AUTOMATIC CONTROL PROFESSIONAL UPDATE ON THE BASIS OF MODERN INFORMATION AND COMMUNICATION TECHNOLOGIES

As a matter of a Learning Experience in Higher and Further Education and the fulfillment of University-Industry Cooperation projects, we introduce this paper about the development of a distance learning program for graduated engineers currently working, or interested, in the automatic control and instrumentation field. By mean of this academic program the students have been able to update their professional knowledge and skills on this specialized engineering field. Since the year 2008, the Control and Robotics Engineering Department, of the Engineering Faculty in the National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM), has been working on a project for the professional development of graduated engineers, improving teaching methodologies to link the theoretical knowledge of the subjects with didactic techniques that enable the understanding, synthesis and analysis of the issues under study, on the basis of the modern information and communication technologies (ICT's). The distance learning graduate program "Diploma in Control, Automation and Instrumentation Systems for Generation Power Plants" was requested by the national agency of electricity in Mexico (Comision Federal de Electricidad, CFE) as a further education program for the professional update of field engineers working in power plants all over the country.