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.

Hacia el liaison librarian: transformación de servicios bibliotecarios para dar apoyo a la docencia en la Universitat Oberta de Catalunya (UOC)

Es descriu la transformació esdevinguda en els últims dos anys en un dels dos grups operatius de la Biblioteca Virtual de la Universitat Oberta de Catalunya (UOC), l'equip de Serveis de Biblioteca per a l'Aprenentatge (SBA), que té com a objectiu principal el suport al procés d'aprenentatge i la docència. Es descriu en detall l'elaboració d'una carta de serveis específica per als docents, el propòsit del qual és acompanyar-los en la recerca i selecció de recursos d'aprenentatge per a les assignatures que s'imparteixen a la UOC.

Collaboration strategies and technological innovation: a contractual perspective of the relationship between firms and techonological centers

In this paper, a theoretical framework for analyzing the selection of governance structures for implementing collaboration agreements between firms and Technological Centers is presented and empirically discussed. This framework includes Transaction Costs and Property Rights’ theoretical assumptions, though complemented with several proposals coming from the Transactional Value Theory. This last theory is used for adding some dynamism in the governance structure selection. As empirical evidence of this theoretical explanation, we analyse four real experiences of collaboration between firms and one Technological Center. These experiences are aimed to represent the typology of relationships which Technological Centers usually face. Among others, a key interesting result is obtained: R&D collaboration activities do not need to always be organized through hierarchical solutions. In those cases where future expected benefits and/or reputation issues could play an important role, the traditional more static theories could not fully explain the selected governance structure for managing the R&D relationship. As a consequence, these results justify further research about the adequacy of the theoretical framework presented in this paper in other contexts, for example, R&D collaborations between firms and/or between Universities or Public Research Centers and firms.

Business-science research collaboration under moral hazard

I analyze, in the context of business and science research collaboration, how the characteristics of partnership agreements are the result of an optimal contract between partners. The final outcome depends on the structure governing the partnership, and on the informational problems towards the efforts involved. The positive effect that the effort of each party has on the success of the other party, makes collaboration a preferred solution. Divergence in research goals may, however, create conflicts between partners. This paper shows how two different structures of partnership governance (a centralized, and a decentralized ones) may optimally use the type of project to motivate the supply of non-contractible efforts. Decentralized structure, however, always choose a project closer to its own preferences. Incentives may also come from monetary transfers, either from partners sharing each other benefits, or from public funds. I derive conditions under which public interventio

How collaboration could contribute to make Catalan journals visible on the Internet?

Cooperation between libraries is a universal language spoken in different dialects. In 1996 the libraries of the state-funded universities and the National Library of Catalonia (Spain) formed the Consortium of Academic Libraries of Catalonia (CBUC) to act as a channel for cooperation. The organization and activities of CBUC are an example of how this universal language has been adapted to the specific characteristics of the Libraries of Catalonia. Catalonia is an autonomous region of Spain with 7 million inhabitants with its own language, history and traditions and with a strong feeling of own identity that facilitates the cooperation. Thanks to this (and also to the hard work of the member libraries), since then, CBUC has created a union catalogue, an interlibrary lending program, the Digital Library of Catalonia, a cooperative store, different cooperatives repositories and other cooperation programs. One of these cooperatives repositories is RACO (Catalan Journals in Open Access, www.raco.cat) where can be consulted, in open access, the full-text articles of scientific, cultural and scholar Catalan journals. The main purpose of RACO is to increase the visibility and searches of the journals included and to spread the scientific and academic production published in Catalonia. This purpose makes specific in three aims: encourage the electronic edition of Catalan journals; be the interface that allows the whole search of all the journals and provide the instruments for its preservation. There are currently 244 journals in RACO, that includes more than 85.000 articles (80% in OA) from 50 publishing institutions. Since it got into operation it has had more than 4 millions of queries. These 244 journals offer the full-text of all the published issues. Nevertheless, some journal can have a delay between the introduction of the table of contents and the full-text for the recent issues. From 2005 we have a plan of retrospective digitization that has allowed to digitize more than 350.000 pages of back issues. The RACO repository works with the open source program OJS (Open Journal Systems, http://pkp.sfu.ca/ojs/) and uses Dublin Core Metadata and the interoperability protocol created by Open Archives Initiative (OAI) which allows to increase the visibility of the articles published in journals offering oneself together with other international repositories.

AgShare : Building Community and Content with Multiple Partners

Michigan State University and OER Africa are creating a win-win collaboration of existing organizations for African publishing, localizing, and sharing of teaching and learning materials that fill critical resource gaps in African MSc agriculture curriculum. By the end of the 18-month planning and pilot initiative, African agriculture universities, faculty, students, researchers, NGO leaders, extension staff, and farmers will participate in building AgShare by demonstrating its benefits and outcomes and by building momentum and support for growth.

The Öresund region: A dynamic region in Europe due to inter-regional collaboration?

El cluster Medicon Valley es troba a la regió d'Oresund binacional que s'estén per Dinamarca i Suècia, inclosa la Universitat de Lund, ciutat i tercera ciutat més gran de Suècia, Malmö (veure figura 1). El 2000, aquestes dues parts nacionals estaven connectades físicament per l'establiment dels 18 quilòmetres de longitud, enllaç fix del Øresund (ponts i túnels).

The Impact of Industry Collaboration on Academic Research Output: A Dynamic Panel Data Analysis

The aim of this paper is to analyse the impact of university knowledge and technology transfer activities on academic research output. Specifically, we study whether researchers with collaborative links with the private sector publish less than their peers without such links, once controlling for other sources of heterogeneity. We report findings from a longitudinal dataset on researchers from two engineering departments in the UK between 1985 until 2006. Our results indicate that researchers with industrial links publish significantly more than their peers. Academic productivity, though, is higher for low levels of industry involvement as compared to high levels.

Theimpact of industry collaboration on research: Evidence from engineering academics in the UK

We study the impact of university-industry research collaborations on academicoutput, in terms of productivity and direction of research. We report findings froma longitudinal dataset on all the researchers from the engineering departments inthe UK in the last 20 years. We control for the endogeneity caused by the dynamicnature of research and the existence of reverse causality. Our results indicate thatresearchers with industrial links publish significantly more. Productivity, though,is higher for low levels of industry involvement. Moreover, growing ties with theindustry skew research towards a more applied approach.

Endogeneous matching in university-industry collaboration: Theory and empirical evidence from the UK

We develop a two-sided matching model to analyze collaboration between heterogeneousacademics and firms. We predict a positive assortative matching in terms of both scientificability and affinity for type of research, but negative assortative in terms of ability on one sideand affinity in the other. In addition, the most able and most applied academics and the mostable and most basic firms shall collaborate rather than stay independent. Our predictionsreceive strong support from the analysis of the teams of academics and firms that proposeresearch projects to the UK's Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council.

Documentalist and librarian education in Catalonia

From its foundation in 1915, the Escola Universitaria de Biblioteconomia i Documentació (University School of Librarianship and Documentation) in Barcelona has been playing an important role in the training of professionals responsible for libraries. This paper describes the history, the situation in our days, and the trends for the future of the professional training of the librarians in Catalonia, with references to the rest of Spain.

El proyecto ‘Ecosportech’ como ejemplo de universidad emprendedora. Una experiencia a base del ‘Problem Based Learning’

El objetivo de este artículo es presentar el proyecto EcoSPORTech, cuya finalidad es la creación de una empresa social con jóvenes para la realización de actividades deportivas/ocio en el medio natural, integrando las nuevas tecnologías. Este proyecto supone una colaboración interdisciplinaria dentro de la Universidad de Vic, entre las facultades de Empresa y Comunicación (FEC), la de Ciencias de la Salud y el Bienestar (FCSB) y la de Educación (FE) e integra un equipo de profesionales procedentes de los ámbitos de la empresa, el marketing, el periodismo, el deporte y la terapia ocupacional. Estos profesores formarán al grupo de jóvenes con los que se creará la empresa y dirigirán la misma. Esta empresa (cooperativa) se integra en el vivero de empresas sociales que se está creando en la Universidad de Vic.

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.