Efficiency as a determinant of loyalty among users of a community of clinical practice: a comparative study between the implementation and consolidation phases

A community of clinical practice called the Online Communication Tool between Primary and Hospital Care (ECOPIH) was created to enable primary care and specialist care professionals to communicate with each other in order to resolve real clinical cases, thereby improving communication and coordination between care levels. The present work seeks to analyse whether ECOPIH makes it possible to reduce the number of referrals. To that end, the objectives are: (1) To find out the degree of loyalty among ECOPIH users, by comparing the medical professionals' profiles in the tool's implementation phase to those in its consolidation phase. (2) To evaluate the degree of fulfilment of users' expectations, by establishing the determining factors that had an influence on the physicians' intention to use ECOPIH in the implementation phase and observing whether its use had an effective, direct impact on the number of patient referrals that primary care physicians made to specialist care professionals. Two studies were conducted. Based on a survey of all the physicians in a Primary Care area, Study 1 was a descriptive study in ECOPIH's implementation phase. Study 2 was a randomised intervention study of ECOPIH users in the tool's consolidation phase. The results from both studies were compared. Various bivariate and multivariate statistical techniques (exploratory factor analysis, cluster analysis, logistic regression analysis and ANOVA) were used in both studies, which were conducted on a sample of 111 and 178 physicians, respectively. We confirmed the existence of an ECOPIH user profile stable across both phases: under-50-year-old women. Regarding the second objective, there were two particular findings. First, the discriminant factors that had an influence on greater ECOPIH use were habitual Social media website and app use and Perceived usefulness for reducing costs. Second, PC professionals who were ECOPIH members made fewer referrals to SC professionals in Cardiology, Endocrinology and Gastroenterology than older PC professionals who were not ECOPIH members. The use of a community of clinical practice by primary care and specialist care professionals helps to reduce the number of referrals among medical professionals

Crossing the death valley to transfer environmental decision support systems to the water market

Environmental decision support systems (EDSSs) are attractive tools to cope with the complexity of environmental global challenges. Several thoughtful reviews have analyzed EDSSs to identify the key challenges and best practices for their development. One of the major criticisms is that a wide and generalized use of deployed EDSSs has not been observed. The paper briefly describes and compares four case studies of EDSSs applied to the water domain, where the key aspects involved in the initial conception and the use and transfer evolution that determine the final success or failure of these tools (i.e., market uptake) are identified. Those aspects that contribute to bridging the gap between the EDSS science and the EDSS market are highlighted in the manuscript. Experience suggests that the construction of a successful EDSS should focus significant efforts on crossing the death-valley toward a general use implementation by society (the market) rather than on development.The authors would like to thank the Catalan Water Agency (Agència Catalana de l’Aigua), Besòs River Basin Regional Administration (Consorci per la Defensa de la Conca del Riu Besòs), SISLtech, and Spanish Ministry of Science and Innovation for providing funding (CTM2012-38314-C02-01 and CTM2015-66892-R). LEQUIA, KEMLG, and ICRA were recognized as consolidated research groups by the Catalan Government under the codes 2014-SGR-1168, 2013-SGR-1304 and 2014-SGR-291.Peer ReviewedPostprint (published version

Metadata for describing learning scenarios under European Higher Education Area paradigm

In this paper we identify the requirements for creating formal descriptions of learning scenarios designed under the European Higher Education Area paradigm, using competences and learning activities as the basic pieces of the learning process, instead of contents and learning resources, pursuing personalization. Classical arrangements of content based courses are no longer enough to describe all the richness of this new learning process, where user profiles, competences and complex hierarchical itineraries need to be properly combined. We study the intersection with the current IMS Learning Design specification and the additional metadata required for describing such learning scenarios. This new approach involves the use of case based learning and collaborative learning in order to acquire and develop competences, following adaptive learning paths in two structured levels

A review on massive e-learning (MOOC) design, delivery and assessment

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.Peer ReviewedPostprint (author's final draft

The Open University Library in your pocket

The Open University library is working to support mobile learners through provision of mobile access to information management skills tutorials, the library website, and the library helpdesk. In 2007, we joined hands with the Athabasca University library team to develop the first mobile-friendly version of our library website. Since then, we have been actively researching and developing around other mobile library services, and more recently have consulted users to identify their requirements and what services they–d prefer to access through mobile phones. Recommendations from this user consultation (and from other sources, including regular users' feedback and by tracking user behavior through Google Analytics) include revamping the mobile version of the Library website to offer only the most used services on the home page, implementing SMS (Short Messaging Service) such as loan reminders or library reference service, and developing a consolidated search to offer results from various sources including the library catalogue and e-journals collection

A game based approach to improve traders' decision-making

Purpose: The development of a game based approach to improving the decision-making capabilities of financial traders through attention to improving the regulation of emotions during trading. Design/methodology/approach: The project used a design-based research approach to integrate the contributions of a highly inter-disciplinary team. The approach was underpinned by considerable stakeholder engagement to understand the ‘ecology of practices’ in which this learning approach should be embedded. Findings: Taken together, our 35 laboratory, field and evaluation studies provide much support for the validity of our game based learning approach, the learning elements which make it up, and the value of designing game-based learning to fit within an ecology of existing practices. Originality/value: The novelty of the work described in the paper comes from the focus in this research project of combining knowledge and skills from multiple disciplines informed by a deep understanding of the context of application to achieve the successful development of a Learning Pathway, which addresses the transfer of learning to the practice environment Key words: Design-based research, emotion-regulation, disposition–effect, financial traders, serious games, sensor-based game

Using bi-clustering algorithm for analyzing online users activity in a virtual campus

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.Peer ReviewedPostprint (published version

Beach users’ perceptions of coastal regeneration projects as an adaptation strategy in the western Mediterranean

Some coastal environments facing climate change risks are starting to be managed with nature-based solutions (NBS). Strategies based on the rehabilitation of green infrastructures in coastal municipalities, such as renaturalization of seafronts, are considered adaptive to the effects of climate change but may cause misconceptions that could lead to social conflicts between the tourist sector and the society. A survey was carried out to study user perceptions on the effects of climate change, preferences for adaptation strategies, and the assessment of projects of dune reconstruction. We find that while beach users recognize the benefits of NBS for environmental conservation and storm protection, they show little concern about possible effects of climate change on recreational activity and have limited understanding about the protective capacity of NBS. Thus, a greater effort must be made to better explain the effects of climate change and the potential benefits of NBS in coastal risk management.Peer ReviewedPostprint (author's final draft

Introducing semi-open learning/teaching into fundamental programming subjects

Due to the development of Internet applications, semi-open learning is increasingly being introduced into traditional face-to-face learning and teaching. In several engineering degrees many subjects are developed using a project based learning paradigm and therefore the introduction of semi-open elements seems quite natural for these subjects; it is not the case, however, of the fundamental programming subjects which are still developed using a traditional blackboard approach and have a clear lack of experience in introducing both project-based learning and semi-open learning and teaching approach. In this work we bring the two year experience gained during the innovative teaching project “Semi-open learning through sharing of information and knowledge in a virtual environment”1 at the Industrial School of Terrassa, Polytechnic University of Catalonia. The aim of the project was to develop and evaluate a methodology that would allow the introduction of semi-open learning into fundamental programming subjects using web applications. We will show here the main aspects of such methodology as well as issues we were faced to during its implementation and evaluation in a real learning/teaching environment. Our approach was implemented using the Basic Support for Collaborative Work (BSCW) though it is independent of the web application used. An additional feature of the BSCW system we have explored is the log file information on students’ actions kept by the BSCW server. We use an ad hoc software that processes the log files and stores the information in a database, which can be then used for statistical analysis. The information resulting from log files analysis is a very helpful tool for the teachers to monitor the students’ activity during the course development and intervene whenever necessary, for instance, to detect low activity students and avoid students’ abandonment. We will discuss the benefits of our approach in improving the overall learning outcome of the students and also its drawbacks especially as regards the additional amount of work it could imply for the teachers.Peer ReviewedPostprint (published version