Núria Mancebo Fernández

Complementing education with competence development: an ICT-based application

Nowadays, university policies highlight the importance of complementing teaching activities with competence development in the framework of the European Higher Education domain. A previous step for this concerns the development of an effective, efficient, practice-oriented, and user-friendly competence evaluation tool. The main objective of this article is to illustrate the use of a competence self-evaluation tool and to explore the implications of such Information and Communication Technology (ICT) tool for education. We use a web-based tool designed to assess and develop social and personal competences, which is applicable to the learning process. We apply it to a Spanish university, with students considered as project managers of their studies. We obtain some validation of the tool as an instrument for self-evaluation, with effects on the attitude towards learning, providing knowledge on the contribution of the learning activities to developing competences. We also discuss a series of implications at different levels of the education community: university management, teaching centres and, just as important, students.

Aligning leadership and competences in recruitment and staff development: an empirical analysis in the context of regional public administration

In the last decade, competences have gained a special interest in all pillars of the Triple-Helix model, namely academia, administration and business. Several competence models have been developed and put into practice in different public administration contexts. Leadership is one of the most important valued competences in business. Including competences and high-value leadership in the public administration is part of a process conducive to a more professional service. The empirical evidences come from a survey conducted recently. During the present study, personal and professional profiles as well as leadership styles of the target population are analysed on a sample of 160 managers in different departments of the Autonomous Government of Catalonia (Spain) engaged in the local public administration of the city of Girona. Our results show that competences highlighted as most important in the selection of managerial positions are commitment, professional ethics, understanding, and self-control of ones behaviour or actions related to values and professional ethics in general. Aspects related to teamwork or focused on people, with specific importance placed on the self-control of emotions are also important, followed by efficient time management, tenacity and perseverance, as well as the adaptability to deal with different, changing conditions in the workplace.