Toward a collective intelligence recommender system for education

The development of Information and Communication Technology (ICT), have revolutionized the world and have moved us into the information age, however the access and handling of this large amount of information is causing valuable time losses. Teachers in Higher Education especially use the Internet as a tool to consult materials and content for the development of the subjects. The internet has very broad services, and sometimes it is difficult for users to find the contents in an easy and fast way. This problem is increasing at the time, causing that students spend a lot of time in search information rather than in synthesis, analysis and construction of new knowledge. In this context, several questions have emerged: Is it possible to design learning activities that allow us to value the information search and to encourage collective participation?. What are the conditions that an ICT tool that supports a process of information search has to have to optimize the student's time and learning? This article presents the use and application of a Recommender System (RS) designed on paradigms of Collective Intelligence (CI). The RS designed encourages the collective learning and the authentic participation of the students. The research combines the literature study with the analysis of the ICT tools that have emerged in the field of the CI and RS. Also, Design-Based Research (DBR) was used to compile and summarize collective intelligence approaches and filtering techniques reported in the literature in Higher Education as well as to incrementally improving the tool. Several are the benefits that have been evidenced as a result of the exploratory study carried out. Among them the following stand out: • It improves student motivation, as it helps you discover new content of interest in an easy way. • It saves time in the search and classification of teaching material of interest. • It fosters specialized reading, inspires competence as a means of learning. • It gives the teacher the ability to generate reports of trends and behaviors of their students, real-time assessment of the quality of learning material. The authors consider that the use of ICT tools that combine the paradigms of the CI and RS presented in this work, are a tool that improves the construction of student knowledge and motivates their collective development in cyberspace, in addition, the model of Filltering Contents used supports the design of models and strategies of collective intelligence in Higher Education.Postprint (author's final draft

Measuring the collective intelligence education index

War games and sports games always seek glory and excellence in an environment where participants enjoy what they do. Success is guaranteed in the degree of effective collaboration and coordination within the team members, as well as the strategy used by teams, such games or war strategies are generated since the birth of humanity. In this sense, the following questions emerge in the field of education: Is it possible to design learning activities that use this principle applied to collaborative work in the classroom? Which are the conditions of application of team competition strategy using ICT tools and how to measure it? This research explores the application of a web tool called Choose the Best (CTB). CTB implements a strategy that fosters competitiveness among the teams of a class, as well as the coordination and collaboration within the same, these types of strategies contribute to the development of Collective Intelligence levels. It's measured through a group of implemented metrics. Based on the results, we consider that the use of new forms of teaching and learning based on the emerging paradigms is necessary. Therefore, CTB is a tool that could become an effective way to measuring the group's performance according to Collective Intelligence paradigms.Postprint (author's final draft

Review of lessons learned after five years of shallow water autonomous underwater vehicles (AUV) operations

The Unidad de Tecnología Marina (UTM) acquired in 2010, due to the wide scientific requirement to obtain high quality images of the seafloor, a couple of AUV´s for shallow waters applications with the aim to support marine research operations in coastal waters. The vehicles has been used as a routine science vehicle but also for technical development. During these years a valuable experience has been gained for future operation on either, coastal and open waters with new and more performant platforms.Peer Reviewe

Editorial: idioma, periodicitat i indicadors bibliomètr

This editorial examines the actions undertaken in number 5 and announces two important changes for the numbers 6 and 7, namely frequency and languages. Furthermore, the use of some bibliometric indicators, such as impact factor and refusal rate, is critically analyzedEn este editorial se realiza un análisis de la línea seguida en el volumen 5, y se plantean dos cambios importantes para el volumen 6 y 7: la periodicidad y los idiomas. Además se realiza un análisis crítico sobre el actual uso de algunos indicadores bibliométicos como por ejemplo el factor de impacto o la tasa de rechazoA aquest editorial analitzem la línia seguida al número 6, i plantegem dos canvis importants pels volums 6 i 7: la periodicitat i la inclusió de nous idiomes. A més, realitzem una anàlisi crítica sobre l’ús d’alguns indicadors bibliomètrics, com l’índex d’impacte o la taxa de rebuigPeer Reviewe

Robustness of airline alliance route networks

The aim of this study is to analyze the robustness of the three major airline alliances’ (i.e., Star Alliance, oneworld and SkyTeam) route networks. Firstly, the normalization of a multi-scale measure of vulnerability is proposed in order to perform the analysis in networks with different sizes, i.e., number of nodes. An alternative node selection criterion is also proposed in order to study robustness and vulnerability of such complex networks, based on network efficiency. And lastly, a new procedure – the inverted adaptive strategy – is presented to sort the nodes in order to anticipate network breakdown. Finally, the robustness of the three alliance networks are analyzed with (1) a normalized multi-scale measure of vulnerability, (2) an adaptive strategy based on four different criteria and (3) an inverted adaptive strategy based on the efficiency criterion. The results show that Star Alliance has the most resilient route network, followed by SkyTeam and then oneworld. It was also shown that the inverted adaptive strategy based on the efficiency criterion – inverted efficiency – shows a great success in quickly breaking networks similar to that found with betweenness criterion but with even better results.Peer ReviewedPostprint (author’s final draft

Intangible Capital: an opportunity for PhD students and junior researchers

El objetivo de esta editorial es exponer los hitos más importantes acontecidos durante el año 2008, en el que se publicó el volumen 4, los datos de visibilidad y por primera vez los resultados de una encuesta de satisfacción realizada a los autores que han enviado durante 2008 alguna publicación a evaluación. Además, en el anexo se expone la relación de revisores y miembros del Editorial Board que han hecho posible el cuarto volumen de Intangible Capital. También se informa sobre los aspectos que indican el principio de una consolidación de la revista, y la importancia de mantener los principios básicos que dieron origen a esta publicación. Concluimos la editorial animando a directores de tesis, estudiantes de doctorado y autores noveles a enviar sus primeros trabajos a evaluación.The aim of this editorial is to present the most important Intangible Capital milestones of 2008. During the last year, the intangible Capital published its 4th volume, together with information regarding the journal’s visibility and the first results of a satisfaction survey conducted among the authors, who submitted a paper for evaluation. In addition, the annex presents the list of reviewers and the Editorial Board members who have enabled the publication of the fourth volume of the Intangible Capital. This editorial also provides information regarding the aspects that indicate the beginning of the journal’s consolidation, and the importance of maintaining the basic principles that gave rise to this publication. The editorial concludes by encouraging PhD advisors, doctoral students and junior researchers the Intangible Capital a potential outlet for their work.Peer Reviewe

Fostering the reduction of assortative mixing or homophily into the class

Human societies from the outset have been associated according to race, beliefs, religion, social level, and the like. These behaviors continue even today in the classroom at primary, middle, and superior levels. However, the growth of ICT offers educational researchers new ways to explore methods of team formation that have been proven to be efficient in the field of serious games through the use of computer networks. The selection process of team members in serious games through the use of computer networks is carried out according to their performance in the area of the game without distinction of social variables. The use of serious games in education has been discussed in multiple research studies which state that its application in teaching and learning processes are changing the way of teaching. This article presents an exploratory analysis of the team formation process based on collaboration through the use of ICT tools of collective intelligence called TBT (The best team). The process and its ICT tool combine the paradigms of creativity in swarming, collective intelligence, serious games, and social computing in order to capture the participants’ emotions and evaluate contributions. Based on the results, we consider that the use of new forms of teaching and learning based on the emerging paradigms is necessary. Therefore, TBT is a tool that could become an effective way to encourage the formation of work groups by evaluating objective variable of performance of its members in collaborative works.Postprint (published version

Determination of chemical properties in ‘calçot’ (Allium cepa L.) by near infrared spectroscopy and multivariate calibration

‘Calçots’, the immature floral stems of second-year onion resprouts, are an economically important traditional crop in Catalonia (Spain). Classical approaches to evaluating the chemical properties of ‘calçots’ are time consuming and expensive; near-infrared spectroscopy (NIRS) may be faster and cheaper. We used NIRS to develop partial least square (PLS) models to predict dry matter, soluble solid content, titratable acidity, and ash content in cooked ‘calçots’. To guarantee the robustness of the models, calibration samples were grown and analyzed in a first season (2014–15) and validation samples in a second season (2015–16). NIRS on puree spectra estimated dry matter and soluble solid content with excellent accuracy (R2pred¿=¿0.953, 0.985 and RPD¿=¿4.571, 8.068, respectively). However, good estimation of titratable acidity and ash content required using ground dried puree spectra (R2pred¿=¿0.852, 0.820 and RPD¿=¿2.590, 1.987, respectively). NIRS can be a helpful tool for ‘calçots’ breeding and quality control.Peer ReviewedPostprint (author's final draft