UniMOOC: colaborative work, innovating in education

Desde que en 2007-2008 se pusiera en práctica por vez primera la metodología MOOC (Cursos Abierto Online y Masivo), el proceso de innovación educativa se ha acelerado gracias a iniciativas tan potentes como Udacity, Coursera o MITx. Su impacto potencial en el mundo universitario y de la enseñanza en general han llevado a replantear el futuro de la educación a gran escala. El éxito de los MOOCs ha sido exponencial, desde los 50 matriculados en el curso de David Wiley sobre Educación Abierta (año 2007) hasta los más de 2.5 millones de inscritos en Coursera en 2012. Hasta este punto, se ha vivido un proceso de reafirmación y apuesta por el modelo tanto por parte de la sociedad como de las instituciones educativas de mayor prestigio en el mundo. A pesar de encontrarnos aun en un marco metodológico claramente experimental, ya nadie puede negar el éxito cosechado por los MOOCs y el previsible futuro que parece aguardarles. En este documento se presenta el caso UniMOOC como el primer MOOC para emprendedores en español, un proyecto que comienza a definirse en la primavera de 2012, y que cuenta con una proyección orientada a alcanzar los 60.000 alumnos en su primera edición.In 2007-2008 appeared for the very first time the MOOC phenomenon (Massive Open Online Course). Since then educational innovation process has accelerated due to initiatives like Udacity, Coursera or MITx. The potential impact of MOOCs in every educational grade has forced to rethink the future of universities and schools. The success of MOOCs has been exponential: the 2007 David Wiley's Open Education MOOC involved 50 students; in 2012 were more than 2.5 millions of courserians inscribed in at least one of the thousands MOOCs offered in Coursera. To gain the current success it has been necessary the society recognition and the support from the main educational institutions of the world. Nowadays the educational community is still in the first stage of the MOOC methodology, but what it has achieved in a few years aim to a favourable future. In this paper we present UniMOOC Project, like the first Spanish MOOC for entrepreneurships. This Project started to define in Spring of 2012, and it is projected to reach more than 60.000 users in its first edition

Livestock Corridors Working as Pollinator Refuges and Dispersal Hotspots: Lessons from Spain

Habitat fragmentation is one of the greatest threats to biodiversity conservation and ecosystem productivity mediated by direct human impact. Its consequences include genetic depauperation, comprising phenomena such as inbreeding depression or reduction in genetic diversity. While the capacity of wild and domestic herbivores to sustain long-distance seed dispersal has been proven, the impact of herbivore corridors in plant population genetics has not been observed previously. We conducted this study in the Conquense Drove Road in Spain, where sustained use by livestock over centuries has involved transhumant herds passing twice a year en route to winter and summer pastures. We compared genetic diversity and inbreeding coefficients of Plantago lagopus populations along the drove road with populations in the surrounding agricultural matrix, at varying distances from human settlements. We observed significant differences in coefficients of inbreeding between the drove road and the agricultural matrix, as well as significant trends indicative of higher genetic diversity around human settlements. Trends for higher genetic diversity along drove roads may be present, although they were only marginally significant due to the available sample size. Our results illustrate a functional landscape with human settlements as dispersal hotspots, while the findings along the drove road confirm its role as a pollinator reservoir observed in other studies. Drove roads seem also to function as linear structures that facilitate long-distance dispersal across the agricultural matrix, while local P. lagopus populations depend rather on short-distance seed dispersal. These results highlight the role of herbivore corridors for conserving the migration capacity of plants and contribute towards understanding the role of seed dispersal and the spread of invasive species related to human activities. The coupling of traditional pastoralist practices with the phenology of plants and pollinators raises concerns on the environmental effects of current global land use change. This paper is based on García-Fernández et al. (2019)

Co-creation Processes Contributing to the Societal Impact of Science: Contributions from the Net4Impact Network

La participación ciudadana a lo largo del desarrollo de los proyectos de investigación ha demostrado aumentar el impacto social de la ciencia. Los procesos de cocreación promueven un impacto social más significativo al alinear la investigación con las necesidades sociales. En los últimos años se han identificado importantes avances en materia de participación ciudadana en la ciencia. Sin embargo, todavía existen importantes retos que limitan la interacción de la ciudadanía con las creaciones científicas. Este artículo recoge algunas de las aportaciones de la red Net4Impact frente a estos retos. Concretamente, analizamos los procesos de cocreación desarrollados por proyectos que han demostrado impacto social. Este estudio cualitativo se basa en el análisis de Webinars, reuniones con investigadores de diferentes áreas científicas y en el Análisis de Contenido Comunicativo. Como resultado, este trabajo ofrece seis ejemplos de impacto social en tres áreas científicas: ciencias sociales, humanidades e ingeniería. Además, se analizan las características e implicaciones de los distintos procesos de cocreación desarrollados por estos proyectos exitosos

ORGANIZACIÓN FENOLÓGICA DE PASTIZALES MEDITERRÁNEOS EN DIFERENTES AMBIENTES ESTUDIADA MEDIANTE PARÁMETROS DE DIVERSIDAD

The phenology of Mediterranean pastures was studied along an altitudinal gradient in relation to geomorphology and consumption of plants by large and medium-size herbivores. Diversity parameters were used to analyze the percentage of species in four phenological states (vegetative growth, flowering, fmiting and decay or dormancy) throughout an annual cycle. The distribution of phenological states in time varied from the most heterogeneous situations in low altitude pastures -in which different phenological states predominated at different times-. to more uniform situations at higher altitudes with a predominante of vegetative growth. The altitudinal rise was also accompanied by a shortening and delay in the reproductive phenophases. These trends also appeared when comparing upper and lower slope zones or unfenced and fenced plots. Phenological organization seemed to be related to the proportion of perennial and annual species as well as species richness.Se ha estudiado la fenología de pastizales mediterráneos en relación a la altitud, geomorfología y consumo del ganado. Algunos parámetros de diversidad fueron utilizados para analizar el porcentaje de especies en 4 estados fenológicos (crecimiento vegetativo, floración, fructificación y decaimiento) durante un ciclo anual. La distribución temporal de estados fenológicos varía desde situaciones más heterogéneas propias de los pastizales de poca altitud - e n los cuales varios estados fenológicos predominaron en diferentes tiempos-, a las situaciones-más uniformes de las posiciones altitudinales más elevadas, en las que predominó el éstado de crecimiento vegetativo. El aumento de altitud fue acompañado de un retraso y acortamiento de las fenofases reproductivas. Estas tendencias también aparecieron cuando se compararon zonas altas y bajas de ladera o parcelas pastoreadas y no pastoreadas. La organización fenológica parece estar relacionada con la proporción de especies perennes y anuales, asi como con la riqueza específica

Storage Infrastructure at the INFN LHC Tier-1

In this paper we will describe the Storage Infrastructure of the INFN-CNAF Tier-1, used to store data of High Energy Physics experiments, in particular those operating at the Large Hadron Collider

Indexes of publications in the non-periodical collection of scientific works of the Didactics Department of the Institute of Pedagogy of NAES of Ukraine «Didactics: Theory and Practice» (2012–2014)

Видання містить алфавітні покажчики публікацій у неперіодичному збірнику наукових праць «Дидактика: теорія і практика» (науково-дослідна робота «Фундаменталізація змісту освіти у старшій школі в умовах профільного навчання»; УДК 373.5 – 044.85; № держреєстрації 0112U000336; наук. кер. Г. О. Васьківська) за роками, за прізвищами авторів, за назвами публікацій. Для науковців, педагогічних працівників, студентів вищих закладів освіти, працівників різних категорій у галузі освіти.The book contains alphabetical indexes of publications in the non-periodical collection of scientific works «Didactics: Theory and Practice» (research work «Fundamentalization of education content in the high school under profile education»; UDC 373.5 - 044.85; state registration number 0112U000336; edit. H. O. Vaskivska) by years, by authors' names, by titles of publications. Alphabetical indexes of publications are addressed to scientists, pedagogical workers, university students, employees of various categories in the field of education

TRY plant trait database - enhanced coverage and open access

Plant traits-the morphological, anatomical, physiological, biochemical and phenological characteristics of plants-determine how plants respond to environmental factors, affect other trophic levels, and influence ecosystem properties and their benefits and detriments to people. Plant trait data thus represent the basis for a vast area of research spanning from evolutionary biology, community and functional ecology, to biodiversity conservation, ecosystem and landscape management, restoration, biogeography and earth system modelling. Since its foundation in 2007, the TRY database of plant traits has grown continuously. It now provides unprecedented data coverage under an open access data policy and is the main plant trait database used by the research community worldwide. Increasingly, the TRY database also supports new frontiers of trait-based plant research, including the identification of data gaps and the subsequent mobilization or measurement of new data. To support this development, in this article we evaluate the extent of the trait data compiled in TRY and analyse emerging patterns of data coverage and representativeness. Best species coverage is achieved for categorical traits-almost complete coverage for 'plant growth form'. However, most traits relevant for ecology and vegetation modelling are characterized by continuous intraspecific variation and trait-environmental relationships. These traits have to be measured on individual plants in their respective environment. Despite unprecedented data coverage, we observe a humbling lack of completeness and representativeness of these continuous traits in many aspects. We, therefore, conclude that reducing data gaps and biases in the TRY database remains a key challenge and requires a coordinated approach to data mobilization and trait measurements. This can only be achieved in collaboration with other initiatives

Time to focus on outcome assessment tools for childhood vasculitis

Childhood systemic vasculitides are a group of rare diseases with multi-organ involvement and potentially devastating consequences. After establishment of new classification criteria (Ankara consensus conference in 2008), it is now time to establish measures for proper definition of activity and damage in childhood primary vasculitis. By comparison to adult vasculitis, there is no consensus for indices of activity and damage assessment in childhood vasculitis. Assessment of disease activity is likely to become a major area of interest in pediatric rheumatology in the near future. After defining the classification criteria for primary systemic childhood vasculitis, the next step was to perform a validation study using the original Birmingham vasculitis activity score as well as the disease extent index to measure disease activity in childhood vasculitis. Presently, there are efforts in place to develop a pediatric vasculitis activity score. This paper reviews the current understanding about the assessment tools (i.e., clinical features, laboratory tests, radiologic assessments, etc.) widely used for evaluation of the disease activity and damage status of the children with vasculitis