An Ecosystem Called University

This book is dedicated to the university as a protagonist of change. Its purpose is to see the university as a place where the lines between organization and system are fluid, where the whole is more than the sum of its parts, and the product is knowledge as an end, a means and a way of developing the individual (critical sense) and its interaction with the environment (instrumental reason). The book seeks throughout to foster the image of the Ecosystem University as being a producer of novelty, where the only certainty is uncertainty. The university undergoes a process of permanent spiral growth - the spiral of knowledge without any control of causality - and creating, through its environment, responsible citizens, and free-thinking persons. The Ecosystem University is undeTTast that is assumed in the present. Our work to rediscover the natural feel of an ecosystem embedded in the university and the rich experience of community will take us by the hand and lead us, proud professors, to the purest origin of human knowledge with a flair of joie de vivre: the refreshing purity of the new and the authentic value of ingenuity that will allow us to be ourselves in that very moment: a community that self-organizes, builds projects of life and culture, and determines its own destiny

Global Game Jam in Latin-America, a Collaborative Videogame Learning Experience

Los eventos de producción de videojuegos, en particular el Global Game Jam (GGJ), es una actividad por excelencia dirigida al desarrollo de los juegos más grandes del mundo, mejorando la forma de expresión personal, el pensamiento crítico y la apropiación de nuevos medios a través del trabajo en colaboración. El objetivo general es explorar el proceso de desarrollo en el contexto del GGJ, calculando la correlación entre el nivel de educación y la fuente de inspiración, la correlación entre el nivel de educación y el propósito del juego que se diseñará en el Global Game Jam y la correlación entre el nivel de educación y las habilidades. La principal fuente de inspiración se define por el género del juego, la mecánica del juego u otro videojuego, además el propósito del juego se debe principalmente al aprendizaje de una habilidad técnica, disfrutar haciéndolo, y generar satisfacción en los jugadores. Por último, las habilidades que prevalecen son el diseño en 2D, la programación y el diseño en 3D. Las personas con un alto nivel de conocimiento tienen la misma pasión que aquellos que acaban de empezar en el campo multidisciplinario del desarrollo de videojuegos motivados por la creación de un juego original que tiene un buen guion y les proporciona una experiencia de vida.Videogame production events, particularly the Global Game Jam (GGJ), is an activity par excellence aimed at the development of the world’s largest games, enhancing the form of personal expression, critical thinking, and appropriation of new media through collaborative work. The general objective is to explore the development process within the context of the GGJ, calculating the correlation between level of education and source of inspiration, the correlation between level of education and purpose of the game to be designed in the Global Game Jam and the correlation between level of education and skills. The main source of inspiration is defined by game genre, game mechanics, or other video game, in addition the purpose of the game is mainly due to learning a technical skill, enjoy doing it, and generate satisfaction in the players. Finally, the skills that prevail are 2D Design, Programming, and 3D Design. People with a high level of knowledge have the same passion as those who have just started in the multidisciplinary field of the development of video games motivated by creating an original game that has a good script and provides them a life experience

Management of Entrepreneurship Projects from Project‐Based Learning: Coworking StartUPS Project at Universidad Politécnica Salesiana (Salesian Polytechnic University), Ecuador

In the engineering education field, there is an identified need of innovative learning and teaching methods to improve students’ entrepreneurship competencies in order to make connections between engineering and real society. This chapter addresses a management strategy for entrepreneurship projects in the university framework. It is the result of a cooperative experience from the Research Groups of Salesian Polytechnic University (UPS), the Technical University of Madrid (UPM), and the collaboration of other external entities. The management strategy is applied to undergraduate and postgraduate programs at UPS and has been called Coworking StartUPS Project. The research method is made up of different teaching methodologies—project‐based learning, coworking, case studies—and different activities in and out of the university. The data were collected from students who were enrolled in the Coworking StartUPS Project, along with students and researchers from the three University Branch Campuses in the cities of Cuenca, Quito, and Guayaquil. The Coworking StartUPS Project links teaching & research activities with entrepreneurship are founded in cooperation and interaction, offering multiple possibilities for entrepreneurial skills development in the international context. This preprofessional experience promotes students to integrate the knowledge they have learnt and apply the new knowledge in an entrepreneurship project

The University-Commune

In this new book we return to the challenge of deepening the task to the point of imagining the university formed by commoner university students. It is a turn, a new place from which to name and reconsider community management and action from a sense of co-responsibility for the commons that we must guarantee so that the common project prevails and achieves long-term self-sustainability.This is what the seven articles in this book are about, which calls into question what it means for the university to be and act according to economic principles and logics (giving, receiving, undertaking), social (distribution of roles and benefits) and policies (agreements, consensus, participation and assignment of responsibilities) of the commune. The institutional dimension is important but the vitality, the sense of belonging and the profound strength of the Salesian university project depend much more on the commons logic. Feeling of the commons is not a possibility among many others. We are convinced that, in order to take on this project, it is necessary to transcend institutional, business logic and state regulations. Therefore, the university-commune is the way and, perhaps, the only one possible. University and Common Goods Research Group Universidad Politécnica Salesian

THE UNIVERSITY AS A COMMON POOL RESOURCE: a set of resources, moral and cultural values from the Academic Community of Universidad Politécnica Salesiana

This book contains information from Universidad Politecnica Salesiana’s Commons Research Group, created in 2016 to deepen as well as identify the implication and the possibilities of imagining the university as a “common pool resource” . This alternative must be explained because the connection of the use of commons – as explained by Elinor Ostrom in her book Governing the Commons. The evolution of institutions for Collective Action (2011) – with the possibility of reconsidering the university in all areas is not immediate nor casual and, at first, such connection seems odd in a time when we value belonging based on evidence accessible at first sight. In fact, what does a proposal which analyzes community and local government decision making methods regarding common resources have to do with university life? The aim of this preface is to answer this question and explain the connection that encourages and gives meaning to several contributions of this book. Each contribution deepens its derivations in the field of management, decision making and knowledge production

The University As Commune: the centrality of community action in the management model and practices of Universities

In this new book we return to the challenge of deepening the task to the point of imagining the university formed by commoner university students. It is a turn, a new place from which to name and reconsider community management and action from a sense of co-responsability for the commons that we must guarantee so that the common project prevails and achieves long-term self-sustainability. This is what the seven articles in this book are about, which calls into question what ir means for the university to be and act according to economic principles and logics (giving, receiving, undertaking), social (distribution of roles and benefits) and policies (agreements, consensus, participation and assignment of responsibilities) of the commune. The institutional dimension is important but the vitality, the sense of belonging and the profound strength of the Salesian university project depend much more on the commons logic. We are convinced that, in order to take on this project, it is necessary to transcend institutional, business logic and state regulations. Therefore, the university-commune is the way and, perhaps, the only one possibl

LA UNIVERSIDAD: UN BIEN DE USO COMÚN. Conjunto de recursos, valores morales y culturales de la Comunidad Académica de la Universidad Politécnica Salesiana

El colectivo de autores, docentes y autoridades de la Universidad Politécnica Salesiana del Ecuador, se ha propuesto repensar la universidad —especialmente la universidad católica— como un bien de uso común a la luz de los aportes del premio Nobel de Economía (2009) Elinor Ostrom, quien analiza el gobierno de los bienes comunes en las instituciones de acción colectiva. A partir de imaginar la Universidad Politécnica Salesiana como un Recurso de Uso Común (RUC), y pensar su trayectoria de desarrollo y educación intercultural en las comunidades andinas y amazónicas, cada uno de los artículos profundiza las derivaciones en el ámbito de la identidad institucional, gestión, toma de decisiones y la producción de conocimiento. El libro enriquece la visión institucional de Ostrom y alimenta la noción de la universidad en tanto comunidad académica que genera pertenencias y territorialidades, de diverso tipo así como formas de gestión y organización derivadas de un sentido previo que obliga a reconsiderar la autonomía universitaria y los mecanismos de toma de decisiones

LA UNIVERSIDAD-COMUNA: centralidad de la acción comunitaria en la gestión y prácticas universitarias

En este nuevo libro retomamos el desafío de profundizar la tarea hasta el punto de imaginar la universidad conformada por universitarios comuneros. Se trata de un giro, de un nuevo lugar desde el cual nombrar y reconsiderar la gestión y la acción comunitaria desde un sentido de corresponsabilidad por los bienes comunes que nos debemos garantizar para que el proyecto común prevalezca y logre auto sostenibilidad a muy largo plazo. De esto tratan los siete artículos de este libro que ponen sobre la mesa qué implica para la universidad ser y actuar según los principios y las lógicas económicas (dar, recibir, emprender), sociales (distribución de roles y beneficios) y políticas (acuerdos, consensos, participación y asignación de responsabilidades) propias de la comuna. La dimensión institucional es importante pero la vitalidad, el sentido de pertenencia y la fuerza profunda del proyecto universitario salesiano dependen en mucha mayor medida de la lógica comunal. Sentirnos comuneros no es una posibilidad entre otras. Estamos convencidos de que, para asumir este proyecto, es necesario trascender las lógicas institucionales, empresariales y las normativas estatales. Por lo tanto, la universidad-comuna es el camino y, quizás, el único posible

Ground/space, passive/active remote sensing observations coupled with particle dispersion modelling to understand the inter-continental transport of wildfire smoke plumes

During the 2017 record-breaking burning season in Canada/United States, intense wild fires raged during the first week of September in the Pacific northwestern region (British Columbia, Alberta, Washington, Oregon, Idaho, Montana and northern California) burning mostly temperate coniferous forests. The heavy loads of smoke particles emitted in the atmosphere reached the Iberian Peninsula (IP) a few days later on 7 and 8 September. Satellite imagery allows to identify two main smoke clouds emitted during two different periods that were injected and transported in the atmosphere at several altitude levels. Columnar properties on 7 and 8 September at two Aerosol Robotic Network (AERONET) mid-altitude, background sites in northern and southern Spain are: aerosol optical depth (AOD) at 440 nm up to 0.62, Ångström exponent of 1.6–1.7, large dominance of small particles (fine mode fraction >0.88), low absorption AOD at 440 nm (0.98). Profiles from the Cloud-Aerosol Lidar with Orthogonal Polarization (CALIOP) show the presence of smoke particles in the stratosphere during the transport, whereas the smoke is only observed in the troposphere at its arrival over the IP. Portuguese and Spanish ground lidar stations from the European Aerosol Research Lidar Network/Aerosols, Clouds, and Trace gases Research InfraStructure Network (EARLINET/ACTRIS) and the Micro-Pulse Lidar NETwork (MPLNET) reveal smoke plumes with different properties: particle depolarization ratio and color ratio, respectively, of 0.05 and 2.5 in the mid troposphere (5–9 km) and of 0.10 and 3.0 in the upper troposphere (10–13 km). In the mid troposphere the particle depolarization ratio does not seem time-dependent during the transport whereas the color ratio seems to increase (larger particles sediment first). To analyze the horizontal and vertical transport of the smoke from its origin to the IP, particle dispersion modelling is performed with the Hybrid Single Particle Lagrangian Integrated Trajectory Model (HYSPLIT) parameterized with satellite-derived biomass burning emission estimates from the Global Fire Assimilation System (GFAS) of the Copernicus Atmosphere Monitoring Service (CAMS). Three compounds are simulated: carbon monoxide, black carbon and organic carbon. The results show that the first smoke plume which travels slowly reaches rapidly (~1 day) the upper troposphere and lower stratosphere (UTLS) but also shows evidence of large scale horizontal dispersion, while the second plume, entrained by strong subtropical jets, reaches the upper troposphere much slower (~2.5 days). Observations and dispersion modelling all together suggest that particle depolarization properties are enhanced during their vertical transport from the mid to the upper troposphere.Spanish groups acknowledge the Spanish Ministry of Economy and Competitivity (MINECO) (ref. CGL2013-45410-R, CGL2014-52877-R, CGL2014-55230-R, TEC2015-63832-P, CGL2015-73250-JIN, CGL2016-81092-R and CGL2017-85344-R)European Union through H2020 programme ACTRIS-2, grant 654109European Union through H2020 programme EUNADICS-AV, grant 723986European Union through H2020 programme GRASP-ACE, grant 77834

Bienestar y buen vivir: un aporte para la felicidad del ser humano

La sensible preocupación que ha tenido la humanidad entera luego de la pandemia de la Covid-19, ha alcanzado los aspectos más susceptibles de la convivencia de la sociedad. En este contexto, la Universidad Politécnica Salesiana, por iniciativa del Grupo de Investigación en Comunicación, Educación y Ambiente (GICEA), de la Carrera de Comunicación, se ha hecho eco de los diferentes aspectos que circundan lo que ha denominado “nueva normalidad”, abordando vivencias y referentes que tienen que ver con el acceso a la educación, la salud, al trabajo, etc. Sin embargo, los autores de esta publicación, Bienestar y buen vivir: un aporte para la felicidad del ser humano reúnen textos diversos con la intención de descubrir el bienestar en el servicio de los demás… o entender la felicidad como camino de decisión personal —íntima diría yo— y familiar, que sin duda trae grandes satisfacciones; sobre todo, cuando entregamos algo a los demás, especialmente si lo hacemos como una práctica desde el corazón. Además, esta publicación es una segunda parte del libro publicado por el mismo Grupo de Investigación en Comunicación, Educación y Ambiente (GICEA), de la Carrera de Comunicación, intitulado Pandemia desde la academia: experiencias transdisciplinarias de la universidad cuencana en tiempos de COVID-19, que salió a la luz en 2021, momento en que la pandemia arreciaba en contra de la humanidad. Luis Álvarez Roda