Experiences with free and open courses using on-line multimedia resources

This paper analyzes the learning experiences and opinions obtained from a group of undergraduate students in their interaction with several on-line multimedia resources included in a free on-line course about Computer Networks. These new educational resources employed are based on the Web2.0 approach such as blogs, videos and virtual labs which have been added in a web-site for distance self-learning.

Open educational resources: the role of OCW, blogs and videos in computer network classrooms

This paper analyzes the learning experiences and opinions obtained from a group of undergraduate students in their interaction with several on-line multimedia resources included in a free on-line course about Computer Networks. These new educational resources employed are based on the Web 2.0 approach such as blogs, videos and virtual labs which have been added in a web-site for distance self-learning.

Green education using open educational resources (OER): setting up a green OER repository

A wealth of open educational resources (OER) focused on green topics is currently available through a variety of sources, including learning portals, digital repositories and web sites. However, in most cases these resources are not easily accessible and retrievable, while additional issues further complicate this issue. This paper presents an overview of a number of portals hosting OER, as well as a number of “green” thematic portals that provide access to green OER. It also discusses the case of a new collection that aims to support and populate existing green collections and learning portals respectively, providing information on aspects such as quality assurance/collection and curation policies, workflow and tools for both the content and metadata records that apply to the collection. Two case studies of the integration of this new collection to existing learning portals are also presented.

MOOCs, Open educational resources and social networking: bridging the gap between informal and formal learning

MOOCs and open educational resources (OER) provide a wealth of learning opportunities for people around the globe, many of whom have no access to formal higher education. OER are often difficult to locate and are accessed on their own without support from or dialogue with subject experts and peers. This paper looks at whether it is possible to develop effective learning communities around OER and whether these communities can emerge spontaneously and in a self-organised way without moderation. It examines the complex interplay between formal and informal learning, and examines whether MOOCs are the answer to providing effective interaction and dialogue for those wishing to study at university level for free on the Internet.

A comparative study of open domain and opinion question answering systems for factual and opinionated queries

The development of the Web 2.0 led to the birth of new textual genres such as blogs, reviews or forum entries. The increasing number of such texts and the highly diverse topics they discuss make blogs a rich source for analysis. This paper presents a comparative study on open domain and opinion QA systems. A collection of opinion and mixed fact-opinion questions in English is defined and two Question Answering systems are employed to retrieve the answers to these queries. The first one is generic, while the second is specific for emotions. We comparatively evaluate and analyze the systems’ results, concluding that opinion Question Answering requires the use of specific resources and methods.

OpeNER: open polarity enhanced named entity recognition

Actualmente existe una gran cantidad de empresas ofreciendo servicios para el análisis de contenido y minería de datos de las redes sociales con el objetivo de realizar análisis de opiniones y gestión de la reputación. Un alto porcentaje de pequeñas y medianas empresas (pymes) ofrecen soluciones específicas a un sector o dominio industrial. Sin embargo, la adquisición de la necesaria tecnología básica para ofrecer tales servicios es demasiado compleja y constituye un sobrecoste demasiado alto para sus limitados recursos. El objetivo del proyecto europeo OpeNER es la reutilización y desarrollo de componentes y recursos para el procesamiento lingüístico que proporcione la tecnología necesaria para su uso industrial y/o académico.

Open access, repositorios, directorios de repositorios y open licenses

Este trabajo aborda el tema del acceso abierto (open access) de la literatura científica. Se analizan las declaraciones sobre las que se basan sus cimientos y las estrategias existentes para la difusión del conocimiento. Así mismo, se tratan las iniciativas que colaboran con este fin: los repositorios, los directorios de repositorios de acceso abierto y las licencias abiertas (open licenses). Por último, se pone de manifiesto la relación que existe entre el movimiento de acceso abierto y las iniciativas relacionadas con los recursos educativos abiertos.

How can directories of open access repositories improve the reuse of learning objects in building engineering?

This paper studies the use of directories of open access repositories worldwide (DOARW) to search Spanish repositories containing learning objects in the field of building engineering (BE). Results show that DOARW are powerful tools, but deficiencies (indicated in this study) have to be solved in order to obtain more accurate searches, and to facilitate repository-finding for potential users who are seeking learning objects (LOs) for reuse. Aiming to contribute to the promotion of the reuse of Spanish LOs, this study exposes to the academic community all existing Spanish repositories with LOs, and in particular, the repositories that contain LOs in the field of BE. This paper also studies the critical mass of available content (LOs) in the field of BE in Spain. It has been found to be low.

Test of the User Experience on two Open Educational - Questionnaire

Test of the User Experience on two Open Educational Resources websites: OER4All and OER Commons. The questionnaire consists of pairs of contrasting attributes that may apply to the website. The gradations between the opposites are represented by numbers from -3 to 3 from very bad to extremely good opinion about the issue. The value 0 shows a neutral opinion.