Time patterns and perceptions of online learning success factors

Online learning provides the opportunity to work on academic tasks at any time at the same time as doing other activities, such as using in web 2.0 tools. This study identifies factors that contribute to success in online learning from the students¿ perspective and their relationship with time patterns. A survey of learning outputs was used to find relationships between students¿ satisfaction, knowledge acquisition and knowledge transfer with time for working on academic tasks. In this study, 199 students from a university in Mexico completed the survey. Findings suggest that knowledge transfer has a significant association with the number of hours online per day, hours spent on social networks and the use made of e-learning during working hours. Learner satisfaction has a strong relationship with the time in years a learner has been using the Internet and the number of hours devoted to the course per week. The findings of this research will be helpful for faculty and instructional designers for implementing learning strategies.

Centrality and investment strategies at the beginning of industrialisation in mid-nineteenth-century Catalonia

We apply social networks analysis to the study of an important database on investment and companies" share in the Catalonia (Spain) of the nineteenth century. In contrast with most of the existing related literature, usually addressing power relationships across administration boards, we focus on the structure of interactions among individual investors and firms. Centrality analysis uncovers interesting roles played by certain economic sectors (e.g. textile and financial). Furthermore, the diverse composition (in terms of economic activity) of communities in the network (subgroups more densely connected internally than with the rest of the network) reveals a high investment diversification, which nicely agrees with a known characteristic of traditional Catalan business strategies.

Joves immigrants i persistència acadèmica: què ens diuen les seves xarxes personals?

L'estudi que es presenta forma part d'un projecte de recera de tipus longitudinal que busca detrminar en quina mesura les xarxes personals i socials de l'alumnat immigrant poden apoderar les seves trajectòries acadèmiques tot incidint en la seva persistència i èxit escolar. L'estudi introdueix un nou nivell de comprensió tant de les trajectòries d'èxit com de la vulnerabilitat de l'alumnat immigrant a la secundària utilitzant l'enfocament egocèntric de l'anàlisi de xarxes socials. Aquest article mostra les potencialitats d'aquest enfocament, el qual ha desenvolupat uns processos metodològics i de creació d'instrumentació propis per al mesurament i analisi de les estructures, patrons i formes d'interacció que emergeixen dels vincles entre actors diversos. Els resultats mostren que els sistemes relacionals de l'alumnat (família, escola i comunitat) constitueixen un nivell intemedi en el qual s'expressa la naturalesa dinàmica i articulada de les funcions de socialització, connexió i presa de decisions de les seves xarxes personals i socials, i permeten valorar la seva incidència en les trajectòries acadèmiques dels estudiants.

Redes sociales y negocios. La red de inversión del Banco de Barcelona en la economía catalana a mediados del siglo XIX

The appearance of the Banco de Barcelona involved the formation of an investment compact network between its directors. In this work we studied how this investment network grew within a larger one, the one formed by the major investors in Catalonia during the period 1815-1866, as well as the role played by the top executives of the Bank inside it. Our findings indicate that some of the directors of the Bank held a central position in the main Catalan investors" network. This important role guaranteed reliable information on the progress of businesses. This information not only favored the operations of the institution, but also allowed its directors to take investment decisions inside the network. Moreover, the Bank interconnects individuals who were associated with different investors" sectors, which made the institution coalesced around an investing core with different important influences and connections.