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In educational environments, technological adoption in the last 10 years has enabled a data-driven and decisionmaking paradigm in organizations. The integration of cloud services in schools and universities is a positive shift in the field of learning, but it also presents threats to all academic roles that need to be discussed in terms of protection, privacy, and confidentiality. Cloud storage brings the ubiquity of data to this technical transition and a delusive opportunity for cost savings. In many cases, this suggests that certain actors, beyond the control of schools and colleges, collect, handle and treat educational data on private servers and data centers. This privatization enables the manipulation of stored records, leaks, and unauthorized access. In this article, we expose the possibilities that open from the viewpoint of local technology adoption. We seek to reduce or even totally solve the detrimental effects of using cloud-based instructional and analytical technology, mixing or only using local technology. Technological methods that conform to this alternate viewpoint and new lines of study are also being suggested and created. The research that has given rise to these results has been carried out through funds from the Secretariat of Universities and Research of the Department of Business and Knowledge of the Generalitat de Catalunya and Ramon Llull University, with the project 2020-URLProj-058. Peer Reviewed Objectius de Desenvolupament Sostenible::16 - Pau, Justícia i Institucions Sòlides::16.6 - Crear unes institucions eficaces, responsables i transparents a tots els nivells Objectius de Desenvolupament Sostenible::16 - Pau, Justícia i Institucions Sòlides::16.b - Promoure i aplicar lleis i polítiques no discriminatòries en favor del desenvolupament sostenible Objectius de Desenvolupament Sostenible::16 - Pau, Justícia i Institucions Sòlides

This paper investigated the extent to which senior high school students who typified the profile of the Arab Digital Generation (ADG) engaged with technology while outside the school. Data was collected using a questionnaire that measured the extent of the students’ engagement with digital technologies and their perceived media literacy. The results showed that the students had a lower frequency of engagement with digital devices for advanced purposes. Moreover, the results on the ADG and their media use patterns reflect an age characterized the generational change of technological practices and the dynamic stream of technological innovation that has occurred during the digital revolution. Given technology’s established position in the lives of the ADG, knowledge on the extent of technology use and the potential social and psychological implications of plasticity can and should be harnessed to stimulate greater positive engagement of the students in a digital economy and by extension, the entirety of the UAE society.

In intelligent e-learning systems that adapt a learning and teaching process to student knowledge, it is important to adapt the system as quickly as possible. However, adaptation is not possible until the student model is initialized. In this paper, a new approach to student model initialization using domain knowledge representative subset is described. The approach defines which concepts from domain knowledge should be included in the initial test so the system can make conclusions about what students truly know about domain knowledge. This representative subset of domain knowledge is defined using non-semantic mathematical approach based on graph theory. The initial test, created over a domain knowledge representative subset, guarantees encompassing all concepts that are relevant to domain knowledge. A two-level case study is conducted on what would be the representative subset of one selected domain knowledge. It compares semantically selected domain knowledge representative subsets (semantical analysis was done by domain area experts) to a non-semantical, mathematically selected domain knowledge representative subset. The results of the case study show that problems of inequality of semantically selected domain knowledge representative subsets are easily overcome using the presented approach.

Most educational software programs use and gather personal information and metadata from students. Additionally, most of the educational software programs are no longer operated by the learning institutions but are run by third-party agencies. This means that in the decade since 2020, information about students is stored and handled outside premises and control of learning institutions. The personal information about students and their activity while they interact with learning management systems and online learning tools is increasingly in custody of cloud computing platforms, software-as-a-service providers, and learning tool vendors. There is an increasing will to use all the data and metadata from the activity of the students for research, to develop education management strategies, pedagogy approaches, and develop behavior control tools or learning tools informed by behavior analysis from learning analytics. Many times, these studies lack the ethical and moral perspective. In addition, there is an increasing number of cases in which this information has leaked or has been used in a shady way. Additionally, this information will be around for a long time, tied to the future digital profiles of the students whose data has been leaked. This paper hypothesizes that there has been an ongoing process of technological evolution that leads to a loss of control over personal information, which makes it even more difficult to protect user confidentiality and ensuring privacy, that data surveillance has entered the world of education, and that the current legal frameworks are not enough to really protect the student’s personal information. The paper analyzes how this situation came to pass, and why this is wrong. We conclude with some proposals to address it from its different root dimensions: technical, cultural, legal, and organizational.

The higher education sector in Lebanon has undergone significant changes in the past twenty years, with a rapid increase in the number of higher education institutions that differ greatly in their missions, methodologies, and regulations. One of the remarkable differences between higher education institutions (HEI) in Lebanon is their vision and adaptation of technology into their institutions, with the lack of any government rules that guide HEIs to proper technology implementation strategies. While some institutions use international standards and models for quality assurance and management as a base for technology integration, others implement their own strategies of choosing and applying the technologies they deem appropriate. In this paper, we study the effect of technology adaptation strategies on HEIs in Lebanon, and propose a model for technology integration in higher education, based on the current needs and status of the Lebanese higher education system. We build our model on the goals of achieving and assuring high quality in the pedagogy, business, and technology sectors in the HEI.

It is evident that the society in which we live will demand more and more qualified and specialized positions in the different branches of engineering. Now we are in a highly digitized world in which information is continuously transmitted through data communication networks with the expectation of security and confidentiality. Students who are in their last year at high school face the problem of deciding their professional future. Therefore, there is a wide field of research for them in cryptographic techniques. In this work we have developed, together with a group of high school students, a cryptographic algorithm with substitution and transposition techniques as described by Feistel (1973) in order to create a more comprehensive knowledge about what they have been studying in their ICT subjects. In most cases the teaching methods are based on the teachers' own vision, as well as on the absence of knowledge of alternative methods and/or the impossibility of applying them physically in the classroom. With the active and cooperative methodology put forward in this work, objectives such as hard work, autonomous and collaborative learning and the exchange of knowledge have been absolutely fulfilled. Achieving them requires replacing traditional methods so that the student can adapt to new work challenges. A group of students, only three of whom finished, were voluntarily provided with the mentoring service in which the algorithm was designed. As a result, we were able to program in Python as a final project a symmetrical character-level encryption algorithm we've referred to as Azrael. Our findings indicate a demand for future endeavours to take into account the need for more projectbased work in ICT classrooms. The exchange of ideas between teacher and students has been the driven force behind the success of this activity

In 2004, the Universitat Polit&egrave, cnica de Catalunya decided to change one of its critical and strategic information services: the online teaching support platform. An Open Source software, Moodle, was adopted and the previous proprietary software was abandoned. In 2020, the home confinement of the population due to the pandemic caused by COVID-19 has been a stress test for the entire university community, and very specifically by those responsible for providing the support of the online teaching support platform. The increase in activity and the prospect of the generalization of online assessment raised the concerns of possible scalability issues with the quiz functionality during the examination period. The solution applied involved using Moodle&rsquo, s IMS LTI interoperability features to deploy a high-performance version of the Moodle Quizz Module As A Service (SaaS), to plug-and-play within the university&rsquo, s LMS without drawing on its internal resources. This solution combined with a systems strategy, private cloud operations, internal communication and teacher training, solved this problem and successfully complete the assessment of the university course in a situation of confinement.

Computer vision coupled to deep learning is a promising technique withmultiple applications in the industry. In this work, the potential of thistechnique has been assessed in the classification of two varieties of almondtrees (Prunus dulcis), Soleta and Pentacebas. For that, a convolutional neuralnetwork named VGG16 was used. The most appropriate configuration formodel training was studied, which included the comparison between twodifferent filling modes (reflect and nearest) in the data augmentation step, theevaluation of the batch size and the analysis of the image sizes. The robustnessof the model was also checked, and information was obtained about how themodel extracts the information from the images In addition, the authors thank the financial support of the Industrial Doctorates Plan of the Secretariat of Universities and Research of the Department of Economy and Knowledge of the Generalitat of Catalonia (project DI-COF 2017) and of the Spanish Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness (project AGL2015-70106-R, AEI/FEDER, UE).

In this paper, an e-Learning toolbox based on a set of fuzzy logic data mining techniques is presented. The toolbox is mainly based on the fuzzy inductive reasoning (FIR) methodology and two of its key extensions: (i) the linguistic rules extraction algorithm (LR-FIR), which extracts comprehensible and consistent sets of rules describing students&rsquo, learning behavior, and (ii) the causal relevance approach (CR-FIR), which allows to reduce uncertainty during a student&rsquo, s performance prediction stage, and provides a relative weighting of the features involved in the evaluation process. In addition, the presented toolbox enables, in an incremental way, detecting and grouping students with respect to their learning behavior, with the main goal to timely detect failing students, and properly provide them with suitable and actionable feedback. The proposed toolbox has been applied to two different datasets gathered from two courses at the Latin American Institute for Educational Communication virtual campus. The introductory and didactic planning courses were analyzed using the proposed toolbox. The results obtained by the functionalities offered by the platform allow teachers to make decisions and carry out improvement actions in the current course, i.e., to monitor specific student clusters, to analyze possible changes in the different evaluable activities, or to reduce (to some extent) teacher workload.

The objective of this study was to evaluate the role of information and communication technologies (ICT) in the learning of primary school students, as assessed by ICT coordinators of the schools in Andalusia (a network already considered by the Spanish Educational Administration as ICT centres). For this, a total of 34 ICT coordinators from various primary education centres in Andalusia participated. With the objective of knowing the scope of the policies that are carried out, as well as determining the true incidence of ICT in the classroom – not only as a tool, but also as a way of teaching – a questionnaire was created and validated for the coordinators TIC. The results indicated that (a) the use by ICT teachers in the classroom is still reduced and (b) the lack of training received by teachers, as well as scarce technological resources, are the main barriers to attaining a higher use of ICT in the didactic process. The findings suggest that integral and transversal insertion of ICTs in the classroom should be priority objectives in deriving optimal curricular development in for primary school students.

In this paper we present the basics of a novel methodology for the development of simulation-based and augmented learning tools in the context of applied science and engineering. It is based on the extensive use of model order reduction, and particularly, of the so-called Proper Generalized Decomposition (PGD) method. This method provides a sort of meta-modeling tool without the need for prior computer experiments that allows the user to obtain real-time response in the solution of complex engineering or physical problems. This real-time capability also allows for its implementation in deployed, touch-screen, handheld devices or even to be immersed into electronic textbooks. We explore here the basics of the proposed methodology and give examples on a few challenging applications never until now explored, up to our knowledge.

STEAM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Art, Mathematics) learning is design to promote student’s interest in learning chemistry. Integration STEAM into chemistry learning is often seen as a challenge, such as not familiar and lack of knowledge on STEAM in chemistry. Coping, for this reason, a web-based STEAM online platform was designed. This paper reports the use of design-based research (DBR) to develop a web-based STEAM online platform. The paper focuses on two studies that step on the development and validation of the platform. In an attempt to implement theoretically designed learning environments in real-world classrooms, DBR was employed as an overarching framework of inquiry. The two cycles of DBR inquiry provide deep insights into the platform’s readability, comprehensibility, and feasibility. The implementation of the framework is specified along with further implications for researchers and practitioners

©2020 IEEE. Personal use of this material is permitted. Permission from IEEE must be obtained for all other uses, in any current or future media, including reprinting/republishing this material for advertising or promotional purposes,creating new collective works, for resale or redistribution to servers or lists, or reuse of any copyrighted component of this work in other works. Modern computer graphics courses require students to complete assignments involving computer programming. The evaluation of student programs, either by the student (self-assessment) or by the instructors (grading) can take a considerable amount of time and does not scale well with large groups. Interactive judges giving a pass/fail verdict do constitute a scalable solution, but they only provide feedback on output correctness. In this article, we present a tool to provide extensive feedback on student submissions. The feedback is based both on checking the output against test sets, as well as on syntactic and semantic analysis of the code. These analyses are performed through a set of code features and instructor-defined rubrics. The tool is built with Python and supports shader programs written in GLSL. Our experiments demonstrate that the tool provides extensive feedback that can be useful to support self-assessment, facilitate grading, and identify frequent programming mistakes. This work has been partially funded by the Spanish Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness and FEDER Grant TIN2017-88515-C2-1-R.

The use of mobile devices in classrooms is becoming more and more common. The introduction of these resources to produce learning is part of the mobile learning methodology. Among the possibilities of these devices provide we can find, as an emerging technology, augmented reality, which combines elements of the real world with virtual images. The purpose of this paper is to know the impact of the augmented reality in the educational cooperatives of Andalusia. In this regard, educational cooperatives are centers characterized in their origin by promoting the development of methodologies based on Information and Communication Technologies (ICT). The data collection instrument used in this questionnaire is a quantitative methodology of a descriptive nature. The questionnaire was prepared ad hoc according to the existing literature and the answers coded on a Likert scale. The results show that only a minority of teachers implement the augmented reality in their classes. In addition, there are statistically significant differences in terms of professional experience, so that younger teachers tend to implement methodologies based on the use of emerging mobile technologies such as augmented reality. Finally, it is emphasized that despite the constant technological advance of mobile devices in society, their application in the classroom occurs slowly.

This paper reports the development and validation of a digital application (Assessment Scale of Oral Language at School - Decision Support System, EVALOE-DSS) for the professional development of teachers aiming to improve their students’ linguistic competence. We performed a multiple case study involving seven teachers and their students from seven different schools. Over a six–month period, the teachers used the digital application to self-assess their classes, make decisions and introduce changes into their teaching practices. The researchers observed four class sessions of each teacher and assessed them with the same digital application. Each teacher-researcher dyad discussed the tool and its use over three meetings during the semester. Despite some differences between the teachers, use of the digital application produced progress in the competences of both the teachers and the students. Thus, the digital application can be used for professional development in teachers. This study was supported by the Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness and the European Regional Development Fund (EDU2015-63616-P) (MINECO / ERDF).

The present article constitutes a systematic review of the literature with the objective of identifying the appropriate elements that must be considered when designing and creating adaptive digital educational resources. The methodological process was rigorous and systematic, employing an article search in which the texts related to the object of study were identified, selected, evaluated and analyzed. It is concluded from the analysis of the documentary corpus that the different approaches found configure a roadmap for the conceptualization of what a digital educational resource should be in order to serve as an element that contributes to learning. In this sense, an exemplary model user is proposed that considers experiences, interests and tastes, thus making it possible to strengthen the particularities of students and enhance the learning experience

The present work analyzes the academic performance of students from at-risk groups from the perspective of Social Network Analysis (SNA), studying the academic and interaction information of 45 students belonging to at-risk groups who attended a pilot socio-academic course during one academic term. This information was used to create a sociogram, which served as the basis for determining the centrality metrics of the SNA. The relationships between these metrics and the academic variables were then studied by means of correlation analysis and linear regression with LASSO standardization. As a preview of the results, it was determined that the academic performance of the students in the pilot course was influenced, on the one hand, by their academic knowledge prior to being admitted to the university, represented by the score on the Mathematics and Geometry section of the diagnostic test, and on the other hand, by the dynamics of the social network in which they interacted in the classroom, represented by the eigenvector centrality. These results have significant potential for explaining the academic performance according to SNA metrics, and they provide evidence to support the implementation of practices that promote a healthy social environment in an academic context.

The inclusion and the Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) configure a field of great scientific interest in the current society. In this context, the attitudes of the teachers towards the ICT play an important role. The present article gathers the results of a study whose purpose was to determine how a teacher will use and integrate the ‘Information and Communication Technologies’ (ICT) in inclusive classrooms. This will also identify the factors that promote good educational practices supported by ICT. Towards this we prepared a case study of multiple cases. The questionnaire and group discussion are the techniques that are used for collecting required information. To validate the questionnaire, it was used the expert judgment method selected by the “Coefficient expert Competence” procedure or also named “K coefficient”. The Reliability was established by Cronbach’s Alfa method with a value of 0.87. The result shows that teachers in general have a positive attitude towards ICT, especially the male teachers with greater possibilities of interaction with ICT. This will also promote inclusive and cultures policies between networks of schools and it is presented as an important factor in developing good educational practice with the support of ICT.

The construction of knowledge through computational practice requires to teachers a substantial amount of time and effort to evaluate programming skills, to understand and to glimpse the evolution of the students and finally to state a quantitative judgment in learning assessment. The field of learning analytics has been a common practice in research since last years due to their great possibilities in terms of learning improvement. Both, Big and Small data techniques support the analysis cycle of learning analytics and risk of students’ failure prediction. Such possibilities can be a strong positive contribution to the field of computational practice such as programming. Our main objective was to help teachers in their assessments through to make those possibilities effective. Thus, we have developed a functional solution to categorize and understand students’ behavior in programming activities based in Scratch. Through collection and analysis of data generated by students’ clicks in Scratch, we proceed to execute both exploratory and predictive analytics to detect patterns in students’ behavior when developing solutions for assignments. We concluded that resultant taxonomy could help teachers to better support their students by giving real-time quality feedback and act before students deliver incorrectly or at least incomplete tasks.

Universities have a relevant and essential key role to ensure knowledge and development of competencies in the current fourth industrial revolution called Industry 4.0. The Industry 4.0 promotes a set of digital technologies to allow the convergence between the information technology and the operation technology towards smarter factories. Under such new framework, multiple initiatives are being carried out worldwide as response of such evolution, particularly, from the engineering education point of view. In this regard, this paper introduces the initiative that is being carried out at the Technical University of Catalonia, Spain, called Industry 4.0 Technologies Laboratory, I4Tech Lab. The I4Tech laboratory represents a technological environment for the academic, research and industrial promotion of related technologies. First, in this work, some of the main aspects considered in the definition of the so called engineering education 4.0 are discussed. Next, the proposed laboratory architecture, objectives as well as considered technologies are explained. Finally, the basis of the proposed academic method supported by an active learning approach is presented.

In this Digital era, thousands of teens in the universities use social network sites; it has become a way of life. Social Media Usage has recently received numerous debates in its impact on academics, with its advent, communities have become link to each other, but the lecture room still remains quite isolated, from other teachers, students, and a host of others who could potentially enhance learning. This study aimed at investigating the impact of social media usage on students’ academic performance through collaborative learning among university students in Ghana. Based Davis, Bagozzi & Warshaw (1989), Technology Acceptance Model (TAM), a conceptual framework was adopted for the study. To achieve the objectives, a quantitative data analysis method was employed. A total of 200 students were randomly surveyed for the study. Regression analysis revealed that, Interaction with peers, perceived ease of use and perceived usefulness had a significant positive relationship with collaborative learning. Furthermore, results suggested that there exist a significant mediation effects on the relationship between social media usage dimensions and academic performance. TAM does not take into account environment or economic factors that may influence a person’s intention to perform a behavior. The study recommends a clear mobile learning methodologies, rules and policies for integrating student activities on social media into their final grades

This paper investigates factors that influence Zambian higher education lecturer’s attitude towards integrating ICTs in research and teaching. To determine these factors, we used online administered survey with a total of 163 respondents from public and private higher education institutions in Zambia. Quantitative data analysis based on descriptive and inferential statistics was used in this study. Inferential analysis was employed to investigate the relationships among variables using Pearson correlation analysis and completely randomized design. The results revealed that lack of adequate Internet bandwidth is among the major barrier or obstacle for assimilating ICTs in research and teaching for Zambian higher education lecturers. Additionally, training lecturers on the use of ICTs e.g. email, PowerPoint presentations, electronic boards and its advantages is the most important incentive to motivate lecturers to incorporate ICTs in research and teaching. Therefore, this study contributes to literature on factors that influence higher education lecturers’ attitude towards integrating ICTs in research and teaching. This study also demonstrates a positive correlation between the important factors that influence lecturers in integrating ICTs in research and teaching.

The landscape of teaching and learning has changed in recent years because of the application of Information and Communications technology. Among the most representative innovations in this regard are Learning Management Systems. Despite of their popularity in institutional contexts and the wide set of tools and services that they provide to learners and teachers, they present several issues. Learning Management Systems are linked to an institution and a period of time, and are not adapted to learners' needs. In order to address these problems Personal Learning Environments are defined, but it is clear that these will not replace Learning Management Systems and other institutional contexts. Both types of environment should therefore coexist and interact. This paper presents a service-based framework to facilitate such interoperability. It supports the export of functionalities from the institutional to the personal environment and also the integration within the institution of learning outcomes from personal activities. In order to achieve this in a flexible, extensible and open way, web services and interoperability specifications are used. In addition some interoperability scenarios are posed. The framework has been tested in real learning contexts and the results show that interoperability is possible, and that it benefits learners, teachers and institutions.

The purpose of this descriptive study was to apply 2nd order confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) and structural relationship models to identify the digital competency components essential to undergraduate students in Thai higher education institutions. The sample comprised 1,126 specialists in Information Technology, Computer Technology, Computer Education, Computer Science, and Computer Engineering working in public higher education instructions throughout the country. The selection was the result of multi-stage random sampling from 76 public higher education instructions that offer undergraduate education. The instrument was a questionnaire form on essential digital competency components for undergraduate students in higher education institutions. The question items employed a 7-point Likert scale and showed Cronbach's alpha values for the content validity and reliability at a range of.93-.97 per domain and .87-.99 per component. The data were analyzed using descriptive statistics for general data and 2nd Order CFA analysis. The findings revealed that from 24 observed variables, there were 7 competency components.: 1) Fundamental of digital ; 2) Accessing digital information; 3) Using digital information; 4) Creating digital information and media; 5) Communicating digital information; 6) Managing digital information; and 7) Evaluating digital information. The discovery from this study was substantially constructive for Thai higher education institutions as it could be used to design an essential digital competency framework of the 21st century.

This paper presents a blended-learning strategy for improving the teaching method applied in the laboratory subject Manufacturing Technologies. The teaching method has been changed from a predominantly teacher-centred to an active learning system with a student-centred focus and e-learning activities. In face-to-face classes, a game-based learning platform has been used. This methodology ensured engaging classes at the same time that provided a useful live feedback for students and teachers. The virtualization of the laboratory was achieved by two different e-learning activities, self-assessment tasks and video clips. These e-learning tools have been used not only to improve the students’ learning but also to enhance their motivation. The results from academic outputs show a significant improvement after the new blended learning method is applied. Moreover, a student satisfaction survey shows the positive impact of the methodology on the students’ engagement and motivation.

Introduction to Architecture is a subject taught in the School of Architecture of the University of A Coruña. It is intended to start the trainign of future professionals attending, from the the first course, to the tripple thoughtful, designed and constructive support of the architectural fact. With the Bologna Process, the subject became the initiatory place of the discipline, a sort of "first contact". The uniqueness of this fact, together with other circumstances, such as the recent introduction of teaching in English or conducting practices in a non-contact manner has led to the need of incorporating new technologies as means of control, mentoring and monitoring tasks and enhancement of teacher-student relationship inside the subject. Within this approach it has generated a central tool that serves as a gateway and communication of the subject: the website iala.udc.es. Introducción a la Arquitectura es una asignatura que se imparte en la Escuela Técnica Superior de Arquitectura de la Universidade da Coruña. En ella se pretende iniciar la formación del futuro profesional atendiendo, desde el primer curso, al triple soporte reflexivo, proyectivo y constructivo del hecho arquitectónico. Con el Proceso de Bolonia, la asignatura se convirtió en el lugar iniciático de la disciplina, en una suerte de «primer contacto». La singularidad de este hecho, sumado a otras circunstancias, como la reciente introducción de la docencia en inglés o la realización de las prácticas de manera no presencial, ha conducido a la necesidad de incorporar las nuevas tecnologías como modo de control, tutorización y seguimiento de tareas y potenciación de la relación profesor-alumno dentro de la asignatura. Dentro de este planteamiento se ha generado una herramienta nuclear que sirve de portal de acceso y comunicación de la asignatura: la web iala.udc.es.

The aim of this research is to observe how Collaborative Web-Based Environments (CWBEs) foster higher education quality improvement by means of enhancing students' teamwork skills, the use of CWBEs and the use of teaching methodologies, particularly PBL. A survey was conducted in three different subjects with similar characteristics in courses held at the ETSEIATBarcelonaTECH among a sample of 98 students. Results shed light on two aspects which improve teamwork performance: 1) the functionality of CWBEs and 2) the ability and motivation of students in these environments.

M-learning has enhanced the e-learning by making the learning process learner-centered. However, enforcing exam security in open environments where each student has his/her own mobile/tablet device connected to a Wi-Fi network through which it is further connected to the Internet can be one of the most challenging tasks. In such environments, students can easily exchange information over the network during exam time. This paper aims to identify various vulnerabilities that may violate exam security in m-learning environments and to design the appropriate security services and countermeasures that can be put in place to ensure exam security. It also aims to integrate the resulting secure exam system with an existing, open-source, and widely accepted Learning Management System (LMS) and its service extension to the m-learning environment, namely “the Moodbile Project”.

The use of e-portfolio becomes a standard tool when it comes to learning and student's assessment. This is due to the teachers need for enhancing their students’ autonomy. The use of e-portfolio helps students to focus on their own learning process. Lectures should not be limited only to classes, but must foster active learning, and in this regard, the introduction of the e-portfolio is an excellent tool because it stimulates collaborative and cooperative work among students and, in turn, it encourages feedback by the teacher. To apply active methodologies during 2014-15, the e-portfolio was introduced in the course of Linear Algebra. To prepare the work of the e-portfolio the teacher had to define precisely the objectives that must be achieved by the students, and has had to plan in an understandable manner the tasks that the students can work independently outside the classroom. For the realization of the e-portfolio have been used different platforms. Each quarter of the students worked on a different platform, through AteneaLabs that provided templates so that each student make their own e-portfolio, as well as it provide all necessary manuals. The platforms used were: Mahara, Exabis, WordPress and Google Sites. Formative assessment of the e-portfolio had been made from different rubrics defined in the course syllabus and known by students since the beginning of the course.

[EN] This paper proposes a framework for context-aware assessment of out-ofclassroom subjects with the support of mobile technologies. The paper discusses: (a) the principles and implications of out-of-classroom activities, e.g. internships, outdoors practicals of topography, of agricultural or marine engineering, virtual university courses, etc.; and (b) context-aware assessment, in which some context elements (location, date and time, environmental circumstances) may be incorporated into the assessment by means of mobile technology. The aim of this framework is to provide the tools that will allow for an enhanced evaluation, by taking into account the context of the activities being carried out. Given the characteristics of the activities, the assessment will be based on submissions prepared by the students, which will automatically incorporate context information that can be relevant for the assessment. The framework will be tested with several groups of students participating in internships and/or international mobility programmes, from different universities (public, private, semi-public).

PILARES (Smart Learning Analytics Platform to enhance Performance in Secondary Education ) is a research project aimed at developing a learning analytics platform for Spanish secondary schools' blended learning focused primarily at micro level (students, teachers, tutors and families). In this paper we contextualize the goal of the PILARES project in the wider panorama of learning analytics with references to the situation in the Spanish context.

El presente artículo describe una experiencia educativa usando Realidad Aumentada (RA) en dispositivos móviles para el aprendizaje de conceptos de diseño urbano en estudiantes del Grado de Arquitectura. A tal efecto, se ha diseñado un ejercicio práctico sobre la casuística de un proyecto real, donde los estudiantes deben diseñar una escultura para una plaza pública en función de los parámetros del entorno, debiendo controlar sus parámetros, la forma, escala, localización, materiales, etc. El ejercicio se visualiza y controla mediante plataformas móviles de RA, lo que permite enfatizar un aprendizaje colaborativo mediante el estudio de las propuestas del resto de estudiantes in situ. Para la evaluación del proceso, tanto a nivel de usabilidad como de mejora del proceso educativo, hemos dividido a los estudiantes en dos grupos: uno primero de control, que cursó un sistema tradicional de la asignatura en base a ejercicios de laboratorio, y un grupo experimental, que utilizó el sistema descrito en la ubicación real del proyecto. Al final del curso, y en base a los resultados obtenidos y discutidos en el presente artículo, el grupo experimental obtuvo mejores notas finales, al mismo tiempo que se constata un incremento en el grado de satisfacción y motivación de los estudiantes que han utilizado la propuesta experimental. Este aspecto nos permite reafirmar la utilidad del método en la mejora educativa en el ámbito donde se circunscribe la experiencia.

The Virtual Campus has been around for about 20 years. It provides an online environment that mimics the processes and services of the physical campuses and classrooms. Its adoption is almost complete in countries where Internet access has become ubiquitous. For a time seemed like the innovation in education was happening in the Virtual Campus, but this is no more. Personal Learning Environments, Life Long Learning, MOOCS, Open Educational Resources, Mobile Apps, Gamification, Social Networks, free Cloud based services... al of the above and even more hint that not all the learning today is happening at school or in the Virtual Campus.

MOOCs or Massive Online Open Courses based on Open Educational Resources (OER) might be one of the most versatile ways to offer access to quality education, especially for those residing in far or disadvantaged areas. This article analyzes the state of the art on MOOCs, exploring open research questions and setting interesting topics and goals for further research. Finally, it proposes a framework that includes the use of software agents with the aim to improve and personalize management, delivery, efficiency and evaluation of massive online courses on an individual level basis.

Wiki-like or crowdsourcing models of collaboration can provide a number of benefits to academic work. These techniques may engage expertise from different disciplines, and potentially increase productivity. This paper presents a model of massively distributed collaborative authorship of academic papers. This model, developed by a collective of thirty authors, identifies key tools and techniques that would be necessary or useful to the writing process. The process of collaboratively writing this paper was used to discover, negotiate, and document issues in massively authored scholarship. Our work provides the first extensive discussion of the experiential aspects of large-scale collaborative research.

We describe the development, implementation and evaluation of an augmented reality (AR) application for mobile devices. It has been particularly intended to be used in educational environments. This application has been called U-AR, and is based on optical image recognition from real environment images, to act as markers. Once they are associated with virtual information (3D architectural models, in our case), the application allows viewing, scaling, and positioning it interactively and in real time. Some improvements have been implemented compared to existing commercial ones, such as the ability to view different models consecutively with a single marker and the possibility to move these computer-generated objects around the scene. The main objective was to assess the feasibility of using AR on mobile devices in educational environments. In addition we evaluated academic performance improvement using this technology. Validation was done through a case of study. It was carried out by Architecture students of the ETSAB, (UPC-Barcelona-Tech) outdoor. Results obtained by student's architectural proposals, after using this technology, and by questionnaires responses, demonstrated the application suitability as a new tool to be used in learning processes.

[ES]Desde el principio de la disciplina, el eLearning ha sido un campo novedoso que ha generado nuevo software, sistemas, contenidos y herramientas con los que se está experimentando. la interoperabilidad se convierte, en este contexto, en un problema. Los sistemas consolidados y empleados regularmente tienen que ser capaces de interoperar con otros nuevos. Este artículo trata sobre cómo varias investigaciones y lproyectos de desarrollo se reunieron para encontrar una solución a este problema, proporcionando especificaciones abiertas y normas, además de ibre, implementaciones de referencia de código abierto., [EN] Since the beginning of the discipline, eLearning has been about innovation. New software, systems, contents and tools are being created and experimented with and in constant evolution. But when systems, contents and tools become successful and part of the regular infrastructure of educational institutions, interoperability becomes an issue. Systems that are consolidated and regularly used need to be able to interoperate with new ones. And the new tendencies need to fit within the current infrastructure. This paper states how several research and development projects with heterogeneous funding sources and locations worldwide, gathered together to find a solution to this common problem, providing open specifications and standards, plus Free/Libre, Open Source reference implementations.

The present article introduces the main qualitative and quantitative results obtained in a pilot study of e-portfolio implementation in two different subjects offered in the Technical University of Catalonia (Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya, UPC). Specifically, this teaching innovation took place within the Technical Industrial and Aeronautics Engineering School (ETSEIAT) curricula. Our results indicate that the e-portfolio can be considered: 1) a complementary tool for student’s assessment and 2) an ideal follow-up device for monitoring student development (both generic and specific) throughout their degree studies. The useful data compiled allows us to draw general conclusions and therefore, consider its implementation in the second cycle of Industrial Organization (IO) Engineering as well as the additional degrees taught at the UPC

This paper aims to explore two crucial aspects of collaborative work and learning: on the one hand, the importance of enabling collaborative learning applications to capture and structure the information generated by group activity and, on the other hand, to extract the relevant knowledge in order to provide learners and tutors with efficient awareness, feedback and support with regards to group performance and collaboration. To this end, in this paper we first propose a conceptual model for data analysis and management that identifies and classifies the many kinds of indicators that describe collaboration and learning into high-level aspects of collaboration. Then, we provide a computational platform that, at a first step, collects and classifies both the event information generated asynchronously from the users' actions and the labeled dialogues from the synchronous collaboration according to these indicators. This information is then analyzed in next steps to eventually extract and present to participants the relevant knowledge about the collaboration. The ultimate aim of this platform is to efficiently embed information and knowledge into collaborative learning applications. We eventually suggest a generalization of our approach to be used in diverse collaborative learning situations and domains.

Data mining algorithms have been proved to be useful for the processing of large data sets in order to extract relevant information and knowledge. Such algorithms are also important for analyzing data collected from the users' activity users. One family of such data analysis is that of mining of log files of online applications that register the actions of online users during long periods of time. A relevant objective in this case is to study the behavior of online users and feedback the design processes of online applications to provide better usability and adaption to users' preferences. The context of this work is that of a virtual campus in which thousands of students and tutors carry out the learning and teaching activity using online applications. The information stored in log files of virtual campuses tend to be large, complex and heterogeneous in nature. Hence, their mining requires both efficient and intelligent processing and analysis of user interaction data during long-term learning activities. In this paper, we present a bi-clustering algorithm for processing large log data sets from the online daily activity of students in a real virtual campus. Our approach is useful to extract relevant knowledge about user activity such as navigation patterns, activities performed as well as to study time parameters related to such activities. The extracted information can be useful not only to students and tutors to stimulate and improve their experience when interacting with the system but also to the designers and developers of the virtual campus in order to better support the online teaching and learning.

Modern on-line collaborative learning environments need to be continuously adapted, adjusted, and personalized to each specific target learning group. Moreover, these environments are to enable and scale the involvement of an increasing large number of single/group participants who can geographically be widely distributed, and who need transparently share a huge variety of both software and hardware distributed resources. As a result, collaborative learning applications need to be designed in a way that overcome important non-functional requirements arisen in distributed contexts, such as scalability, availability, interoperability, and integration of different, heterogeneous, and legacy collaborative learning systems. In this paper, an innovative distributed-based approach is presented for increasing the overall performance of collaborative learning systems that contributes to the effectiveness of the collaborative activities, such as online discussions. The experimental results show an outstanding effect on the learning processes and outcomes by enhancing and improving the learning experience a great deal.

This work is motivated by the need to develop decentralized P2P approaches to support learning and teaching activity in virtual universities. In this paper, we present the implementation of the JXTA-based e-learning P2P system. We also show the design and implementation of a SmartBox environment that will be used for stimulating the learners to increase the learning efficiency. The proposed e-learning P2P system is a useful tool for monitoring and controlling learnerspsila activity. We evaluate the proposed system by experimental results and show that proposed system has a good performance. In the future, we aim to use it in real virtual campus environments.

Due to the opportunities provided by the Internet, people are taking advantage of e-learning courses and during the last few years enormous research efforts have been dedicated to the development of e-learning systems. So far, many e-learning systems are proposed and used practically. However, in these systems the e-learning completion rate is low. One of the reasons is the low study desire and motivation. In our previous work, we implemented a e-learning system that is able to increase the learning efficiency by stimulating learners motivation. In this work, we designed and implemented new functions to improve the system performance

The discussion process plays an important social task in Computer-Supported Collaborative Learning (CSCL) where participants can discuss about the activity being performed, collaborate with each other through the exchange of ideas that may arise, propose new resolution mechanisms, and justify and refine their own contributions, and as a result acquire new knowledge. Indeed, learning by discussion when applied to collaborative learning scenarios can provide significant benefits for students in collaborative learning, and in education in general. As a result, current educational organizations incorporate in-class online discussions into web-based courses as part of the very rationale of their pedagogical models. However, online discussions as collaborative learning activities are usually greatly participated and contributed, which makes the monitoring and assessment tasks time-consuming, tedious and error-prone. Specially hard if not impossible by humans is to manually deal with the sequences of hundreds of contributions making up the discussion threads and the relations between these contributions. As a result, current assessment in online discussions restricts to offer evaluation results of the content quality of contributions after the completion of the collaborative learning task and neglects the essential issue of constantly assessing the knowledge building as a whole while it is still being generated. In this paper, we propose a multidimensional model based on data analysis from online collaborative discussion interaction that provides a first step towards an automatic assessment in (almost) real time. The context of this study is a real on-line discussion experience that took place at the Open University of Catalonia

The discussion process plays an important social task in Computer-Supported Collaborative Learning (CSCL) where participants can discuss about the activity being performed, collaborate with each other through the exchange of ideas that may arise, propose new resolution mechanisms, as well as justify and refine their own contributions and thus acquire new knowledge. Indeed, learning by discussion when applied to collaborative learning scenarios can provide significant benefits for students in collaborative learning, and in education in general. However, the discussion process in the context of distance education presents high drop out in comparison to traditional programs due chiefly to a sense of isolation of participants who do not have knowledge about others nor they can compare their own progress and performance to the group. To alleviate this problem, the provision of appropriate knowledge from the analysis of on-line interaction is rapidly gaining popularity due to its great impact on the discussion performance and outcomes. This implies a need to capture and structure all types of information generated by group activity and then to extract the relevant knowledge in order to provide participants with efficient awareness and feedback as regards group performance and collaboration. As a result, it is necessary to process and analyzed complex event log files from group activity in a constant manner, and thus it may require computational capacity beyond that of a single computer. To this end, in this paper we show how a Grid approach can considerably increase the overall efficiency of processing group activity log files and thus allow discussion participants to receive effective knowledge even in real time. The context of this study is a real discussion experience that took place at the Open University of Catalonia (UOC).

User modelling in on-line distance learning is an important research field focusing on two important aspects: describing and predicting students’ actions and intentions as well as adapting the learning process to students’ features, habits, interests, preferences, and so on. The aim is to greatly stimulate and improve the learning experience. In this context, user modeling implies a constant processing and analysis of user interaction data during long-term learning activities, which produces large and considerably complex information. As a consequence, processing this information is costly and requires computational capacity beyond that of a single computer. In order to overcome this obstacle, in this paper we show how a parallel processing approach can considerably decrease the time of processing log data that come from on-line distance educational web-based systems. The results of our study show the feasibility of using Grid middleware to speed and scale up the processing of log data and thus achieving an efficient and dynamic user modeling in on-line distance learning.

The goal of this paper is to explore the possibility of using CSCL component-based software under a Grid infrastructure. The merge of these technologies represents an attractive, but probably quite laborious enterprise if we consider not only the benefits but also the barriers that we have to overcome. This work presents an attempt toward this direction by developing a generic platform of CSCL components and discussing the advantages that we could obtain if we adapted it to the Grid. We then propose a means that could make this adjustment possible due to the high degree of genericity that our library component is endowed with by being based on the generic programming paradigm. Finally, an application of our library is proposed both for validating the adequacy of the platform which it is based on and for indicating the possibilities gained by using it under the Grid.

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The increasing graphic quality and ease of use of the current generation of videogame technology compels educators to rethink how architecture students learn. This paper presents the results of an educational experience with architecture students that explored the suitability of virtual environments as an educational tool. Students explored the simulated environment of an architectural proposal and filled a survey asking whether the experience had made them reason about some fundamental qualities of space. The results revealed that the virtual environment was capable of making students reflect on the functional, formal or material qualities of architectural spaces, suggesting a new education avenue using gamification or serious games strategies.

The development of Information and Communication Technology (ICT), have revolutionized the world and have moved us into the information age, however the access and handling of this large amount of information is causing valuable time losses. Teachers in Higher Education especially use the Internet as a tool to consult materials and content for the development of the subjects. The internet has very broad services, and sometimes it is difficult for users to find the contents in an easy and fast way. This problem is increasing at the time, causing that students spend a lot of time in search information rather than in synthesis, analysis and construction of new knowledge. In this context, several questions have emerged: Is it possible to design learning activities that allow us to value the information search and to encourage collective participation?. What are the conditions that an ICT tool that supports a process of information search has to have to optimize the student's time and learning? This article presents the use and application of a Recommender System (RS) designed on paradigms of Collective Intelligence (CI). The RS designed encourages the collective learning and the authentic participation of the students. The research combines the literature study with the analysis of the ICT tools that have emerged in the field of the CI and RS. Also, Design-Based Research (DBR) was used to compile and summarize collective intelligence approaches and filtering techniques reported in the literature in Higher Education as well as to incrementally improving the tool. Several are the benefits that have been evidenced as a result of the exploratory study carried out. Among them the following stand out: • It improves student motivation, as it helps you discover new content of interest in an easy way. • It saves time in the search and classification of teaching material of interest. • It fosters specialized reading, inspires competence as a means of learning. • It gives the teacher the ability to generate reports of trends and behaviors of their students, real-time assessment of the quality of learning material. The authors consider that the use of ICT tools that combine the paradigms of the CI and RS presented in this work, are a tool that improves the construction of student knowledge and motivates their collective development in cyberspace, in addition, the model of Filltering Contents used supports the design of models and strategies of collective intelligence in Higher Education.