The rapid evolution of Industry 4.0 and 5.0 requires a dynamic and predictive approach to workforce development, particularly identifying emerging occupations and the required knowledge, skills, and abilities (KSA) within critical sectors. This study addresses the research question: What are the key emerging Industry 4.0 and 5.0 occupations in Mexico's INFOCOMM (Information and Communications Technology) sector, and what KSAs do they demand? The study proposes a strategic framework that leverages AI-powered tools, specifically natural language processing (NLP) and machine learning (ML), to develop a comprehensive and adaptive taxonomy of KSAs that meets the evolving needs of the INFOCOMM sector. The methodology involves collecting and analyzing extensive datasets from job advertisements, industry reports, and educational frameworks, allowing us to automate the extraction and classification of job requirements and competencies. Using NLP and ML, it was possible to systematically categorize and rank in-demand skills, providing a scalable model that can be updated dynamically as labor market trends emerge. The framework identifies key occupations driven by advances in automation, data analytics, AI integration, and digital platform management, with the most critical skills, including problem-solving, project management, and interdisciplinary teamwork. Similarly, significant knowledge areas such as cloud computing, cybersecurity, and AI systems are identified as foundational for the future workforce. This flexible framework offers a robust tool for academic institutions and industry practitioners. For academia, it enables the alignment of curricula with the competencies necessary for Industry 4.0 and 5.0. For industry, it serves as a strategic guide for workforce development, supporting targeted upskilling and reskilling initiatives. The model's flexibility allows for continuous updates, which ensures relevance despite ongoing technological advances. Future research will extend this framework to additional sectors and regions, refine its predictive capabilities, and explore its longterm impact on education and workforce productivity.

The article explores the transformative impact of gamification in education, highlighting the integration of theory and practice to create dynamic and engaging learning experiences using multi-sensory virtual reality environments, such as the Multi-Sensory Virtual Decision-Making Center (MVDC). Among the state of the art of gamification, it has been shown that gamification significantly improves students' attention, motivation, and knowledge acquisition, leading to better academic performance. In addition, it promotes the use of new technologies and encourages teamwork. The Multi-sensory Virtual Decision-Making Center facilitates the creation of immersive collaborative virtual environments where multiple decision-makers can participate remotely in real-time without losing the sense of presence, thus providing an enhanced user experience by conducting joint decision-making sessions remotely and in real-time. Therefore, this work proposes a novel approach to engineering education by combining the synergistic potential of gamification and MVDC, improving both the educational experience and the efficiency of remote and real-time collaborative decision-making. This proposal includes the realization of joint exercises in the classroom with the combination of these technological tools. The initial results are encouraging because they offer an improved user experience when performing collaborative gamification exercises in the classroom and promote efficient and engaging real-time remote decision-making. This work will provide valuable insights and recommendations for future research in this dynamic and promising field.

Skills taxonomies are a useful classification system for all skills that an employee must count at the workplace. Taxonomies provide a framework for seeking, classifying, evaluating, and indicating the skills that are essential for all kinds of professions. Taxonomies based on Future Skills usually have a visual framework to show their occupational structures and provide upskilling and reskilling support through various pieces of training. This article proposes a web framework using a dynamic taxonomic system based on knowledge, skills, and abilities (KSA) matrices for submitting course and occupation structuring for the Industry 4.0 workforce. For the methodological process, firstly, a matrix taxonomic structure based on KSA was created through a review of the literature; secondly, an analysis of the data related to KSA presented by FutureSkills frameworks was carried out, such as those of the World Economic Forum (WEF), NESTA Taxonomy, SkillsFuture of the Government of Singapore, the Standard Occupational Classification (SOC), among others. Once the base taxonomy was created with the data from the frameworks mentioned above, the dynamic aspects were developed through new documents and publications, applying natural language processing tools to enrich and complete the KSAs identified as trends. The INFOCOMM technology sector was chosen as a case study under the dynamic matrix taxonomy structure, applying NLP tools to extract and explain KSA trends and potentially new ones. Among the results obtained is a web framework where the taxonomic structuring created for the INFOCOMM Technology sector can be dynamically displayed. The preliminary results show that this framework can serve as an international reference guide to designing future educational plans for active learning and experiential in higher education institutions and for designing occupational profiles for the industry's future.

In their last international report, “Jobs of the Future 2023”, the World Economic Forum strongly emphasizes that the ability to forecast future skills is paramount in ensuring quality learning for the workforce in the context of Industry 4.0 and beyond because it enables individuals and organizations to adapt, remain competitive, and thrive in a rapidly evolving industrial landscape. This study focuses on addressing the dynamic nature of the modern workforce by forecasting the Knowledge, Skills, and Abilities (KSA) that will be in high demand in the future. The authors explore innovative strategies for delivering quality education tailored to the workforce's diverse needs, with a particular emphasis on inclusivity and accessibility. The project has a broad scope encompassing a comprehensive analysis of workforce trends, emerging skill requirements, and the development of effective reskilling and upskilling programs. It aims to bridge the gap between current skills and future job requirements by forecasting the skills in demand. The study anticipates several key results, including the identification of future skill demands, the development of customized learning programs, the implementation of technology-enhanced educational initiatives, and the establishment of comprehensive workforce development strategies. By forecasting future skills and developing inclusive learning programs, the project seeks to create a more equitable and accessible educational landscape, ensuring that individuals from all backgrounds and demographics are prepared for the opportunities and challenges of the future job market.

Collaborative Online International Learning (COIL) connects students and professors from different countries, universities, cultures, and educational models to engage in projects and coursework, working together for a common goal. By implementing this collaboration in courses that are part of the engineering program study plan, both students and faculty develop different disciplinary and transversal competencies while learning the knowledge and skills required for their specific engineering programs. In the context of engineering education, program accreditations are quite relevant to ensure the standards and quality to develop graduates that are well prepared to enter the global workforce and contribute to build a better world. This study analyzes the student outcomes of different engineering accreditation organizations to identify common student outcomes and explore the impact of COIL experiences to contribute to the development of these student outcomes. Some COIL experiences in literature report that students build communication skills, work in multicultural environments creating consciousness about different social, economic and political contexts, develop critical thinking and problem-solving competencies while proposing solutions to complex problems, among others. This study aims to investigate how COIL courses align to the development of engineering student outcomes and document COIL as a tool for this purpose, emphasizing best practices and recommendations for universities that intend to engage in this pedagogical approach.

Reducing the gender gap in universities has been an undertaken task for several years, aligned with the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) of gender equity. Within the culture that can favor and facilitate this change, is to have spaces where leadership in equity is present, which allows the growth of more women in positions of authority in our institutions. The case study shares the strategies of a program to create this culture in a private university in Mexico, starting with one area as a pilot program. The research methodology is qualitative in nature with three phases: design of the instrument related to elements to generate a space for leadership in equity, implementation of the design to the members of the area, analysis and conclusions with the principal strategies. The results allow the directive team to define short and long-term action plans to achieve a culture of leadership in equity, and therefore, the increase of women in leadership positions with the opportunities that arise.

This paper proposes a dynamic Knowledge, Skills, and Abilities (KSA) matrix-based taxonomy for the Industry 4.0 workforce. The study methodology consisted firstly of identifying the KSAs through a literature review and secondly of a KSA relevance analysis using information from World Economic Forum (WEF) global reports and the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD). Finally, we identified the correlation coefficients of the KSA matrix elements concerning the data on jobs and occupations using information from the European Skills, Competencies, and Occupations (ESCO), Occupational Information Network (O*NET), and the strategic intelligence platform of the World Economic Forum. One of the goals was to make the taxonomy compatible with existing and future machine learning methods (i.e., AI-ready) that will enable efficient and effective use of AI in mining and explaining existing and potentially proposing novel trends and strategies. Preliminary results show that the KSA Industry 4.0 Taxonomy can serve as an international reference guide for designing 2030 educational approaches to active and experiential learning in Higher Education Institutions.

The new reality demands that engineering graduates develop digital skills. Furthermore, globalization requires university students to develop global perspectives and cultural awareness to become responsible and sustainable global citizens. One of the most popular strategies in recent years, mainly due to the confinement by COVID-19, was the strategy of Collaborative Online International Learning (Collaborative Online International Learning, COIL). COIL is a voluntary association between teachers from different countries collaborating in co-constructed learning experiences to enhance international and intercultural understanding. The analysis of 10 COIL experiences between Tecnologico de Monterrey and other universities worldwide was conducted based on evaluating and developing student competencies. The students' satisfaction level has been high. Results suggest that COIL helps them to develop skills to navigate the challenges of the 21stcentury, giving them new perspectives and ways of thinking about how they relate to the world. Detected opportunity areas were specific preparation of teachers, evaluation systems, instructional design, and the assignment of digital badges to participating teachers. COIL is a powerful tool for developing the engineering skills that employers demand.

Education 4.0 Framework reveals the need for the curricula of Higher Education Institutions to incorporate new learning approaches, along with new Competency Assessment Models. In the case of STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics) programs, the inclusion of new technological tools is relevant to effectively assess the level reached by students in the development of transversal skills. NLP (Natural language processing) is a practical approach to understanding the effectiveness of learning processes because it provides solutions in various fields associated with the social and cultural context of Competency-Based Learning. In this study, we evaluate the usefulness of integrating NLP tools in evaluation procedures in advanced STEM subjects to aid the educator in developing competencies outside its core subject expertise. Different instruments were considered: surveys, questionnaires, interviews, observation lists, rubrics, and other tools to handle parametric data statistically. The study’s findings confirmed that the NLP tools are handy to evaluate higher-order functions and determine levels of cognitive understanding of concepts. Additionally, results showed that NLP tools could support instructors in carrying out better review and feedback sessions and providing personalized reports on oral and written communication skills.

Here we report the development of a reference framework focused on design for inclusion to achieve an inclusive and equitable society. Our model seeks to show a framework to expose the experiences of minority groups within a social system that requires the design or redesign of a solution defined as a product, process, system, or service to solve a specific problem. The research incorporates a case study developed in a higher education engineering course, whose objective is to apply the reference framework to redesign processes and services for vulnerable populations. Qualitative observations and data collection are carried out through the proposed methodology as a conceptual model focused on the design for inclusion, based on the opinions of different actors. Our findings allow progress towards future studies and its validation in other cases of an inclusive design approach to develop citizenship competencies - Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) - among stakeholders. We believe that our results can be part of the current basis necessary to solve the new challenges that our society faces, generating an impact for academics, government, companies, and NGOs, specifically in services related to sustainability, and solving problems of diversity, inclusion, equity, equity, and legitimacy of minorities.

This Research to Practice Work in Progress Paper focuses on the Education 4.0 Framework, based on built-in skill development mechanisms and innovative learning pedagogies related to Active Learning approaches. Practicing engineers are increasingly expected to act as boundary spanners who manage and participate in diverse interdisciplinary global teams, leverage cultural differences, and draw on expert knowledge from multiple fields and specialities to translate competing stakeholders' needs into practical design solutions. This demand for a holistic type of engineer stems from the requirements of the Fourth Industrial Revolution: engineers who assume the role of leaders can integrate knowledge and work seamlessly across intellectual, social, and cultural challenges. Our exploratory study aims to identify the implications for practice, challenges, and opportunities in Higher Education. More specifically, we look at two engineering programs of two universities, one located in Mexico and the other in the United States of America. Both universities have implemented massive Experiential and Challenge-Based Learning efforts with industry and external organizations as educational partners to immerse students in real-life contexts. The methodology used was qualitative-experimental, involved more than 120 students, and included a post-test for skills assessment with different instruments such as rubrics, questionnaires, interviews, and surveys. The preliminary findings of this work-in-progress study reveal that the role of Higher Education professors in the training of future engineering professionals within the Education 4.0 Framework has different degrees of complexity related to the cross-border nature of educational innovation, that requires the commitment and alignment of multiple actors: students, professors, organizations, and industry.

Endorsed by the Fourth Industrial Revolution and pushed abruptly by the irruption of the Corona crisis, a large number of technological resources, digital platforms, and virtual and augmented reality applications were massively incorporated in all educational areas, including the field of higher education. This phenomenon has been not only ideal but essential in STEM programs (Science, Technology, Engineering, Mathematics), with the aim of developing the aspect of digital transformation, although technological enablers have ended up being used also as Teaching Tools. But what about the Learning Tools? The present work shows that it is possible that, without the adequate design of a framework for the Teaching and Learning Process, these innovative technological resources are not capable of guaranteeing per se the effective intellectual engagement of students in their own learning. The cognitive and metacognitive tools used in this work were designed for the development of four skills declared as fundamental in the Education 4.0 Framework: Innovation and creativity, global citizenship, digital transformation and interpersonal skills. This paper offers findings, results and discussions of a study conducted over 3 years, with more than 200 engineering students, by implementing an approach designed especially for Generation Z students.

Gender inequalities and underrepresentation of women in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) continue to be a reality, as several barriers affect women throughout their career development and in leadership positions. Little is known about those barriers for women in developing countries. This two-stage study aims to explore them and analyze how women leaders in STEM in Mexico have overcome them, from their education to the science and engineering workforce. This work in progress focuses on stage one, where a survey was conducted to obtain sex-disaggregated data on drivers and barriers to STEM careers in Mexico. Preliminary results showed the lack of equal opportunities for women when pursuing and advancing in a career in STEM, additional barriers they face compared to men, as well as the importance of women role models for representation and retention of women in these fields. The second stage of the study is planned to analyze the career development of women leaders in STEM in Mexico.

In August 2019, the national initiative Women in Engineering and Sciences (MIC) was launched with the objective of raising awareness and monitoring gender equity, equal opportunities and women empowerment. This project, led by a group of professors, hopes to accompany, support and join efforts, for a stronger impact within our academic community. This study presents the work of the linking committee towards the empowerment of women engineers through linked experiences. The methodology of this work includes: 1) integrating a multi-campus team to work in the engagement and linking committee, 2) identifying internal efforts towards the empowerment of women, as well as external efforts in companies, organizations and other universities through research and interviews, and mapping the networking ecosystem 3) analyze the information to identify key partners for collaborative projects, and 4) create a community by implementing Lean In circles (leanin.org) and replicate the project at other campuses. The work done and the reflections hope to be a roadmap and source of inspiration to other engineering institutions working towards a culture of gender equality and women empowerment.

This Research-to-Practice Full Paper discusses the use of the active learning approach to enhance the 21st century skills that are critical to developing new job opportunities for young engineers. The soft skills required in the Fourth Industrial Revolution make the traditional mode of logical-scientific thinking insufficient for the degree of innovation and disruption required in future jobs. In the field of higher engineering education, the situation was doubly challenging: Generation Z students' cognitive skills had to be improved in terms of digital literacy and cutting-edge technological tools had to be quickly incorporated. This work is a study on the effectiveness of the didactic approach of Active Learning in STEAM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Art and Mathematics) and the innovative ways of empowering students to develop digital literacy skills, among them: photo-visual ability, reproduction ability, branching ability, real-time critical thinking ability and, the most important of this study, socio-emotional ability. The opportunities and challenges that the study addressed were related to accessibility, inclusion, and self-paced learning. The research was carried out with a mixed experimental methodology in a sample of 352 engineering students, who were evaluated with different types of instruments to know the level of acquisition of soft skills related to digital literacy. To evaluate these skills, different assessing instruments were used for pre-tests and post-tests, including: vocabulary level, lateral thinking ability, fluency and originality; as well as story-articulation skill tests and modified VALUE rubrics from the Association of American Colleges and Universities (AAC&U). The results obtained showed that the active learning approach promoted a better understanding of scientific concepts in engineering subjects, a greater ability to develop digital communication skills, and a greater awareness of creative thinking skill.

International groups of stakeholders are currently involved in the redefinition of the objectives of engineering education. They are releasing different reports where clearly raise the need that the acquisition of cognitive skills and metacognitive awareness must be carried out complying with the knowledge, attitudes and values of the complex demands of the Fourth Industrial Revolution framework. Inherited from the past, the stiffness of the academic structures in some higher education institutions, may prove today an insurmountable barrier to the new adaptable learning approaches required by Generation Z students. During this study, engineering students received creative thinking instruction to comply with the enhancement of: (i) their ability of shifting between different modes of thought; (ii) their capacity to cope with uncertainty, ambiguity and volatility; and (iii) their handling of non-routine interpersonal and analytical skills. The obtained results indicate that the supervised practice of associative and analytical thinking modes are highly effective for the development of the mode shifting competence, not only as a domain-specific but also as a domain-general thinking skill.

In this innovative practice work-in-progress paper, the software engineering design principles that are used for Programming Fundamentals, and Object-Oriented Programming courses, within a -recently renewed curriculum- software engineering program, are reviewed and discussed as tools to introduce first-year students into the engineering design skills learning pathway of the Engineering Accreditation Commission of the Accreditation Board for Engineering and Technology, ABET. Special attention is paid to highly abstract concepts such as high cohesion, low coupling, Keep it Short and Simple, Don't Repeat Yourself, Single Responsibility Principle, among other object-oriented design principles. The aim of such exercise is two-fold: (i) to address how design principles can be used to guide students' learning process, and (ii) to support pedagogical decision making for the software engineering program. The outtake of the whole research planned by the authors is as follows. On the one hand, design principles are discussed and analyzed, from the first-year programming courses perspective, aiming a pedagogical path planning for student outcomes attainment within a Project-Based-Learning approach. On the other hand, the discussion on how the program takes advantage of assessment and evaluation processes, can be useful for programs and faculty concerned with fulfilling the continuous improvement criterion, as defined by ABET. The presented work-in-progress focuses on reflection about design principles and establishing a link among them, with the engineering design process. In this way, this paper separates from similar works that may focus on design principles by itself, without the mentioned intentionality. Reported qualitative results are focused on conducted experiences so far within our software engineering program.

This Research-to-Practice Full Paper discusses the use of the Serious-Storytelling approach for enhancing soft skills that are decisive for the development of new job opportunities for young engineers. Multifarious international organizations, in their recent reports, emphasize the need to include new cognitive tools for developing the soft skills that Gen Z engineers need due, on the one hand, to the strong consolidation of social media, which shows an unexpected difference in the way recent graduates view the world and define themselves; and on the other hand, to the exponential development of the technology that was made accessible to them. Serious-Storytelling cognitive tools were adapted for the design of critical reading and critical writing co-curricular activities and were included as active learning experiences in different engineering programs. The research was conducted based upon a 4-group Solomon methodology with a quantitative design. To assess creative thinking competencies, different evaluation instruments were used for PreTests and PostTest, including several fluency and originality tests, as well as storytelling articulateness ability tests and modified VALUE rubrics of the Association of American Colleges and Universities (AAC&U).The obtained results showed that the designed Serious-Storytelling approach promoted a better understanding of scientific concepts in engineering subjects, a higher capability to develop rising demand skill sets and a stronger creative thinking competence awareness.

Recent international reports highlight the need for developing engineering students' soft skills to a greater degree for the Fourth Industrial Revolution. In particular, critical thinking and creativity are the main focus as their enhancement were found to be difficult when using traditional logical-scientific approaches in engineering. In this study, we investigate different methods of fostering specific dispositions of critical thinking in engineering students that could enhance student intellectual engagement. These attributes are namely: (i) self-awareness; (ii) open-mindedness; (iii) attentiveness towards different situations, and (iv) broad perspective view. To achieve these objectives, two different activities -dialogue seminars and online discussion boards- were incorporated into the classroom. In order to evaluate the effectiveness of the approach, rubrics designed with critical thinking frameworks were used. The results obtained show the chosen cognitive tools can be highly effective for the development of higher ordered thinking skills.