Keywords competitive games; electrical engineering course; mobile communications; project-based learning
Mobile communications are nowadays one of the fastest growing technologies in the communications business,1,2 representing close to 2% of GDP in the majority of developed countries.3 Following this trend, most universities and technical schools offer mobile telecommunications courses to prepare engineers in these technologies. 4,5 Specifically, in most institutions where electrical engineering is taught, basic courses about the GSM (2nd Generation Mobile Communications), and the UMTS (3rd Generation) systems are offered.
These courses, usually called Mobile Communications, Wireless Communications or Communications Networks, may vary among different universities, but generally all of them give a good overview of the technical and economical foundations of this field. Teaching the GSM and UMTS systems in technical schools is usually carried out by following two steps. First, the students receive theoretical classes comprising a description of how the system and its components work; afterwards, they take some laboratory classes where practical aspects of the GSM and UMTS6 systems implementation are revised.
In the last few years, the teaching methodology known as project-based learning has arisen as one of the most promising and used techniques in higher education. Specifically, different works have been published recently discussing several applications of project- and problem-based learning in electrical engineering.7-11 These works have shown the applicability of the project-based learning scheme in very different aspects of electrical engineering teaching, and very good results in terms of improvement of teaching quality and students' acceptance have been obtained. In spite of the large amount of works in the literature discussing project-based schemes in electrical engineering, up to now we have not found a direct application of the project-based technique to specific mobile communications courses.
The objective of this paper is to describe a specific implementation of a projectbased learning (PjBL) scheme in a Mobile Communications course taught in a Spanish university. Specifically, we discuss the implementation of the PjBL scheme in the course Mobile Communications taught in the 5th year of the Telecommunications Engineering degree at the Universidad de Alcal� (UAH), Spain. The idea is to include in the course concepts of engineering and economics related to mobile communication systems. Briefly, we have structured the PjBL implementation in the following way: after a first stage in which the basic theoretical notions of the GSM architecture are explained, a project-based learning scheme is organized by dividing the students on the course into groups of 3 to 6 people. Each group represents a Consulting Firm, with its corresponding team leader. The work consists of performing a full technical and economical study for a virtual operator in a specific city, with its specific economic and technical features. This work is planned as realistically as possible, and then it is like a competition among all teams in such a way that the best project will obtain the best qualification. The evaluation is done by considering the technical quality of the solution, the presentation (how well the team is able to show how good their study is) and the efficiency (in terms of network investment and consulting budgets).
The rest of the paper has the following structure: the next section presents the PjBL proposed, describing the organization and structure of the projects given to the students. The following section shows the results of the experience in a graduate course at the University of Alcal� (UAH), Madrid, Spain. The concluding section presents some final remarks.
Description of the proposed project-based methodology
Nowadays, most network deployments take place in GSM and UMTS systems, so a solid foundation in these technologies is a must in a telecommunications engineering degree. On the other hand, most telecommunications engineers have jobs related to techno-economical studies, consulting studies12 and/or project management, whereas only a few of them work on low level technical issues. This fact made us prepare a different type of mobile communications course, with special focus on project management. In this section the basic details of this project-based learning scheme are given.
The complete course is based on two interrelated blocks:
* A set of theoretical lectures, where the concepts and working of mobile communications are explained;
* The Work Project, which is designed as real consultancy work.
The final mark for the course is the mean of the mark obtained in the final exam of the course (over 10 points), and the mark of the consulting work project (also over 10 points). The main objectives of the project are the following:
* Learning how to work in a real case scenario inside a work team;
* Learning how to assume a specific role and responsibilities in team work;
* Learning how to manage efficiently scarce resources, specifically time and human effort;
* Learning how to apply the knowledge acquired in the lectures to a real case;
* Learning how to survive in a harsh competitive environment;
* Learning how to present the results of the work (how to sell them to the client).
The project has been structured as follows: the students are divided into several groups with 3 to 6 students, are each group is treated as a consulting company that works for an imaginary operator. The task of each group is to perform the complete mobile network deployment in a specific city of Spain, with the corresponding real equipment, and to calculate the values of the cost per minute of the different services offered by the operator.13 In the courses in 2007/2008 and 2008/2009 the city selected was our home town, Alcal� de Henares, where the University of Alcal� is located. In the next subsections we detail the complete methodology used to supervise the projects.
Composition of the teams
As has been mentioned before, each group is composed of 3 to 6 students. The selection of the members of the group is done by the students themselves. The students are previously told that smaller groups will have less complicated projects than bigger groups, because bigger groups can use economy of scale to leverage the work of the project. Each group has to select the name of the consulting firm and the corresponding corporate logo. Furthermore they have to establish a template for all the reports they have to produce, in order to provide a professional image.
A relevant issue at this point is the figure of the team leader. In the real world the team leader in a consulting project is a senior consultant who, obviously, has more responsibility than the rest of the project members. On the other hand, he/she earns more money. In this case, the team leader takes responsibility for the success of the project. If the project ends correctly, the qualification of the team leader will be higher than the rest of team members. On the other hand, if the project fails, the team leader will be consequently penalized. The students with more initiative are encouraged to be team leaders.
Work definition
As outlined above, each team is commissioned with the mobile network deployment of a virtual operator. The input data given to the team is described below.
* The technologies adopted by the operator, GSM or GSM / UMTS.
* The market share of the operator.
* The bandwidth acquired by the operator in each frequency band, GSM 900 MHz, GSM 1800 MHz, UMTS 2000 MHz.
* The total annual minutes billed by the operator.
* The service briefcase for each technology.
The level of difficulty of the work depends on the number of members in each team. We have divided the possible consulting firms to choose from into three categories.
- Small operator. Using only GSM technology with low market power, about 15-20% and with not very favourable frequency bands and limited service briefcase. The network design is simple, but the profitability is low. Therefore in the conclusions of the report they have to make many statements to the regulatory authorities. This kind of operator is adequate for small teams of 3 members.
- Medium operator. GSM and UMTS technology with market power about 30% and reasonable frequency bands and service briefcase. It is a comfortable position for the network design but the level of exigency in the profitability results will be high. Adequate for teams of 4 members.
- Large operator. This will be the case of the dominant operator with a very high market power, more than 40%, with a large briefcase and large spectrum due to its economic power. The network design is more difficult but the profitability is ensured due to economy of scale. However in the report the students have to defend against possible regulatory intrusions to favour the small operators. Adequate for teams of 5 or 6 members.
The result of the project is a final report where the following points must be described:
* An executive summary describing the network design;
* Firm, model, price and description of the commercial equipment used for each network element;
* Location in UTM coordinates of each BTS, BSC and radio link used in the network design;
* Graphical representation of the results, by means of the corresponding maps;
* Consultant economic report;
* Network design economic report;
* Profitability of the proposed solution;
* Diagram with the effort in man/months;
* Conclusions and allegations for the regulatory authorities.
Apart from the final report, each team will have to perform a short presentation to the lectures of the subject and other colleagues, some of them coming from mobile operators such as Vodafone group. The objective of this presentations to force the students to defend their solution against a semi-hostile audience, which represents the client in the real world, and which tries to find any possible error on the design.
Economic budgets
There are three topics in the final report related to economic issues: the consultancy budget, the network investment budget and the profitability study. This section will go deeper into these points.
In the project definition it is specified that each team must act as a consulting company performing a work for a virtual operator. Therefore the members of the team spend some effort, measured in working hours, to complete this work. In the final report they have to provide an economic report with the total amount they will bill to the operator for the work done. This bill may include not only the personal payments but also the corresponding part of the material used by the consulting firm (computers, printers and so on), and the benefit margin.
In the economic budget there will be a specific item related to the things acquired by the team for doing the project. In fact, these things are, in most cases, only information about network equipment and prices, economic issues, network planning procedures or geographical and demographical information about the city of Alcal� de Henares. Information can be obtained on the Internet, from reference books or asking the lecturers directly. However, in this work, the role of the lecturer is to be an external consultant, therefore if the team asks the lecturer something, the lecturer will bill the team for this concept. The amount of virtual money the lecturer will charge depends not only on the type and complexity of the question, but also on other factors such as the type of team asking: a larger team works for a larger operator and will have to pay more. Also, when a team asks for information, it has been imposed that the closer to the deadline of the project, the higher the price the team will have to pay. This service request has to be done to the lecturer by filling in a form using the company's template.
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