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The unprecedented situation of the COVID-19 pandemic has caused the closure of universities worldwide and has forced the transition to online learning. This exceptional context compels us to understand students' experience with online learning. Previous literature identifies relevant factors that intervene in the online education experience and can affect students' academic development. One of the main concerns is the students' mental health, given the lockdown restrictions under which classes have been conducted. Furthermore, the impact of the prolonged lockdown and the pandemic fatigue on university students and their academic experience is still unclear. This study delves into engineering undergraduate students' online education experience during the COVID-19 pandemic and its emotional impact across time. With this aim, a questionnaire was distributed to second, third, and fourth-year engineering undergraduate students at two time points, approximately six months apart. The results show significant differences in students' connection with other students and teachers, workspace conditions, and boredom between time points. Besides, the findings indicate significant correlations between academic development and quality of online classes, adaptation of the course, workspace conditions, and connection with other students and teachers, and also between students' emotions and connection with other students and teachers. Finally, the study identifies best practices carried out during online teaching that will be of value for future courses and engineering education beyond the pandemic situation, amongst which those related to effective communication with teachers stand out.

Majority of the students now have access to portable devices that can provide countless information at their fingertips through various resources such as learning games and interactive applications. These resources allow immediate communication and interaction between students and instructors. In this study we measured students’ perception of the effectiveness of using technological tools in lectures on their academic performance and their level of understanding of the course topic. Students, who have taken statistics courses at the University of Toronto completed a survey that identified variables connected to their perception of using technology in class and the ways in which, in turn, their learning experiences were enhanced. The results of the survey showed that a significant portion of students perceived that they gained a deeper level of understanding of lecture contents when technology was used in class. Thus, based on the results of our study, we recommend that instructors take advantage of using technology in their class in order to create a more immersive learning environment for their students than using traditional instructional methods

The online teaching support platform was changed by the Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya in 2004. Moodle, an open source software, was used in place of the prior proprietary software. The population's confinement at home owing to the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020 was a stress test for the whole university community, particularly those responsible for providing support for the online teaching support platform. Concerns about possible scalability challenges with the quiz functionality during the examination period arose as a result of the increased activity and the prospect of the generalization of online assessment. The solution included deploying a high-performance version of the Moodle Quiz Module As A Service (SaaS) to plug-and-play within the university's LMS without relying on internal resources using Moodle's IMS LTI interoperability features. This study aims at analyzing the solution, which included a systems strategy, private cloud operations, internal communication, and teacher training, that allowed the university course to be assessed in a confined space.

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

The introduction of the computer into the educational process is a fact. The educational use of new technologies creates a new, more appealing and enjoyable learning environment. The introduction of new technologies into school differentiates the role of the professor by giving him/her a guiding character in a process of experiential approach to knowledge. In the present paper a proposal for the teaching of the chemistry module “Simple Colloids” is presented, with the contribution of video recorded educational experiments. Complete experiments on the subject of “Simple Colloids” and their properties are presented, aiming at familiarizing students with this theory.

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.

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.

The research aimed to describe the development process of online learning application in physics for school course using the ADDIE model. This application is called Learning Management System Supported Smartphone (LMS3). LMS3 can facilitate preservice physics teacher to enhance digital literacy. The authors analyzed need assessment based on learning objectives, designed LMS3 in the form of a flow chart system and storyboard, produced LMS3 through professional programmers, filled in LMS3 content and conducted expert validation, implemented LMS3 in physics for school course, and evaluated LMS3 during implementation. This research is a descriptive study involving media and pedagogical experts as well as 40 preservice physics teachers in Tasikmalaya. Data collection techniques were carried out by the study of literature, the expert validation, and preservice physics teacher perception questionnaires. Expert validation and preservice physics teacher perception were obtained by using a Likert scale. The validation results from the experts were processed using the validation value equation developed by Aiken. The results of the expert validation show that the validation value is 1 and met the minimum validation requirements of the application. Perception of preservice physics teacher showed positive response to LMS3. The LMS3 has good display, function, and good effect on their learning motivation and digital literacy.

The development of the digital competence is one of the current challenges of the educational community. Specifically, the area of information literacy is presented as a main pillar for the subsequent optimal development of a digital teaching competence. Based on this, the present article aims to evaluate the area of information literacy in practicing teachers from Early Childhood Education (N=57). A descriptive and inferential quantitative analysis was made for this piece of work in order to analyze the perceptions of the teachers towards this area, the accomplishment of the t-student test for the comparison of means between teachers of public and private with state-funded financial support centers and the application of a linear regression model that allows to predict the information literacy through the variable "education center". The results obtained reflected an optimal level of perceptions as for the information area, regardless of the type of school, as well as the possible prediction, regarding the school typology, of some information literacy variables.

©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 work presented in this document focuses on the implementation of a mobile phone application to support a gamification tool in the classroom, called Classpip. With this tool, it is intended that tutors or other users can stimulate or motivate a group of students through the use of games that implement gamified mechanics.

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).

In this paper we describe a plugin-based C++ framework for teaching OpenGL and GLSL in introductory Computer Graphics courses. The main strength of the framework architecture is that student assignments are mostly independent and thus can be completed, tested and evaluated in any order. When students complete a task, the plugin interface forces a clear separation of initialization, interaction and drawing code, which in turn facilitates code reusability. Plugin code can access scene, camera, and OpenGL window methods through a simple API. The plugin interface is flexible enough to allow students to complete tasks requiring shader development, object drawing, and multiple rendering passes. Students are provided with sample plugins with basic scene drawing and camera control features. One of the plugins that the students receive contains a shader development framework with self-assessment features. We describe the lessons learned after using the tool for four years in a Computer Graphics course involving more than one hundred Computer Science students per year.

The integration of Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) in the academic context caused a change in the way teaching and learning is carried out. It also broadened the usually formal educational contexts and the way these are accessed. Nonetheless, gaps can still be found concerning the inequality in the access to ICT resources and tools and, therefore, in the universal access to knowledge and education. This paper studies the use and integration of ICT through students’ perceptions from the educational centers of the municipality of San Juan Girón (Santander, Colombia). The population is composed of 208 participants with ages ranging between 12 and 18, 59% female and 41% male. Statistically significant results were obtained concerning the use of school-owned resources and teaching methodologies. One of the most outstanding results shows the population analyzed needs to apply a new teaching methodology to promote the integration of the ICT in the classrooms in a more suitable and coherent way. Moreover, training processes and pedagogical updating are required to motivate a curricular change considering rhythms, forms, quality and different learning styles in the municipality of San Juan Girón

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.

This study examined the effects of using Microsoft Mathematics on students’ attitude, conceptual understanding, and procedural skills in Differential Calculus. A quasi-experimental research design was used in which two different learning environments were compared. The participants of the study were two classes of Electrical Engineering students enrolled in Differential Calculus course, assigned randomly as control and experimental groups with 30 students in each group. The control group was taught using the traditional approach of teaching Differential Calculus while the experimental group was taught the same lessons using the Microsoft Mathematics embedded activity sheets. The experimental group learned through exploration and discovery of various concepts. The findings indicated that the participants had little understanding of the concepts and processes of Calculus prior to the conduct of the study. A significant improvement in their performances was noted after the experimentation. This suggests that the use of Microsoft Mathematics in teaching and learning Differential Calculus improves students’ conceptual understanding and procedural skills. It is also found that the use of Microsoft Mathematics in teaching and learning calculus is equally effective as the traditional approach. In terms of attitude, the experimental group demonstrated a “favorable” to “very highly favorable” attitude along the five (5) domains of the MTAS. A significant difference exists between the pretest and posttest attitude of the subjects on the domain “learning Mathematics with technology”.

Research in education confirmed that students engage in learning when they feel connected with others and when they play an active role in their learning process. Therefore; social presence (SP) considered as an important component of effective learning in both face-face and online learning environment. Therefore, this study intended to investigate students’ perception about SP when using Web 2.0 tool for learning-based interaction and the difference in their perception based on gender and number of the semesters of the study. The participants of this study were 71 postgraduate students in one of the Malaysian public universities. The quantitative methods of data collection and data analysis were used in this study. Therefore, the researcher employed survey method using Online Social Presence Questionnaire (OSPQ) to collect the data. The data were analyzed using SPSS software to find mean, standard deviation of students’ perception of their social presence while using Web 2.0 tool for learning-based interaction. Independent sample t-test was used to find the difference in students perception based on their gender. Moreover, One-Way ANOVA was used to find the difference in students’ SP perception based on their semester of the study. The findings of this study showed that students expressed high perception about their social presence on Web 2.0 tool. Nonetheless, male students perceived higher social presence on Web 2.0 tool than female students. However, there were not significant differences in students’ perception of social presence neither based on the gender difference nor on the number of the semester of the study.

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.

The introduction and use of on-line learning resources has improved students learning process in several aspects. But at the same time, it also introduced more complexity and made more difficult to teachers how to analyze learning evolution and improvement of students. In this paper, we propose a first approach how to visualize and analyze student interaction with on-line learning systems and Virtual Learning Environments (VLE). We present a piece of software that collects information on the interaction of the students with the Moodle VLE and that it displays to teachers in a more analytical way. The interaction data is displayed to support teacher interpretation from a learning point of view, with the inclusion of automatically generated textual explanations about the analysis of such data.

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.

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.

The article presents a comparative analysis of learning a group of students in three different courses in the classroom mode or ‘campus’, and distance or ‘online’ using synchronous technology through web-conferencing software. The findings establish a very good perception on the part of students, who qualify very well these tools, and on the other hand, the average rating of distance learning is superior in two of the three courses to the classroom course. A questionnaire was designed to address issues concerning the adequacy of the tools in online courses to make learning efficient and secondly, to check the learning performance of students in both modes. It has obtained sufficient information to analyze in depth courses and establish conclusions on the adequacy of the means used to distance and comparative results on respect to traditional teaching. It has been found that there is a very good perception of students who qualify very well these tools and the results of student grades on-line exceed on average than those obtained in the classroom course.

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.

This paper presents the research work carried out by an interdisciplinary group of technologists and entertainment experts in collaboration with primary teachers to develop a serious game to work primary education-oriented competences. The serious game called “Ferran Alsina” is conceived as a tool to develop competences in the primary education program. To design this game, 25 primary school teachers helped the technical and investigative team in a co-creation activity executed with the methodology named Action-Research. This allowed the implementation of competences inside the game’s playability and narrative. This paper presents the research work carried out by an interdisciplinary group of technologists and entertainment experts in collaboration with primary teachers to develop a serious game to work primary education-oriented competences. The serious game called 'Ferran Alsina' is conceived as a tool to develop competences in the primary education program. To design this game, 25 primary school teachers helped the technical and investigative team in a co-creation activity executed with the methodology named Action-Research. This allowed the implementation of competences inside the game's playability and narrative.

Se presenta un artículo fruto de un proyecto de investiga-ción educativa realizado en la Escuela Técnica Superior de Arquitectura de Barcelona (ETSAB) durante el curso 2010-2011 y 2011-2012. El proyecto se basa en un estudio de caso centrado en la secuencia académica del primer año de los estudios de grado, iniciada por el Curso de Acogida(curso inicial de informática gráfica) y que finaliza con el curso de Dibujo II (curso equivalente a la introducción en Geometría Descriptiva). Con él se propone usar una estrategia pedagógica inversa a la habitual, es decir, que los futuros estudiantes de arquitectura empiecen usando herramientas TIC y tecnologías 3D en lugar del dibujo tradicional. Dado el interés que las mismas despiertan en ellos y por su facilidad de alfabetización digital, los alumnos obtienen resultados sobre su formación gráfica, educación visual, comprensión espacial, rendimiento académico y satisfacción muy supe-riores a los habituales, a la vez que en periodos de aprendizaje más cortos. We present this paper as the result of an educational research project conductedat the School of Architecture of Barcelona (ETSAB) during the 2010-2011 and 2011-2012 academic course. The project is based on a case study, focused on the sequence of the first academic course of undergraduate studies that begins with the Welcome Course(initial course on computer graphics) and endswith Drawing IIequivalentto the introductory course on descriptive geometry. With it we propose to use a reverse teaching strategy, where future architecture students begin byusing ICT tools and 3D technologies, rather than traditional drawing. Given the interest that they arouse in them and the ease of digital literacy, the results of the students’ training ingraphics, visual education, space understanding, and theiracademic performance and satisfaction aremuch higher than the usual ones, besides being achieved in a shorter period of time

In this article we present the planning and methodology followed in order to apply virtual tutoring sessions in different subjects and universities. The Second Life environment, together with the Voki speaking avatars will be employed. It is a multidisciplinary study that includes personal and collective tutoring sessions, answering key questions through animated avatars, virtual labs, and posters exhibition for peer-evaluation. From a survey run among the students it is concluded that most of them are willing to learn and try this kind of tutoring sessions, but at the same time some feel skeptical about its utility

Jutge.org is an open access educational online programming judge where students can try to solve more than 800 problems using 22 programming languages. The verdict of their solutions is computed using exhaustive test sets run under time, memory and security restrictions. By contrast to many popular online judges, Jutge.org is designed for students and instructors: On one hand, the problem repository is mainly aimed to beginners, with a clear organization and gradding. On the other hand, the system is designed as a virtual learning environment where instructors can administer their own courses, manage their roster of students and tutors, add problems, attach documents, create lists of problems, assignments, contests and exams. This paper presents Jutge.org and offers some case studies of courses using it.

[EN] Purpose: The aim of this paper is to analyze the utility of edublogs in teaching-learning process applied to postgraduate Courses. Particularly, it describes an experience carried out while delivering a Course offered to students, mainly Industrial Engineers, of a certain Master program. Design/methodology/approach: In the first section of the paper, we perform a literature review with the aim of defining some basic concepts as blog, weblog or edublog. Later on, we compare some educational models to identify best practices related to new technologies, and particularly, to edublogs. Finally, we analyze our experience in a postgraduate Course. Findings and Originality/value: We have identified best practices on teaching using edublogs and we have applied them to a particular postgraduate Course. Research limitations/implications: Conclusions are obtained from only one experience (one postgraduate Course). We intend to extend the analysis to more postgraduate Courses and compare the obtained results. Practical implications: We have applied the previously described methodology and we have discussed advantages and disadvantages of using edublogs. Originality/value: We have compiled a wide list of best practices on teaching using new technologies and in particular edublogs. We have also evaluated the experience qualitatively according to such best practices and drawn conclusions that will improve the process., Partially financed by the project "El uso de blogs como herramienta de enseñanzaaprendizaje" (PIME-A003/10) from Universidad Politécnica de Valencia.

Purpose: Information & Communication Technologies (ICT) can be a fundamental aid for the design of new teaching methods that better adapt to the framework of the European Higher Education Area. In this context, this study aims to develop and assess a complex and truly interactive ICT-based teaching tool for instruction in OM.Design/methodology/approach: A multimedia application for Just-in-Time (JIT) / Lean Production has been conceived, designed and assessed. A constructivist focus was followed in its conception and design to encourage active and flexible learning adapted to each individual’s own requirements. Using empirical research the tool has been assessed by students and compared to the traditional teaching methods.Findings: The interactive multimedia application has been clearly valued for the way it conveys information and for its usability, for the way the application is structured and the improvements to students’ understanding of the knowledge. Students are also in favour of ICT being incorporated into teaching over more traditional methods. The assessment took students’ gender and the average overall mark on their academic records as control variables but, broadly-speaking, no significant differences were found. Research limitations/implications: The study was carried out in a controlled environment and not in the normal on-site university teaching process. Conclusions could be extended to OM and other related subjects, especially if they make use of similar tools to the one described in this paper. Practical implications: This study provides a contribution that allows reflections to be made on the design of specific software for OM and students’ perceptions when using it.Originality/value: Through this paper we contribute to an improvement in learning methods in general and to higher education in OM in particular.

The European Higher Education Area (EHEA) furthers a student-centered system based on the student workload required to achieve the objectives of a study program. In the context of EHEA, e-learning tools provide an outstanding opportunity to discuss mathematical activity in the 21st-century classroom. In 2002, the Technical University of Catalonia (UPC) undertook the use of a virtual teaching tool, the virtual campus Atenea. Since 2005 Atenea has been based on Moodle, an open source learning management system designed to help educators create quality online courses and administer learner outcomes. From the wide range of tools offered by Moodle, we are focusing on the quiz module. This module allows the creation of quizzes with different types of question, adapted to the specific objectives to be reached at any step in the teaching-learning process. Moodle quizzes contribute to the development of new strategies not feasible with paper-and-pencil tests. To explore how to apply these new strategies in the development of a substantial bank of quiz questions, we are carrying out projects subsidised by the Institute of Education Sciences of the UPC. This contribution focuses on the assessment of three Moodle quizzes for Calculus topics that were designed to be answered by around 70 first-year students of the School of Civil Engineering (UPC) in the course 2007/2008. In particular, the aims are to analyse students’ answers and to carry out a psychometric analysis to identify the appropriateness of the questions stated in the quizzes.

The Educational Guide is a mean to capture, college by college, the main academic information for the student about any subject in the Technical University of Catalonia (UPC). Due to a set of lacks in the former product, detected by the Industrial of Engineering School of Barcelona (ETSEIB) and by its Library, a new electronic Guide of the ETSEIB has been implemented by the Library, bringing multiple benefits both to the agents implicated in the process of feeding and managing information as well as to the final users of this complex information tool.

In 2005 the virtual campus Atenea of the Technical University of Catalonia (UPC) started to use Moodle, an open source learning management system that offers a wide variety of teaching tools [3]. One of these tools, the quiz module, represents an alternative to traditional face-to-face courses and paper-based testing. In order to explore how to apply this new strategy, in 2008 we started to carry out a project subsidised by the Institute of Education Sciences (ICE) of the UPC. The project title was “Creating Moodle quizzes for the subjects of Mathematics and Statistics corresponding to the first years in engineering studies”. It covered the compulsory undergraduate subjects in applied mathematics included in the first- and second-year syllabus for all branches of Engineering. The aims were to elaborate a substantial range of Moodle question pools and to design, implement and assess a series of quizzes, to use Moodle quizzes to promote more effective, dynamic and autonomous learning, and to change teachers’ and students’ attitude towards the campus Atenea.

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.

There are many papers that present the problems of educational videos: need of a high number of resources to create them, excess of information in the majority of videos, gaps of information between videos and the rest of materials of the courses, etc. This paper introduces the concept ‘low-cost educational video’, which attempts to solve to a large extent the problems that have been identified in the educational videos. To this end, an empirical research is conducted with 487 students and various lecturers and professors in three undergraduate degrees: Mechanical Engineering, Industrial Engineering and Management (in face-to-face as well as semi-distance modalities), and Aeronautical Engineering at the Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya (Spain). In order to achieve this goal, we introduce the process and the required resources for the creation and the diffusion of these low-cost educational videos. The results are analysed taking a literature-based questionnaire as a starting point and within the principles of good practice in higher education framework. The main research findings revealed an improved student motivation and an increase of the perceived efficiency in the learning and teaching processes, without substantially raising costs.

Jutge.org is an open access educational online programming judge where students can try to solve more than 800 problems using 22 programming languages. The verdict of their solutions is computed using exhaustive test sets run under time, memory and security restrictions. By contrast to many popular online judges, Jutge.org is designed for students and instructors: On one hand, the problem repository is mainly aimed to beginners, with a clear organization and gradding. On the other hand, the system is designed as a virtual learning environment where instructors can administer their own courses, manage their roster of students and tutors, add problems, attach documents, create lists of problems, assignments, contests and exams. This paper presents Jutge.org and offers some case studies of courses using it.

This document presents the use of a self-video-recording service for the integration and assessment of certain generic competences (oral and written communication, teamwork and third (English) language) in all degree programs related to the Industrial area at the Terrassa School of Engineering (EET). The resulting service allows to carry out the assessment through active and collaborative learning methodologies using ICT as a support, becoming an educational resource where students are encouraged to evaluate their own activity, individually and in groups (co-evaluation), and with which the faculty can enhance certain sections of the syllabus while also evaluating generic competences. This paper outlines the rationale and design of the system based on self-recording-video that assists work on some generic competences. A preliminary experience has taken place and it has been carried out by volunteer students and some professors from the promoting team. It consisted of following all steps to obtain the video-recording as a result and fulfil the further assessment. Preparing the defence of the final project career, explaining the way a problem is faced are examples of use of the service endowed to assist the assessment of some generic competences. A good number of students and professors have participated in this preliminary experiment carried out on some subjects and in which oral effective communication will be assessed. A specific rubric for the assessment of generic competences has been used both for students and faculty. There is a summary of qualitative feedback from both students and instructors, and where several issues related to improving the self-assessment and self-video-recording system, are discussed. Finally, a survey is proposed, whose results will be helpful for its improvement.