The Cooperation on Justice and Home Affairs and the Enlargement of the European Union

This working – paper will be focused on three key issues: • How will affect the enlargement to the Justice and Home Affairs Cooperation. Especially, the absortion of Schenguen Agreements and the overall JHA by the candidate countries. • The enlargement impact over the European Immigraton Policy and the specific policies carried out by the EU Member States. The main question is the free movement of persons safeguard, in order to protect external borders of European Union. • An analysis of September, 11 attacks against U.S.A might be necessary to understand the future changes on JHA policy.

Faculty-librarians collaboration in an e-learning experience : resources management and training in Open University of Catalonia (UOC)

The traditional model of learning based on knowledge transfer doesn't promote the acquisition of information-related competencies and development of autonomous learning. More needs to be done to embrace learner-centred approaches, based on constructivism, collaboration and co-operation. This new learning paradigm is aligned with the European Higher Education Area (EHEA) requirements. In this sense, a learning experience based in faculty' librarian collaboration was seen as the best option for promoting student engagement and also a way to increase information-related competences in Open University of Catalonia (UOC) academic context. This case study outlines the benefits of teacher-librarian collaboration in terms of pedagogy innovation, resources management and introduction of open educational resources (OER) in virtual classrooms, Information literacy (IL) training and use of 2.0 tools in teaching. Our faculty-librarian's collaboration aims to provide an example of technology-enhanced learning and demonstrate how working together improves the quality and relevance of educational resources in UOC's virtual classrooms. Under this new approach, while teachers change their role from instructors to facilitators of the learning process and extend their reach to students, libraries acquire an important presence in the academic learning communities.

An Empirical Study on Faculty Perceptions and Teaching Practices of Wikipedia

Some faculty members from different universities around the world have begun to use Wikipedia as a teaching tool in recent years. These experiences show, in most cases, very satisfactory results and a substantial improvement in various basic skills, as well as a positive influence on the students' motivation. Nevertheless and despite the growing importance of e-learning methodologies based on the use of the Internet for higher education, the use of Wikipedia as a teaching resource remains scarce among university faculty.Our investigation tries to identify which are the main factors that determine acceptance or resistance to that use. We approach the decision to use Wikipedia as a teaching tool by analyzing both the individual attributes of faculty members and the characteristics of the environment where they develop their teaching activity. From a specific survey sent to all faculty of the Universitat Oberta de Catalunya (UOC), pioneer and leader in online education in Spain, we have tried to infer the influence of these internal and external elements. The questionnaire was designed to measure different constructs: perceived quality of Wikipedia, teaching practices involving Wikipedia, use experience, perceived usefulness and use of 2.0 tools. Control items were also included for gathering information on gender, age, teaching experience, academic rank, and area of expertise.Our results reveal that academic rank, teaching experience, age or gender, are not decisive factors in explaining the educational use of Wikipedia. Instead, the decision to use it is closely linked to the perception of Wikipedia's quality, the use of other collaborative learning tools, an active attitude towards web 2.0 applications, and connections with the professional non-academic world. Situational context is also very important, since the use is higher when faculty members have got reference models in their close environment and when they perceive it is positively valued by their colleagues. As far as these attitudes, practices and cultural norms diverge in different scientific disciplines, we have also detected clear differences in the use of Wikipedia among areas of academic expertise. As a consequence, a greater application of Wikipedia both as a teaching resource and as a driver for teaching innovation would require much more active institutional policies and some changes in the dominant academic culture among faculty members.

Designing online interaction to address disciplinary competencies: A cross-country comparison of faculty perspectives

This study was conducted at colleges in three countries (United States, Venezuela, and Spain) and across three academic disciplines (engineering, education, and business), to examine how experienced faculty define competencies for their discipline, and design instructional interaction for online courses. A qualitative research design employing in-depth interviews was selected. Results show that disciplinary knowledge takes precedence when faculty members select competencies to be developed in online courses for their respective professions. In all three disciplines, the design of interaction to correspond with disciplinary competencies was often influenced by contextual factors that modify faculty intention. Therefore, instructional design will vary across countries in the same discipline to address the local context, such as the needs and expectations of the learners, faculty perspectives, beliefs and values, and the needs of the institution, the community, and country. The three disciplines from the three countries agreed on the importance of the following competencies: knowledge of the field, higher order cognitive processes such as critical thinking, analysis, problem solving, transfer of knowledge, oral and written communication skills, team work, decision making, leadership and management skills, indicating far more similarities in competencies than differences between the three different applied disciplines. We found a lack of correspondence between faculty¿s intent to develop collaborative learning skills and the actual development of them. Contextual factors such as faculty prior experience in design, student reluctance to engage in collaborative learning, and institutional assessment systems that focus on individual performance were some of these reasons.

Learning journalistic opinion genres using CLIL methodology

The Faculty of Business and Communication recently started an internationalization process that, in two year’s time, will allow all undergraduate students (studying Journalism, Audiovisual Communication, Advertising and Public Relations, Business and Marketing) to take 25% of their subjects in English using CLIL methodology. Currently, Journalism is the degree course with the greatest percentage of CLIL subjects, for example Current Affairs Workshop, a subject dedicated to analyzing current news using opinion genres. Moreover, because of the lack of other subjects offered in English, ERASMUS students have to take some journalism subjects in order to complete their international passport, and one of the classes they choose is the Current Affairs Workshop. The aim of this paper is to explore how CLIL methodology can be useful for learning journalistic opinion genres (chat-shows, discussions and debates) in a subject where Catalan Communication students –with different levels of English- share their knowledge with European students of other social disciplines. Students work in multidisciplinary groups in which they develop real radio and TV programs, adopting all the roles (moderator, technician, producer and participants), analyzing daily newspapers and other sources to create content, based on current affairs. This paper is based on the participant observation of the lecturers of the subject, who have designed different activities related to journalistic genres, where students can develop their skills according to the role they play in every assignment. Examples of successful lessons will be given, in addition to the results of the course: both positive and negative. Although the objective of the course is to examine professional routines related to opinion genres, and students are not directly graded on their level of English, the Catalan students come to appreciate how they finally overcome their fear of working in a foreign language. This is a basic result of their experience.

Faculty and Student Perspectives Toward Open Courseware, and Open Access Publishing: Some Comparisons Between European and North American Populations

Instructor and student beliefs, attitudes and intentions toward contributing to local open courseware (OCW) sites have been investigated through campus-wide surveys at Universidad Politecnica de Valencia and the University of Michigan. In addition, at the University of Michigan, faculty have been queried about their participation in open access (OA) publishing. We compare the instructor and student data concerning OCW between the two institutions, and introduce the investigation of open access publishing in relation to open courseware publishing.

Ergonomics and musculoskeletal pain among postgraduate students and faculty members of the School of Dentistry of the University of Barcelona (Spain). A cross-sectional study

Objectives: To evaluate the intensity and location of musculoskeletal pain suffered by students and professors from different postgraduate programs of the School of Dentistry of the University of Barcelona (Spain), to identify the variables related to the occurrence of musculoskeletal symptoms and signs, and to establish possible preventive measures for such disorders. Materials and Methods: A cross-sectional study was made among students and faculty members from different postgraduate courses of the School of Dentistry at the University of Barcelona between May and June 2007. A total of 74 dentists (54 postgraduate students and 20 faculty members) completed an anonymous questionnaire containing 19 questions. The variables were divided into three main groups: sociodemographic information, ergonomic features and musculoskeletal pain arising from professional practice. Results: Most of the dentists (79.8%) had experienced some kind of musculoskeletal pain in the last 6 months. On comparing the different locations of pain (lumbar, cervical, dorsal, wrist, shoulder and others), the neck was found to be the most commonly affected location (58% of all subjects), and only 34% of the respondents took some preventive measures against musculoskeletal disorders. Women showed a higher frequency of intense pain involving the cervical, lumbar, dorsal and wrist areas (p<0.05). A higher incidence of wrist pain was recorded in professionals exclusively dedicated to oral surgery (p<0.05). No statistically significant correlation was found between the workload (hours) and pain in the different anatomical locations (p>0.05). Conclusions: An important incidence of pain symptoms secondary to musculoskeletal disorders was observed, particularly in the cervical region. Females and younger dentists showed a higher frequency of such symptoms. The implementation of preventive measures is necessary, in view of the high incidence of these disorders

An empirical study on faculty perceptions and teaching practices of Wikipedia

Peer-reviewed

Wikipedia in Higher Education: An Empirical Study on Faculty Perceptions and Practices

Peer-reviewed