Search

DL 57/2016/CP1453/CT0066 UIDB/00183/2020 UIDP/00183/2020 The Covid-19 pandemic has presented an opportunity for rethinking assumptions about education in general and higher education in particular. In the light of the general crisis the pandemic caused, especially when it comes to the so-called emergency remote teaching (ERT), educators from all grades and contexts experienced the necessity of rethinking their roles, the ways of supporting the students’ learning tasks and the image of students as self-organising learners, active citizens and autonomous social agents. In our first Postdigital Science and Education paper, we sought to distil and share some expert advice for campus-based university teachers to adapt to online teaching and learning. In this sequel paper, we ask ourselves: Now that campus-based university teachers have experienced the unplanned and forced version of Online Learning and Teaching (OLT), how can this experience help bridge the gap between online and in-person teaching in the following years? The four experts, also co-authors of this paper, interviewed aligning towards an emphasis on pedagogisation rather than digitalisation of higher education, with strategic decision-making being in the heart of post-pandemic practices. Our literature review of papers published in the last year and analysis of the expert answers reveal that the ‘forced’ experience of teaching with digital technologies as part of ERT can gradually give place to a harmonious integration of physical and digital tools and methods for the sake of more active, flexible and meaningful learning. publishersversion published

The project “European Short Learning Programmes” (E-SLP) aims at developing networked Short Learning Programmes, which answer societal needs and provide flexibility to learners. Within the project SLPs are understood as short-term academic programs situated between singular learning units and more extensive academic programs. They offer academic training for selected topics that are of high relevance to certain target groups or introduce new skills that are highly relevant for primarily lifelong/adult learners in employment (D.2.1 E-SLP). A Short Learning Programme (SLP) is an educational programme with a sequenced set of components (units, modules or other learning building blocks). It is offered by Higher Education Institutions at EQF levels 4 to 8 (foundation, bachelor, master and doctoral). It is usually awarded with a (micro) credential and can be used as stackable elements of larger qualifications, (e.g. bachelor degree). It should be worth 5 to 30 ECTs. It can be market driven and focused on the needs of society. It is normally targeted at non-traditional and adult learners. A SLP can either be online or blended. It must be flexible and scalable. It can be recognised and preferably accredited, and can relate to larger formal degree (WP5 - one page summary). The aim of these “Design Guidelines for Flexible and Scalable SLPs” is to help the creation and development of SLPs at Meso and Micro level. They illustrate how to design flexible, scalable, accessible and relevant SLPs for users and groups of users. As it is relatively new, design principles are evolving and as front-runner the E-SLP project is the trailblazer. Using online SLPs to go beyond a regional design to national and international design. These “Design Guidelines for Flexible and Scalable SLPs” have been produced, as part of the E-SLP project. Data was collected from an internal report: “Compendium of Good Practices” (D 4.1 E-SLP), which was drafted from the findings of a survey collecting information on the design of 22 SLPs supported by the detailed interviews of 8 of these SLPs. This report gathered evidence of design good practices in existing SLPs and revealed possible progress that could be made. These improvements have evolved into guidelines, which focus on how to design SLPs that correspond to the parameters of the E-SLP project. These guidelines are, furthermore, based on results from reports published by collaborating partners: WP2, WP3, WP5 and on academic literature. This is the second version of the “Design Guidelines for Flexible and Scalable SLPs”, it was updated once the SLPs’ pilots were designed. A WP6 survey gathered feedback on the pilot design process and possible issues encountered. This enabled us to gather and include further information on the creative experience in this revised version (V2). The Guidelines are devided in 2 parts, the first one addresses topics of macro-design while the second concentrates on micro-design. It then provides an assessment template for existing SLPs, thus enabling universities to check whether their short learning programmes fit the general criteria of the E-SLPs, as well as numerous templates and methodological instruments in annexes. The target audience for these guidelines ranges from programme directors to educational staff (supporting the development of educational programmes), to management staff (dealing with educational policies) and to lecturers and professors. To facilitate its use, tags with the relevant target audience are displayed in the left margin of each section. nonPeerReviewed

El ARM es un proyecto que se dearrolla en la UOC (Universitat Oberta de Catalunya) que sigue la metodología de universidad a distancia basada en el concepto del Campus Virtual y en el uso de materiales multimedia interactivos. La experiencia ha demostrado la importancia de contar con materiales bien estructurados y diseñados desde una perspectiva pedagógica. Eso supone la formación de los autores de los materiales respecto cómo se elaboran materiales didácticos adecuados a la enseñanza a distancia que se desarrolla en un entorno virtual de aprendizaje. El ARM permite consultar aspectos metodológicos y buscar recursos, según unos criterios básicos. Cataluña ESP

El Objetivo del proyecto europeo Benvic es crear una metodología y unos criterios de calidad que permitan evaluar diferentes modelos de entornos virtuales de aprendizaje creados para ofrecer formación no presencial. Actualmente se da la oportunidad de desarrollar un sistema de formación virtual y disponer un entorno de calidad que se sitúe a la altura de los demás. Dado el creciente interés que están teniendo los sistemas de formación no presencial en línea, tres universidades europeas y tres institutos de investigación también europeos, valoraron positivamente la participación en este proyecto. Cataluña ESP

This article present the project developed in 2011 by units and training centers from all public universities in Catalonia. The project is devised towards the quality improvement of the higher education system and of the activity undertaken by the faculty at the university. In order to achieve these objectives, it focuses on the identification of teaching skills, defined by the academic community through training programs specifically designed for this purpose. Taking the implementation of the European Higher Education as starting point, the project intends to analyze the skills considered to belong by nature to the teaching task, as well as to define the necessary procedures to acquire, develop and evaluate them through training. At the same time it seeks to identify models, strategies, tools and resources. To this identification process we will make the necessary bibliographical research, in which the criteria of teaching excellence will allow us to select a representative sample of teachers. The selection will be performed through a survey and its quality will be validated by experts. The primary objective of the project shown here is basically to contribute to the quality training of university teachers, allowing the acquisition, development and evaluation of the skills considered essential by the academic community, in order to properly undertake their professional tasks, defined as: interpersonal, methodology, communication, planning and management of teaching, teamwork and innovation Este artículo presenta el proyecto desarrollado durante el año 2011 por las unidades y centros de formación de las universidades públicas catalanas. El proyecto se orienta a la mejora de la calidad del sistema de educación superior y de la actividad del profesorado universitario mediante planes de formación específicamente diseñados con esta finalidad, centrándose primeramente en la identificación de competencias docentes definidas por la comunidad académica. Partiendo del contexto de implementación del Espacio Europeo de Educación Superior se identifican aquellas competencias propias de la función docente, para que posteriormente puedan ser adquiridas, desarrolladas y evaluadas mediante la formación, identificando modelos, estrategias, instrumentos y recursos que lo permitan. El proceso de identificación de las competencias docentes del profesorado universitario se ha desarrollado partiendo de una revisión bibliográfica del estado del arte, para posteriormente ser modificada y validada por grupos de discusión conformados por expertos en competencias y formación docente. Los resultados de identificación de dichas competencias han sido finalmente refrendados mediante una encuesta respondida por una muestra representativa de la comunidad académica de las ocho universidades públicas catalanas. El objetivo fundamental del proyecto que aquí presentamos no es otro que el de contribuir a una formación de calidad del profesorado universitario, que permita la adquisición, desarrollo y evaluación de las competencias que, como docente, gran parte de la comunidad académica considera que debe poseer para el ejercicio de su labor profesional, definidas como: interpersonal, metodológica, comunicativa, de planificación y gestión de la docencia, de trabajo en equipo y de innovación

This paper is dealing with automatic end-to-end law analysis conducted by decomposition and semantic annotation, by using the high- performance computing and government open data. Legal data and law texts are a category of open data and thus they possess the potential to unlock digital innovation and transformation capacity in governments and businesses, regarding the development of new, better, and more cost-effective services for citizens. For that reason, they can be recognized as a potential digital transformation driver. This research presents a baseline for automation of decomposition and annotation with process and service elements developed for utilization on high-performance computing infrastructure based on government laws open data and gives insights on how the results of it can initiate digital transformation.

With the intensive development of ICT and rapidly growing outbound tourism markets, the concept of smart tourism has been mentioned increasingly over the past several years. However, this concept is still not well grounded in theory, which makes it difficult to comprehend and even more complicated to implement in practice. To better understand the concept and provide tangible mechanisms for implementing it, this paper addresses some of its key aspects and provides a theoretical framework and guidelines for the development of a general model of information system that would serve the development and management of a smart tourism destination.

YOLOv5 is one of the latest and often used versions of a very popular deep learning neural network used for various machine learning tasks, mainly in computer vision. The YOLO algorithm has steadily gained acceptance in the data science community due to its superior performance in complex and noisy data environments, availability, and ease of use in combination with widely used programming languages such as Python. This paper aims to compare different versions of the YOLOv5 model using an everyday image dataset and to provide researchers with precise suggestions for selecting the optimal model for a given problem type. The obtained results and the implemented YOLOv5 models are available for non-commercial use at: https://github.com/mhorvat/YOLOv5-models-comparison

This paper presents a study conducted within an international project to investigate the experiences of higher education (HE) teachers with the shift to digital teaching during the COVID-19 pandemic. The study was based on a survey conducted among HE teachers (n = 167) in autumn 2021 in four European countries: Spain, Portugal, Finland and Croatia. Analysis of Variance (ANOVA) was used to investigate the differences in responses with respect to the country and the study field, with more significant differences found among the countries than among the study fields. The results will contribute to a MOOC for teachers’ professional development.

After the first lockdown at universities in March and April 2020 due to the onset of the COVID- 19 pandemic numerous studies have been conducted to investigate the effects of the pandemic circumstances on teaching and learning at higher education institutions (HEIs), as well as on their students and teachers. This paper briefly outlines the results of international studies that were performed during the pandemic, as well as some findings from surveys performed at the national level in Croatia, and at the level of one HEI in Croatia. The main focus of this paper is on students’ satisfaction with online and hybrid instruction, their evaluation of various replacements for on-site (face to face) teaching, their preference for on-site, online and hybrid (partly onsite, partly online) teaching, the obstacles/barriers to online teaching, as well as on its advantages during the COVID-19 pandemic. An empirical pilot study was performed with students enrolled in two university courses (N=70) that investigated in more detail the effects of hybrid instruction on students’ satisfaction, preferences for online content delivery, flexibility in course attendance (on-site vs. online), and possible reasons for students’ inclination toward online teaching and learning. The main finding of the pilot study was that students’ preference for online delivery of instruction during the COVID-19 pandemic may have been predominantly grounded on practical and pragmatic reasons.

The constant need for harmonization and improvement of competencies in changing labour market conditions leads to an increased need for standard definition/description for particular occupation. An occupational standard is a document that outlines the competencies required for a specific job. It is generated using a well-defined methodology and data collection. This article describes the process of developing occupational standards in four areas: 1) management of information security and privacy systems, 2) distributed and interactive systems, 3) management of business system transformation and innovation, and 4) data technology and artificial intelligence.

In this work-in-progress article we present our initial attempt in building a streamed 3D holographic game engine. Game streaming technology provides the opportunity to use cloud-based resources like advanced graphic processors to play computer games on low-cost end-user devices. Holographic games are a relatively new technology which provides a new way of experiencing multimedia and games but are currently a high-cost. Herein we present a prototype game streaming engine we have built that allows us to stream holographic games to consoles based on Peppers’s Ghost pyramids which emulates a holographic display.

Digital transformation in higher education leads to new digital services for stakeholders, particularly students. The importance of service quality and quality assurance is particularly emphasised in the shift to the "digital-first" or "digitalonly" mode. In that context, the paper focuses on the multidimensionality of digital services in higher education and the subdimension of information quality based on the feedback from over 561 students in Croatia.