The promotion and assessment of generic skills from interdisciplinary teaching teams

The paper explains a teaching project financed by the University of Barcelona (UB). It focuses on ageneric skill of the University of Barcelona, which is defined as "the learning capability andresponsibility”, and in which analytical and synthesis skills are included. It follows a multidisciplinaryapproach including teachers of Mathematics, World Economics and Economic History. All of us sharethe same students during the first and the second course of the grade in Economics at the Faculty ofEconomics and Business. The project has been developed in three stages. The first one has beendone during the first semester of the course 2012/13, being applied to first year students on thesubjects of Mathematics and Economic History. The second phase is being to be done during thesecond semester only on the Economic History subject. A third stage is going to be done next course2013/14 to second year students on the subject of World Economics. Each different teaching teamhas developed specific materials and assessment tools for each one of the subjects included in theproject. The project emphasizes two teaching dimensions: the elaboration of teaching materials topromote the acquisition of generic skills from an interdisciplinary point of view, and the design ofspecific tools to assess such skills. The first results of the first phase of the project shows cleardeficiencies in the analytical skill regarding to first year students.

Legal issues in promoting FOSS in R+D projects - Policy, Organisation and Management

Creating and using FLOSS in R+D projects raises several legal issues, which need to be managed as soon as possible - preferably during the project planning stage. Challenges in the areas of project structure and policy, licenses and licensing, exploitation strategies, community management, and FLOSS-friendliness in general all have their legal aspects, which are commented here. Some recommendations are made for assisting in the use of FLOSS in R+D projects, especially in multiple party consortiums.

Licensing Review in R+D Projects

FOSS packages are becoming ever more present in R&D projects carried out a variety of entities, including large corporations. I will focus on how legal risks associated with the use of FOSS licenses can be assessed and discuss measures directed to risk mitigation.

Final architecture diploma projects in the analysis of the UPC buildings energy performance

A partir de maig de 2003, per iniciativa del Vicerectorat adjunt d’Edificacions de la UPC, el Centre Interdisciplinari de Tecnologia, Innovació i Educació per a la Sostenibilitat (CITIES) treballa en l’elaboració i la implantació del Pla d’Eficiència en el Consum de Recursos (PECR), amb l’objectiu d’establir polítiques i definir línees d’actuació per a l’estalvi i l’eficiència en el consum dels recursos energètics i d’ aigua en els edificis de la UPC.El PECR contempla, en una de les primeres fases, la realització d’avaluacions energètiques en les edificacions de la UPC per valorar l’estat actual dels edificis i poder establir uns indicadors del seu comportament energètic a partir dels quals establir els objectius d’estalvi i d’eficiència. Per fer aquestes avaluacions, es va crear una línea de projectes finals de carrera (PFC) per a estudiants de l’Escola Politècnica Superior de l’Edificació de Barcelona (EPSEB), sota la coordinació de professors tutors de diferents departaments y amb la col•laboració indispensable de totes les unitats de recolzament de la UPC.Aquesta publicació és la ponència presentada al IV Congrès "Sustainable City", a Tallinn, en el que es va presentar aquest projecte com a una eina de treball amb l'objectiu de reduir l'impacte ambiental dels edificis universitaris en les ciutats.

Action Research : the first steps to start up a pilot experiment in heritage education

Peer-reviewed

IX ASMOSIA International Conference Interdisciplinary Studies on Ancient Stone: Tarragona, 8-13th June 2009 (Book of abstracts)

Aquesta obra recull els resums de les comunicacions orals i pòsters que es van presentar durant el IX Congrés Internacional de l’Association for the Study of Marbles and Other Stones in Antiquity (ASMOSIA), organitzat per l’ICAC en el marc del programa de recerca HAR2008-04600/HIST, amb el suport del programa d’Ajuts ARCS 2008 (referència expedient IR036826) de la Generalitat de Catalunya i del Ministeri de Ciència i Innovació (Accions Complementàries HAR2008-03181-E/HIST), i celebrat a Tarragona entre el 8 i el 13 de juny del 2009.

A Semantic wiki for quality management in software development projects

Quality management has become a strategic issue for organisations and is very valuable to produce quality software. However, quality management systems (QMS) are not easy to implement and maintain. The authors' experience shows the benefits of developing a QMS by first formalising it using semantic web ontologies and then putting them into practice through a semantic wiki. The QMS ontology that has been developed captures the core concepts of a traditional QMS and combines them with concepts coming from the MPIu'a development process model, which is geared towards obtaining usable and accessible software products. Then, the ontology semantics is directly put into play by a semantics-aware tool, the Semantic MediaWiki. The developed QMS tool is being used for 2 years by the GRIHO research group, where it has manages almost 50 software development projects taking into account the quality management issues. It has also been externally audited by a quality certification organisation. Its users are very satisfied with their daily work with the tool, which manages all the documents created during project development and also allows them to collaborate, thanks to the wiki features.

A postcolonial gaze on monumentality. The need for interdisciplinary approaches

This article is a reflection on a master thesis. The article tries to unravel some of the interdisciplinary keys present in the work and necessary for the development of research on Public Space and Public Art. At the same time argues in favor of"post colonial" reading over the-produced space by the colonial powers, both in terms of its structural dimension and in the dimension of 'decorum'.

The determinants of contractual choice for private involvement in infrastructure projects in the United States

Reliance on private partners to help provide infrastructure investment and service delivery is increasing in the United States. Numerous studies have examined the determinants of the degree of private participation in infrastructure projects as governed by contract type. We depart from this simple public/private dichotomy by examining a rich set of contractual arrangements. We utilize both municipal and state-level data on 472 projects of various types completed between 1985 and 2008. Our estimates indicate that infrastructure characteristics, particularly those that reflect stand alone versus network characteristics, are key factors influencing the extent of private participation. Fiscal variables, such as a jurisdiction’s relative debt level, and basic controls, such as population and locality of government, increase the degree of private participation, while a greater tax burden reduces private participation.

La cualificación profesional en educación social. El papel del Prácticum

Peer-reviewed

The use of mixed methods research in interdisciplinary educational journals

Mixed methods research is becoming increasingly important in several scientific areas. The analysis of prevalence rates is a new line of research that has emerged in mixed methods research, and this methodological approach has only been applied carefully in a handful of journals. The purpose of this article was to analyse the prevalence of mixed methods research in interdisciplinary educational journals. Moreover, the main characteristics of the mixed methods articles identified were examined. This study used a mixed methods approach to analyse these aspects. Specifically, a partially mixed sequential equal status multiple-case study design was applied with a development mixed methods purpose. Three educational journals in different disciplines were reviewed from 2005 to 2010 (Academy of Management Learning and Education, Educational Psychology Review, Journal of the Learning Sciences). The findings show differences among the journals in the prevalence rates and characteristics of the mixed methods studies

Las redes de innovación docente de la Universitat de Girona : la perspectiva de los coordinadores

In 2009 the University of Girona (Spain) created four interest groups on teaching innovation. The objective of the project is that lecturers with an interest in teaching innovation can exchange their points of view and learn from one another, so University teaching is improved as a result. There are four such groups: “Problem based learning (ABP)”, “Cooperative learning”, “Evaluation”, and “Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) and Teaching”. The coordinators of the groups or networks, as they are also called, are chosen on a free basis by its members. This paper presents their point of view as regards the current activity of encouragement of interest in higher education and they elaborate on the main difficulties involved. The implications of the interdisciplinary work are explored, as well as the challenges of an initiative of this kind. The evolution of the ongoing work is reviewed, taking into account the context of a changing University, the lack of previous experience regarding projects of this kind, the asynchronous communication among the participants, and the necessity of a flexible approach in organizational matters