Open Educational Resources for Development of University Courses

Open Education Resources are educational materials purposely made available for free use by others. They offer tremendous potential for reducing costs and increasing access to education especially in the developing world. This paper discusses issues of quality, localization, adaptation and integration that need to be addressed in order to make OER adoption a successful strategy.

Beyond the first steps: Sustaining Health OER Initiatives in Ghana

The introduction of open educational resources (OER) in two Ghanaian universities through a grant-funded project was embraced with a lot of enthusiasm. The project started on a high note and the Colleges of Health Sciences in the two universities produced a significant number of e-learning materials as health OER in the first year. Growing challenges such as faculty time commitments, technological and infrastructural constraints, shortage of technical expertise, lack of awareness beyond the early adopters and non-existent system for OER dissemination and use set in. These exposed the fact that institutional policy and integration was essential to ensure effective implementation and sustainability of OER efforts. Informed by the early OER experiences at the two institutions, this paper proposes that institutions in low resource settings perhaps need to pay close attention to awareness creation, initiative structuring, funding, capacity building, systemization for scalability and motivation if OER sustainability is to be achieved.

El Open Social Learning y su potencial de transformación de los contextos de educación superior en España

Documento de reflexión basado en el Panel de Expertos sobre Open Social Learning en España: diagnóstico yperspectivas, de la Cátedra UNESCO de e-learning, 30 de junio 2009.

A Classification of Tools for Learning Logic

A table showing a comparison and classification of tools (intelligent tutoring systems) for e-learning of Logic at a college level.

Evolució i reptes de l'educació virtual : construint l'e-learning del segle XXI

Les autores i autors d'aquest llibre ofereixen una descripció de l'evolució general de l'e-learning apuntant els elements clau cap als que ha d'anar evolucionant. Parteixen de l'experiència i la pràctica contrastada amb les investigacions sobre el tema. Al llarg dels diferents capítols ens mostren com viu un estudiant virtual, el seu paper i la manera com planteja i organitza les seves activitats; ens acosten al professorat analitzant el seu rol en el disseny de la formació i la comunicació amb els estudiants; parlen de la col·laboració, analitzant com dissenyar activitats col·laboratives i assenyalant els seus avantatges i límits; descriuen els diferents recursos d'aprenentatge que podem disposar en el disseny dels cursos i, finalment, acompanyen la nostra mirada cap al futur pròxim analitzant les tendències i els reptes als que hem de fer front per construir l'e-learning del segle XXI.

Virtual library, a real library?

Les possibilitats ofertes per la virtualitat tenen una gran importància en l'esfera educativa i en tots els aspectes referents a ella. Evidentment, les biblioteques i els centres de documentació no són estranys a aquest nou ambient virtual facilitat pel canvi social, econòmic i, sobretot, tecnològic que ha permès que els bibliotecaris-documentalistes accedeixin a gran quantitat d'informació i de documentació, permetent que actuïn com a agents intermediaris entre aquesta nova situació i l'ús que se'n poden fer pels diversos tipus d'usuaris.

Testing Delivery Systems in Transnational virtual learning: the vocational management training for the european tourism industry (VocMat) case study

This article discusses the lessons learned from developing and delivering the Vocational Management Training for the European Tourism Industry (VocMat) online training programme, which was aimed at providing flexible, online distance learning for the European tourism industry. The programme was designed to address managers ‘need for flexible, senior management level training which they could access at a time and place which fitted in with their working and non-work commitments. The authors present two main approaches to using the Virtual Learning Environment, the feedback from the participants, and the implications of online Technology in extending tourism training opportunities

Experimental Modeling and Control Strategies on an Open Mobile Robot Platform PRIM

This research work deals with the problem of modeling and design of low level speed controller for the mobile robot PRIM. The main objective is to develop an effective educational tool. On one hand, the interests in using the open mobile platform PRIM consist in integrating several highly related subjects to the automatic control theory in an educational context, by embracing the subjects of communications, signal processing, sensor fusion and hardware design, amongst others. On the other hand, the idea is to implement useful navigation strategies such that the robot can be served as a mobile multimedia information point. It is in this context, when navigation strategies are oriented to goal achievement, that a local model predictive control is attained. Hence, such studies are presented as a very interesting control strategy in order to develop the future capabilities of the system

PRIM an Open Mobile Robot Platform. Motivation, Present and Future Trends

This paper is focused on the robot mobile platform PRIM (platform robot information multimedia). This robot has been made in order to cover two main needs of our group, on one hand the need for a full open mobile robotic platform that is very useful in fulfilling the teaching and research activity of our school community, and on the other hand with the idea of introducing an ethical product which would be useful as mobile multimedia information point as a service tool. This paper introduces exactly how the system is made up and explains just what the philosophy is behind this work. The navigation strategies and sensor fusion, where machine vision system is the most important one, are oriented towards goal achievement and are the key to the behaviour of the robot

Knowledge integration within an applied mobile robot summer course

This paper presents the use of a mobile robot platform as an innovative educational tool in order to promote and integrate different curriculum knowledge. Hence, it is presented the acquired experience within a summer course named ldquoapplied mobile roboticsrdquo. The main aim of the course is to integrate different subjects as electronics, programming, architecture, perception systems, communications, control and trajectory planning by using the educational open mobile robot platform PRIM. The summer course is addressed to a wide range of student profiles. However, it is of special interests to the students of electrical and computer engineering around their final academic year. The summer course consists of the theoretical and laboratory sessions, related to the following topics: design & programming of electronic devices, modelling and control systems, trajectory planning and control, and computer vision systems. Therefore, the clues for achieving a renewed path of progress in robotics are the integration of several knowledgeable fields, such as computing, communications, and control sciences, in order to perform a higher level reasoning and use decision tools with strong theoretical base

A teaching/learning support tool for introductory programming courses

In This work we present a Web-based tool developed with the aim of reinforcing teaching and learning of introductory programming courses. This tool provides support for teaching and learning. From the teacher's perspective the system introduces important gains with respect to the classical teaching methodology. It reinforces lecture and laboratory sessions, makes it possible to give personalized attention to the student, assesses the degree of participation of the students and most importantly, performs a continuous assessment of the student's progress. From the student's perspective it provides a learning framework, consisting in a help environment and a correction environment, which facilitates their personal work. With this tool students are more motivated to do programming

An automatic correction tool for relational database schemas

A Web-based tool developed to automatically correct relational database schemas is presented. This tool has been integrated into a more general e-learning platform and is used to reinforce teaching and learning on database courses. This platform assigns to each student a set of database problems selected from a common repository. The student has to design a relational database schema and enter it into the system through a user friendly interface specifically designed for it. The correction tool corrects the design and shows detected errors. The student has the chance to correct them and send a new solution. These steps can be repeated as many times as required until a correct solution is obtained. Currently, this system is being used in different introductory database courses at the University of Girona with very promising results

Análisis de la proyección profesional del Grado de Ingeniería Informática y Telecomunicación : Viabilidad profesional en tiempos de crisis y benchmarking

El objetivo específico del TFG es el de realizar un análisis riguroso en base a fuentes externas y referencias de probada veracidad en relación a la oferta universitaria actual de estudios de Grado de Informática y Telecomunicación en España en la modalidad de e-learning o educación a distancia.

Disseminació, integració i visualització de dades biològiques

La recent revolució en les tècniques de generació de dades genòmiques ha portat a una situació de creixement exponencial de la quantitat de dades generades i fa més necessari que mai el treball en la optimització de la gestió i maneig d'aquesta informació. En aquest treball s'han atacat tres vessants del problema: la disseminació de la informació, la integració de dades de diverses fonts i finalment la seva visualització. Basant-nos en el Sistema d'Anotacions Distribuides, DAS, hem creat un aplicatiu per a la creació automatitzada de noves fonts de dades en format estandaritzat i accessible programàticament a partir de fitxers de dades simples. Aquest progrtamari, easyDAS, està en funcionament a l'Institut Europeu de Bioinformàtica. Aquest sistema facilita i encoratja la compartició i disseminació de dades genòmiques en formats usables. jsDAS és una llibreria client de DAS que permet incorporar dades DAS en qualsevol aplicatiu web de manera senzilla i ràpida. Aprofitant els avantatges que ofereix DAS és capaç d'integrar dades de múltiples fonts de manera coherent i robusta. GenExp és el prototip de navegador genòmic basat en web altament interactiu i que facilita l'exploració dels genomes en temps real. És capaç d'integrar dades de quansevol font DAS i crear-ne una representació en client usant els últims avenços en tecnologies web.

Polymorphisms in DNA-Repair Genes in a Cohort of Prostate Cancer Patients from Different Areas in Spain: Heterogeneity between Populations as a Confounding Factor in Association Studies.

BACKGROUND Differences in the distribution of genotypes between individuals of the same ethnicity are an important confounder factor commonly undervalued in typical association studies conducted in radiogenomics. OBJECTIVE To evaluate the genotypic distribution of SNPs in a wide set of Spanish prostate cancer patients for determine the homogeneity of the population and to disclose potential bias. DESIGN SETTING AND PARTICIPANTS A total of 601 prostate cancer patients from Andalusia, Basque Country, Canary and Catalonia were genotyped for 10 SNPs located in 6 different genes associated to DNA repair: XRCC1 (rs25487, rs25489, rs1799782), ERCC2 (rs13181), ERCC1 (rs11615), LIG4 (rs1805388, rs1805386), ATM (rs17503908, rs1800057) and P53 (rs1042522). The SNP genotyping was made in a Biotrove OpenArray® NT Cycler. OUTCOME MEASUREMENTS AND STATISTICAL ANALYSIS Comparisons of genotypic and allelic frequencies among populations, as well as haplotype analyses were determined using the web-based environment SNPator. Principal component analysis was made using the SnpMatrix and XSnpMatrix classes and methods implemented as an R package. Non-supervised hierarchical cluster of SNP was made using MultiExperiment Viewer. RESULTS AND LIMITATIONS We observed that genotype distribution of 4 out 10 SNPs was statistically different among the studied populations, showing the greatest differences between Andalusia and Catalonia. These observations were confirmed in cluster analysis, principal component analysis and in the differential distribution of haplotypes among the populations. Because tumor characteristics have not been taken into account, it is possible that some polymorphisms may influence tumor characteristics in the same way that it may pose a risk factor for other disease characteristics. CONCLUSION Differences in distribution of genotypes within different populations of the same ethnicity could be an important confounding factor responsible for the lack of validation of SNPs associated with radiation-induced toxicity, especially when extensive meta-analysis with subjects from different countries are carried out.