Good practice for dialogue and communication as strategic principle for policing political manifestations in Europe (GODIAC):field study handbook

This handbook describes the peer review methodology that was applied at the GODIAC project fi eld studies1. The peer review evaluation method as initiated by Otto Adang in the Netherlands and further developed in a European football context (Adang & Brown, 2008) involves experienced police offi cers cooperating with researchers to perform observational fi eld studies to identify good practices and learning points for public order management. The handbook builds on the GODIAC seminars and workshops, for the fi eld study members, which took place in September 2010, January 2012 and January 2013. The handbook has been discussed in the project group and in the steering committee. It is primarily written for the GODIAC fi eld study members as background material for understanding the fi eld study process and for clarifying the different responsibilities that enable active participation in the fi eld study. The handbook has been developed during the project period and incorporates learning points and developments of the peer review method. The handbook aims at promoting the use of fi eld studies for evaluation of policing major events.

Estudio comparativo de la calidad de la información ofrecida sobre los servicios en las webs de las bibliotecas virtuales de universidades a distancia

S'exposa el resultat d'un estudi comparatiu sobre la comunicació web dels serveis de les biblioteques virtuals universitàries d'una selecció d'universitats a distància entre les quals hi ha la UNED, la UOC i l'Open University. Aquest estudi es fa observant les diferències qualitatives de diversos aspectes, com ara l'organització, l'accessibilitat, els formats, el redactat, la utilitat i la presentació de la informació sobre els serveis de la biblioteca oferta en la web als usuaris d'aquelles universitats i/o Biblioteques que han realitzat el procés de gestió de qualitat o han confeccionat la carta de serveis i les que no. Entre diverses recomanacions i exemples de bones pràctiques, l'estudi conclou que les universitats i biblioteques que no mostren cap tipus de procés de qualitat en la seva institució podem veure que són les que obliden alguns elements essencials i molts detalls pel que fa a la descripció de la oferta de serveis es refereix. Conclusió i recomanacions extensibles a qualsevol biblioteca universitària que ofereixi informació en línia sobre els seus serveis. A partir de l'elaboració de fitxes que recullen els diversos aspectes a observar de cadascuna de les biblioteques hem ponderat, d'acord amb la diversa bibliografia consultada, cadascun com desaconsellable, recomanable i excel·lent amb el resultat d'un informe que mostra totes les recomanacions per a cadascun dels elements.

Les tecnologies de la comunicació al servei de la gent gran

Aquest informe mira de documentar el projecte GeriaTic, que desenvolupa l'Ajuntament de Barcelona al districte 22@. L'informe fa una anàlisi de la situació de la gent gran en relació amb les tecnologies de la informació i la comunicació en el sector de la salut, el control de l'entorn i el lleure. L'anàlisi de la documentació trobada i la informació extreta d'un grup de discussió amb persones grans usuàries de les TIC permeten identificar el mercat existent, els productes i serveis, les necessitats no cobertes i les bones pràctiques relacionades amb els tres sectors estudiats. Les conclusions de l'estudi assenyalen tres aspectes clau: la necessitat que la tecnologia s'incorpori a la vida quotidiana de les persones, perquè aparegui com a quelcom necessari i útil; la cura en cercar un disseny modular, escalable i integrat de la tecnologia que acompanyi les característiques específiques de la persona i els canvis al llarg del seu cicle vital, i, finalment, la consideració que la incorporació de les TIC en l'àmbit de la gent gran no tan sols involucra la persona, sinó també el conjunt de professionals i la societat en general. Aquests tres aspectes permeten plantejar l'exigència que la incorporació de la tecnologia en la vida de la gent gran abandoni el model assistencial i es presenti a la persona i a la societat com una font de noves possibilitats i una oportunitat per al canvi.

From a pattern-language to a pattern ontology approach for CSCL script design

Collaborative activities, in which students actively interact with each other, have proved to provide significant learning benefits. In Computer-Supported Collaborative Learning (CSCL), these collaborative activities are assisted by technologies. However, the use of computers does not guarantee collaboration, as free collaboration does not necessary lead to fruitful learning. Therefore, practitioners need to design CSCL scripts that structure the collaborative settings so that they promote learning. However, not all teachers have the technical and pedagogical background needed to design such scripts. With the aim of assisting teachers in designing effective CSCL scripts, we propose a model to support the selection of reusable good practices (formulated as patterns) so that they can be used as a starting point for their own designs. This model is based on a pattern ontology that computationally represents the knowledge captured on a pattern language for the design of CSCL scripts. A preliminary evaluation of the proposed approach is provided with two examples based on a set of meaningful interrelated patters computationally represented with the pattern ontology, and a paper prototyping experience carried out with two teaches. The results offer interesting insights towards the implementation of the pattern ontology in software tools.

Cohesió social, alimentació i immigració

El projecte té com a objectiu general descriure accions comunitàries relacionades amb el menjar i la cohesió social. L’objectiu específic del projecte és recollir bones pràctiques d’entitats de Barcelona que treballin sobre la cohesió social i els espais alimentaris amb l’objectiu de dinamitzar l’intercanvi d’elements culturals, entre d’altres. La metodologia emprada en aquest treball ha estat un estudi descriptiu transversal de tipus qualitatiu, tenint en compte les tècniques emprades: anàlisi documental, observació participant i entrevistes a professionals. Les experiències analitzades per a la realització del treball resulten experiències d’èxit que basen la seva activitat en la utilització de l’alimentació com a eina per treballar la cohesió social, a partir de la creació d’espais comunitaris que permeten l’intercanvi d’elements culturals entre els participants

Escriure (correctament) per al web

The article presents the requirements of written text to be read on the web, as well as the general recommendations for editing text aimed at facilitating its reading. After introducing the overview of reading of written text, techniques, and strategies, the author turns to factors that condition reading on the web, as well as other specifics. Based on these elements, a series of recommendations is offered for good practices for writing correctly for the web, organised by the three basic components of written text: style or tone, structure, and presentation (orthographic and typographic corrections). Also introduced are tools that can be useful for improving text editing in a corporate environment

El desarrollo de competencias para la promoción de la resiliencia: buenas prácticas y procesos formativos en educación social

La aplicación de la resiliencia a la intervención social y educativa la ha convertido en un concepto aglutinador de muchos otros previamente investigados y presentes en la praxis profesional. La resiliencia aporta una mirada integradora que hace de ella una excelente metáfora del bienestar o la calidad de vida que los profesionales sociales contribuyen a desarrollar en los ámbitos en los que intervienen. En este artículo revisamos algunas buenas prácticas destacadas por educadores y educadoras sociales para la promoción de los factores protectores y exploramos, mediante la autopercepción de los estudiantes, en qué medida la formación universitaria capacita a los futuros profesionales para desarrollar actuaciones constructoras de resiliencia.

Contenidos educativos en abierto

Peer-reviewed

Assessment of research competences using e-portfolio

The challenges posed by the assessment of distance learning is a topic that requires, on the one hand, evolution with new trends and, on the other improving evaluative processes, to promote good practices. This demand becomes more imperative when we are dealing with a formativescenario based on distance assessment of competence-based learning.The Open University of Catalonia has begun to work with these formative tools, promoting new practices for online education. A very clear example of these educational practices is the assessment of research competences using the e-portfolio system. To meet this aim a profound and solid process has been developed over recent years, with the intention of making this tool an assessment alternative, and providing the opportunity to use it in a formative context. The objective is to study its strengths and limitations keeping in mind the final goal of offering the higher education community a validated assessment system.

La identificación de buenas prácticas en la mejora de la convivencia : un acercamiento a los centros públicos de Educación Secundaria de Cataluña

The article describes and summarizes some results of the research Identification of the difficulties, collection of good practices and analysis of the improvement processes in Secondary Education Institutes of Catalonia (2011). An approach to the situation of conviviality in the Catalan public Secondary schools gathering the perception of the management teams, through an ethnographic approach and of analysis of the stories. It has its origin in a work commissioned from the General Subdirectorate of Permanent Teacher Training of the Generalitat of Catalonia, developed in the context of the module “Conviviality and Organization of Centres”, within the program of permanent training of management teams. It falls in line with action-oriented research to improve practice. The paper gathers and synthesizes the results obtained in the collection and systematization of the proposed improvements. It is structured in three parts: a) a theoretical analysis which conceptualizes violence / conviviality and sense of good practices; b) the explanation of the design, methodology and development of research and c) the categorization of the improvement proposals and the conclusions of the work

Apoyando proyectos de vida inclusivos: claves para transformar las prácticas socioeducativas de personas adultas con discapacidad intelectual

En el marco del modelo social de la discapacidad cobran importancia la autodeterminación y autogestión de las personas con discapacidad intelectual, replanteando la relación de poder entre profesionales y usuarios. Por ello, la transformación de las prácticas socioeducativas en la construcción y logro de proyectos de vida personalizados constituye un reto para los servicios dirigidos a personas adultas con discapacidad. El objetivo del presente artículo es mostrar, a partir de la revisión de literatura y el análisis de buenas prácticas, algunos elementos clave que facilitan esta transformación. En primerlugar, se presentan las líneas principales de la nueva conceptualización de las personas con discapacidad intelectual como protagonistas de sus proyectos de vida. Seguidamente, y después de contextualizar brevemente el escenario formado por los servicios de adultos en España, se presentan algunas estrategias e instrumentos básicos para la transformación de las prácticas educativas. En las conclusiones se incide en los retos que estas claves plantean en nuestro contexto

A change would do you good . . . An experimental study on how to overcome coordination failure in organizations

Many organizations suffer poor performance because individuals within the organization fail to coordinate on efficient patterns of behavior. Using controlled laboratory experiments, we study how financial incentives can be used to find a way out of such performance traps. Our experiments are set in a corporate environment where subjects' payoffs depend on coordinating at high effort levels; the underlying game being played repeatedly by employees is a weak-link game. In an initial phase, the benefits of coordination are low relative to the cost of increased effort. Play in this initial phase typically converges to an inefficient outcome with employees failing to coordinate at high effort levels. The experimental design then explores the effects of varying the financial incentives to coordinate at a higher effort level. We find that an increase in the benefits of coordination leads to improved coordination, but, surprisingly, large increases have no more impact than small increases. Once subj

An alternative way to model merit good arguments

Besley (1988) uses a scaling approach to model merit good arguments in commodity tax policy. In this paper, I question this approach on the grounds that it produces 'wrong' recommendations--taxation (subsidisation) of merit (demerit) goods--whenever the demand for the (de)merit good is inelastic. I propose an alternative approach that does not suffer from this deficiency, and derive the ensuing first and second best tax rules, as well as the marginal cost expressions to perform tax reform analysis.

Organisational status and efficiency: the case of the spanish SOE "Paradores"

The purpose of this paper is to provide new evidence on the issue of the effect on public enterprises economic performance of the introduction of some given changes in organisational status and management practices, while keeping the enterprises under public control. Our approach is case study type and relies on comparative efficiency literature. We identify relevant changes on the organisational status of a State owned large hotel group along a period of twenty years, next we measure its annual efficiency indicators, and then evaluate to which extent the observed changes in economic performance can be attributable to the corresponding management reforms carried out. As a result we find that the formally more relevant change in organisational status (the enterprise passing to be a Limited Company), which implied a substantial increase in the enterprise autonomy, did not produce a significant improvement in its economic performance; a finding contrary to what we expected according to agency theory. However, a second relevant organisational change –five years later- when both the principal (government) and the agent (firm’s CEO) changed is consistently related to a significant improvement in economic performance. As a research implication we abide for use more precise agency theory statements; and as a practical implication we argue here that potentialities of improvement brought about by a formal-legal change in the status of the enterprise may require also –in order to actually improve firm’s efficiency- some changes in the firm’s key personal positions: supervisor (principal) and CEO (agent), in the sense that a change to a greater-autonomy for the enterprise it seems should come together a parallel new ‘management culture’. Practical implications Management good practises to apply to other public enterprise’s restructuring in order to improve their efficiency. It’s the first study on organizational changes and efficiency for an important Spanish public enterprise.

The Cultural Olympiad of Barcelona in 1992: Good points and bad points. Lessons for the Future

This text was presented at the Symposium “Olympic Arts and Culture Festivals: Recent Experiences and Future Design”, held in Chicago on the 23-24 June 2008. It provides with an analysis of good and bad points of the Cultural Olympiad of Barcelona’92 in order to discover, from that past experience, any lessons for future Cultural Olympiads and Olympic Movement cultural policy in general, as well as to rethink, in a critical way, Catalan cultural policies.