia/valencia.html">Valencia</a>| <a href="../authors.html">Authors</a></div> </div>  <div id="content"> <h2 id="pageName"> Universidad Carlos III de Madrid </h2> <div class="story"> <h3> Communication</h3> <p> While being abroad I noticed that this is an aspect where the TU Munich can learn from the UC3M.<br /> I will only mention the most important forms of communication that are used at Carlos III, but it should be enough to understand its important role.</p> <h3> Email</h3> <p> By far the most important medium is the communication via Email. While at the TUM students usually only get an email if they registered for a course or (if they're lucky) as a reply from a professor or any officials, at UC3M Email is the main form of communication.<br /> Because students have to register (and pay) for a course before they attend them, the lecturers do have the email adresses (and pictures and background information) of all students in their course. With this adress-list it is possible to send out all important information via email, like homework assignements or exam information. And the lectureres actually DO this. <br /> Furthermore there are a lot of newsletters that are sent to all students of the university. These can be about the new theatre program, sport events, the election of a new rector and so much more. At TUM these information would be given on one of the plethora of homepages (that belongs to the faculty, university, chair, project, etc.). So if the students wants to get the same information he gets via email at UC3M, he would have to visit the homepage of all chairs (20+), the various faculty news websites (only for the computer science faculty there are at least 5 news pages) and the main page of the university. This is nothing any student could or would do on a regular basis. The result is that most students don't have an idea of what's going on at the university. If the students get any information it is mainly through other students or via posters pinned on the entrance doors - email and internet are only very poorly used. </p> <h3> Official Internet Forum</h3> <p> The UC3M has an official internet forum where the different subjects and courses can be discussed. That a forum is a very useful tool has already been recognized by the TU students a long time ago. When I started studying it didn't take long until one of the students installed a private <a href="http://informatik.heindlnet.de/" target="_blank">forum</a>. <br /> Unfortunately a year later the new students installed a <a href="http://www.infler.de/forum/forums.php" target="_blank">new forum</a>. And although it is quite popular at the moment, it is very probable that in a few years it might become abandoned, as well.<br /> So an offical forum run by the university is definitely a more stable solution.</p> <h3> Aula Global - central course website</h3> <p> Although this website was not yet used by all lecturers, it provided a better solution than the myriad of different TUM system. Very often the only reliable or up-to-date course information can only be found on the chair's website. With about 20 chairs this is quite a hassle, e.g. if you have to search for a seminar or a lab course. At UC3M all course you registered for are shown on a central website (Aula Global). At this website you also get your personal schedule - ready to print, an overview of the exam dates, access to your university mail account, any scholarships you may be granted and even the local weather at your campus.<br /> On the course page you can access a list of all other students registered for your course, with email adress and picture and of course you can access all course information and files related to the course. If the lecturer supports it, It is even possible to upload homework directly to the course website. <br /> After the exams the grades shown on this website and - in case you didn't pass - the date of the re-examination is written.</p> <h3> <strong>University TV</strong></h3> <p> The university TV is a product of the media students at UC3M. First of all it is a news channel, like you would expect of a normal local TV station. But it is furthermore used a a tele-teaching device. For example, you can view a database course that was filmed in a quite high quality.</p> <h3> University Magazine</h3> <p> The university magazine of the UC3M is a professional magazine that is released twice a year and provide information on the university life as well as on the research that is done at the university. Just like the university TV this is an area where the TUM can't compete, because it only focusses on technical studies. Nevertheless TUM fails at communicating what the researchers are actually doing. It took me several years until I got somewhat familiar with most of the computer scientist research fields but is there any computer scientist who knows what the mathematicians are doing? This is where a magazine can seriously help, because it speaks in a language that all students understand - whereas the pure title of a lecture or a chair might always remain a mystery to students and researchers of a different subject.</p> <div> <em>Author: Arno Scherhorn</em></div> </div> </div>  <div id="navBar"> <div id="sectionLinks"> <h3> The City of Madrid</h3> <ul> <li><a href="geography.html">Geography, Population & Administration</a></li> <li><a href="sights.html">Sightseeing</a></li> <li><a href="living.html">Living in Madrid</a></li> <li><a href="work.html">Working in Madrid</a></li> <li><a href="universities.html">Universities</a></li> <li><a href="free.html">Free Time & La Marcha </a></li> </ul> <h3> Carlos III</h3> <ul> <li><a href="carlos_general.html">General Information</a></li> <li><a href="carlos_geography.html">Geography</a></li> <li><a href="carlos_technicalcampus.html">Technical Campus </a></li> <li><a href="carlos_thedegree.html">The Degree </a></li> <li>Communication</li> <li><a href="carlos_comparison.html">Comparison</a></li> </ul> <h3> Universidad Politécnica de Madrid</h3> <ul> <li><a href="upm_history.html">History</a></li> <li><a href="upm_facts.html">Facts & Figures </a></li> <li><a href="upm_locations.html">Faculties & Locations</a></li> <li><a href="upm_fi.html">Faculty for Computer Science</a></li> </ul> </div> <div class="relatedLinks"> <h3> Related Links</h3> <ul> <li><a href="http://www.uc3m.es/" target="_blank">Universidad Carlos III</a></li> <li><a href="http://www.tum.de/" target="_blank">TU München</a></li> </ul> </div> </div>  <div id="siteInfo"> (C) 2008, Stefan Edbauer, Arno Scherhorn, <a href="http://www.juergentreml.de/">Jürgen Treml</a> </div> <br /> <script type="text/javascript"> var gaJsHost = (("https:" == document.location.protocol) ? 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