**2. Ethics as the basis of the degree process**

The first step is to recall that ethics is a human value that promotes respectful behavior among members of society; thus, ethics is the basis of our human relationship with ourselves and the world around us [1]. Therefore, in higher education, ethics constitutes a transversal axis since academic and administrative processes are directed by and for people. In this sense, professionals are trained from the moment they enter the university until they graduate. However, it is necessary to think that the student's preparation does not correspond only to tasks, classes, and research, among other purely academic actions, since these result from human acts in which values are manifested in each activity [2]. This is what Caramelo says:

Professional ethics in university education promotes the acquisition of professional values and reflexive and critical adaptation so that students acquire ethical values in general and of the profession they will perform in particular as their commitment to society [2].

The values referred to by Caramelo must be established by higher education institutions and internalized by the educational community members [2].

The CU establishes institutional values: honesty, a culture of peace and justice, freedom, responsibility, and tolerance, which require ethical and committed action by teachers, students, and administrative personnel to provide society with human professionals capable of contributing to the solution of its most urgent problems. Also, the contribution to ethical training is an institutional commitment based on what is indicated in the Organic Law of Higher Education (LOES, for its Spanish acronym) (2010), in its Art. 8, Aims of higher education, paragraph d: To train responsible academics and professionals, in all fields of knowledge, with ethical and solidarity awareness, able to contribute to the development of the institutions of the Republic, to the validity of the democratic order, and to stimulate social participation [3]. It can be verified that national and institutional regulations coincide in the need to incorporate values and ethical norms in higher education processes.

As already indicated, applying values and ethical norms must be a constant during the student's training process. Within the CU, in the terms April–September 2021 and October 2021–March 2022, the degree processes were developed in a hybrid manner; that is, students, faculty, and administrative staff carried out the activities face-to-face and virtually. With this background, the steps students had to follow to complete the degree process are described—in its different options—as degree project or complex examination, which were related to institutional values in the following way [4]:


*Ethics as the Basis of the Degree Process Analysis in the Nursing Programs at the Catholic… DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.112334*


Based on the institutional values, the CU degree regulations, in addition to explaining how the degree process should be carried out, also refer to ethical aspects, which are clearly described below:

Possessing any input or instrument that shows similarity with the evaluations before or during the application of such assessment is considered academic dishonesty on the student's part. If this occurs, the exam will be denied or annulled and it will be considered failed [5].

The student will present the plagiarism prevention system certificate with a similarity of up to 10%, granted by the professor responsible for the degree or collaborators of the research area. When the student's project exceeds this percentage, whoever oversees the process will immediately notify the student and the director, who must work on the matter to reach the required percentage [6].

This regulation seeks to ensure that the different actors involved in activities related to the degree program comply with the process ethically, making it possible to achieve the results established in the planning.

Another university process subject to ethical action corresponds to Institutional Evaluation, a requirement that must be fulfilled to operate a higher education institution in Ecuador. Raúl Comas R. et al. indicate that to evaluate (…) means to judge the relevance of its objectives, their fulfillment and how they are achieved, and the resources involved in the process. An institutional evaluation is participatory and collaborative and involves internal and external actors [7]. Thus, the institutional evaluation gives external information about the university's activities and is subject to a continuous evaluation—in-house—called self-evaluation, which makes it possible to achieve the quality standards defined in the evaluation model [7]. This self-evaluation can be of the entire university, by campus or extension, or by career. Per Flores and Hoyos, institutional self-evaluation is understood as a regulatory strategy through which the State recognizes the capacity for autonomy and self-regulation of university institutions to improve the development of university functions [8]. Therefore, self-evaluation is based on ethics since regulation and autonomy are based on the values field.

It can be observed that the degree and the self-evaluation process—developed in higher education institutions—are carried out with a solid basis in moral and ethical principles. Therefore, this study shows the direct relationship between the results of the degree processes of the CU Nursing programs, in its different campuses and extensions, with those of the institutional self-evaluation process [4–6]. The Nursing program has been taken as a reference since it is currently (2022) undergoing accreditation processes. The model applied through the qualitative indicator: Self-evaluation process determines as a standard that, as part of the quality assurance processes, the degree program carries out its self-evaluation based on institutional regulations. Thus, it contemplates the participation of the actors involved in university activities and provides results that are used to continuously improve the quality of the education offered [9].

In this sense, the CU periodically complies with the self-evaluation processes either at a macro or micro. Concerning Nursing programs, the results were obtained at the beginning of the second semester of 2022.

In the self-evaluation model applied by the University, in the indicator Monitoring the Graduation Process, the standard measures that: The program plans and monitors the graduation process of its students, based on current regulations, ensuring compliance with the academic requirements of the graduation project [5, 10]. This requirement has been satisfactorily fulfilled, with the following results:


*Note. Data were taken from the self-evaluation reports of the Nursing program, corresponding to the periods 2020–2020/2020–2021.*

#### **Table 1.**

*Results of the indicator monitoring the graduation process.*

As seen in the table, the results of monitoring the graduation process are satisfactory in the three programs. Each one of them has complied with the presentation of the general and specific regulations—for both face-to-face and virtual processes—, the planning for the development of the degree options, the list of tutors with their assigned students, the adequate use of means of communication with the actors in the process, and the improvement actions based on the recommendations of the semesterly degree reports.

Academic efficiency is also assessed in the self-evaluation model through the retention and graduation rate. The latter indicator shows 16% as the expected result. It is calculated with a statistical formula in which 100% corresponds to the number of students who entered the cohort, and the variable corresponds to the number of students who graduated. The results are shown in the following table:


*Note. Data were taken from the self-evaluation reports of the Nursing program, corresponding to the 2020–2020/2020– 2021 terms.*

#### **Table 2.**

*Graduation rates results of nursing programs at the Catholic University of Cuenca, 2021–2021/2021–2022 terms.*

### *Ethics as the Basis of the Degree Process Analysis in the Nursing Programs at the Catholic… DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.112334*

It is evident that the expected result is duplicated in the nursing program at the Azogues campus, while in the main campus and the Cañar extension, these percentages are almost triplicated. The foregoing allows us to understand that the degree process was carried out in the best way and exceeded expectations. These results allow us to conclude that adequate monitoring of the degree process generates graduation rates that exceed the model expectations.

However, if adequate monitoring of the graduation process results in graduation rates above the expected percentages in the self-evaluation process, the same should be observed inside the classrooms. The process is designed for all students enrolled in a degree program in the same term, regardless of the date of entry into their degree program. The results of this task are recorded in the Semiannual Report, which includes information on the degree program, reference to the regulations, data extraction documents, a list of students and degree options chosen, results of the degree process completed and approved (at the end of each study term), and a list of faculty tutors with the number of students assigned and the hourly load for their respective accompaniment. The results are shown in **Table 3**:


*Note. Data were taken from the self-evaluation reports of the Nursing program, corresponding to the 2020–2020/2020– 2021 terms.*

#### **Table 3.**

*Results of students graduating at the end of the senior year of the nursing program.*

This table shows the results of the graduation process at the end of the last study term. These percentages demonstrate the effectiveness of the graduation process since more than 80% of the students graduated in most of the periods. This results from an ethical process based on the perseverance and responsibility of the students, permanent tutoring, and the availability of the academic and administrative actors. It should be noted that those students who did not graduate at the end of the senior year have two additional semesters for graduation. This corresponds to the first and second deferrals. Although the results of the self-evaluation process are indeed measured at different times and terms than the semester graduation results, it can be inferred that the process effectively carried out positively affects both the graduation rate and the percentage of students graduating at the end of the senior year of the degree program. Thus, from the data shown in **Tables 1–3**, the relationship between the indicators of the self-evaluation model of the nursing program and the degree processes developed can be inferred. The results are presented below in a single table:


*Note. Data were taken from the Nursing program's self-evaluation reports for the 2020–2020/2020–2021 terms and from the biannual reports of degree results for the 2021–2021/2021–2022 periods.*

#### **Table 4.**

*Relationship between self-evaluation results and degree processes for the terms 2021–2021 and 2021–2022 in the nursing program.*

**Table 4** indicates that if the graduation process monitoring is satisfactory, the graduation rate will be as expected in the accreditation process. Consequently, the graduating students' percentage at the end of the program will be significant. It is important to remember that the degree process is based on institutional values and, therefore, is associated with the ethical actions of each of its actors and their consequent results. These are not the product of an isolated ethical action that responds only to the degree department; they are the consequence of an ethical and professional process developed during university education, which according to Caramelo-Pérez, promotes the acquisition of professional values, their reflexive and critical adaptation so that students acquire ethical values in general and of the profession they are going to perform in particular, as well as their commitment to society [2]; and this is conceived from the career project to the culmination of studies through the degree.
