The use of computers for graduate education in Project Management. Improving the integration to the industry.

This paper presents an initiative for monitoring the competence acquisition by a team of students with different backgrounds facing the experience of being working by projects and in a project. These students are graduated bachelor engineering are inexperienced in the project management field and they play this course on a time-shared manner along with other activities. The goal of this experience is to increase the competence levels acquired by using an structured web based portfolio tool helping to reinforce how relevant different project management approaches can result for final products and how important it becomes to maintain the integration along the project. Monitoring is carried out by means of have a look on how the work is being done and measuring different technical parameters per participant. The use of this information could make possible to bring additional information to the students involved in terms of their individual competencies and the identification of new opportunities of personal improvement. These capabilities are strongly requested by companies in their daily work as well as they can be very convenient too for students when they try to organize their PhD work

Competence Monitoring in Project Teams by using Web based portfolio management systems

This paper reports a learning experience related to the acquisition of project management competences. Students from three different universities and backgrounds, cooperate in a common project that drives the learning-teaching process. Previous related works on this initiative have already evaluated the goodness of this multidisciplinary, project-based learning approach in the context of a new educative paradigm. Yet the innovative experience has allowed the authors to define a rubric in order to measure specific competences in project management. The study shows the rubric’s main aspects as well as competence acquisition evaluation alternatives, based in the metrics defined. Key indicators and specific reports obtained from data base fields in the web tool will support this work. As a result, new competences can be assessed, such ones like teamwork, problem solving, communication and leadership. Final goal is to provide an overall competence map to the students at the same time they improve their skills

Multi-sensor system using plastic optical fibers for intrinsically safe level measurements

A system for measuring liquid level in multiple tanks using optical fibe technology has been developed. Oil fiel service industry or any sector requiring liquid level measurements in flammabl atmospheres can be benefite from this intrinsically safe technology. The device used a single lens for the emitting and receiving fibe and it is based on amplitude variations as a function of the liquid distance and not in time of fligh or phase detection. Being the firs fiber-opti liquid level sensor with those characteristics for long ranges (>200 cm). A simple model to describe their behavior has been derived and tested on two prototypes. A Monte-Carlo method is used to fi the experimental data and obtain the model parameters. High accuracy between experimental data and fitte curve is obtained. The prototypes have a good linearity, better than 1.5% FS (full scale). Sensor heads are made of plastic optical fiber (POF) that are easy to handle, flexible and economical. They are excited by 650 nm lasers, housed in ST-connectors to obtain compact and rough prototypes. Optical multiplexing is used to increase the measuring safety area. Frequency division multiplexing is used to address each sensor head. A discussion about the influenc of tilts and aberrations is also included.Publicad

Project Management Learning in a Collaborative Distant Learning Context - An Actual On-going Experience

The goal of this paper is to show the results of an on-going experience on teaching project management to grade students by following a development scheme of management related competencies on an individual basis. In order to achieve that goal, the students are organized in teams that must solve a problem and manage the development of a feasible solution to satisfy the needs of a client. The innovative component advocated in this paper is the formal introduction of negotiating and virtual team management aspects, as different teams from different universities at different locations and comprising students with different backgrounds must collaborate and compete amongst them. The different learning aspects are identified and the improvement levels are reflected in a rubric that has been designed ad hoc for this experience. Finally, the effort frameworks for the student and instructor have been established according to the requirements of the Bologna paradigms. This experience is developed through a software-based support system allowing blended learning for the theoretical and individual?s work aspects, blogs, wikis, etc., as well as project management tools based on WWW that allow the monitoring of not only the expected deliverables and the achievement of the goals but also the progress made on learning as established in the defined rubri

La Psicología Colectiva de Maurice Halbwachs

El artículo a cuya lectura invita esta introducción puede ubicarse en el contexto de un conjunto de trabajos sobre la noción de Psicología colectiva que marcaron el trabajo de Maurice Halbwachs (1877-1945) desde sus primeros textos. No es, sin embargo, un texto sobre memoria. Ciertamente podemos encontrar el desarrollo más acabado de lo que implica una Psicología colectiva en los trabajos de Halbwachs sobre las relaciones entre memoria y sociedad. El mismo concepto de memoria colectiva queda perfectamente desarrollado en tres de sus principales obras: Los marcos sociales de la memoria (1925), recientemente traducida al castellano, la investigación sobre la memoria de los lugares evangélicos en Tierra Santa (La Topologie littéraire des Evangiles en Terre sainte, étude de mémoire collective (1941) y su obra póstuma La Memoria Colectiva (1950) de la cual se publicó una selección en el número 2 de esta misma revista

COOPERATION AND INTERNATIONALIZATION EXPERIENCE WITHIN HIGHER EDUCATION

Education has historically developed parallel to socio-technological changes; at present the innovations in information and communication technologies promote a new educational paradigm, where the search for higher education quality, pertinence and internationalization is remarkable On these lines, the creation of university networks of postgraduate studies, students and researchers mobility and the cooperation of Spanish American researchers who work outside the region constitute one of the goals which Ibero American countries aim at achieving during the next decade (OEI, 2010). Within this context, the aim of this paper is to describe an experience of cooperation and internationalization with teachers and postgraduate students mobility which took place in the Departamento de Economía de la Universidad Nacional del Sur (Department of Economics of National University of the South). This experience took place from 2008 to 2011 in the context of the Programa de Centros Asociados para el Fortaleciomiento de Posgrados, Proyecto CAFP (Program of Associate Centers for the Strengthening of Postgraduate Studies, CAFP Project) and the promoting institution was the Departamento de Desemvolvimento, Agricultura e Sociedade and Instituto de Ciencias Humanas e Sociais (CPDA) of the Universidades Federal Rural do Rio de Janeiro and the receiving institution, the Departamento de Economía of UNS (Department of Economics of the National University of the South). Thus, two postgraduate programs were linked: The Program of Pós Graduacáo de Ciencias Sociais em Desemvolvimento, Agricultura e Sociedades del CPDA and the Magister in Agrarian and Rural Management of UNS. Based on the weaknesses of the latter, the proposed objectives were, among others, improving the graduation rate, revising and updating the Course of Studies, widening the research lines and incorporating interdisciplinary approaches

TEACHERS AND STUDENTS’ MOBILITY: A CASE OF STUDY IN THE CONTEXT OF THE INTERNATIONALIZATION OF EDUCATION

Over the last years most countries have been immersed in a process of globalization that has given rise to a growing interdependence between societies as well as a strengthening of international relations both in the economic-financial and in the political and communicational levels.New societies are emerging where structural reforms associated to the process of deregulation and liberalization caused deep changes in work relations. These changes became apparent in the need for growing levels of education and training to gain access to a job and in the growth of importance of the service sector in the structure of production. In this context knowledge is one of the most efficient and dynamic productive inputs, laying the foundations of a new world economy based on information and knowledge, and thereby making education a vital component for the generation and transmission of education. Historically, education has evolved hand in hand with socio-technological changes. Nowadays, progress in information-technology and communication promote a new educational paradigm, whereby the search for quality, pertinence, and internationalization in higher education has a prominent place. The goal of this paper will be to present some indicators to analyze the evolution of the process of internationalization of education in the Department of Economics of the National University of the South (Universidad Nacional del Sur)

COOPERATION AND INTERNATIONALIZATION EXPERIENCE WITHIN HIGHER EDUCATION

Education has historically developed parallel to socio-technological changes; at present the innovations in information and communication technologies promote a new educational paradigm, where the search for higher education quality, pertinence and internationalization is remarkable On these lines, the creation of university networks of postgraduate studies, students and researchers mobility and the cooperation of Spanish American researchers who work outside the region constitute one of the goals which Ibero American countries aim at achieving during the next decade (OEI, 2010). Within this context, the aim of this paper is to describe an experience of cooperation and internationalization with teachers and postgraduate students mobility which took place in the Departamento de Economía de la Universidad Nacional del Sur (Department of Economics of National University of the South). This experience took place from 2008 to 2011 in the context of the Programa de Centros Asociados para el Fortaleciomiento de Posgrados, Proyecto CAFP (Program of Associate Centers for the Strengthening of Postgraduate Studies, CAFP Project) and the promoting institution was the Departamento de Desemvolvimento, Agricultura e Sociedade and Instituto de Ciencias Humanas e Sociais (CPDA) of the Universidades Federal Rural do Rio de Janeiro and the receiving institution, the Departamento de Economía of UNS (Department of Economics of the National University of the South). Thus, two postgraduate programs were linked: The Program of Pós Graduacáo de Ciencias Sociais em Desemvolvimento, Agricultura e Sociedades del CPDA and the Magister in Agrarian and Rural Management of UNS. Based on the weaknesses of the latter, the proposed objectives were, among others, improving the graduation rate, revising and updating the Course of Studies, widening the research lines and incorporating interdisciplinary approaches

Base de Datos de Investigación en Agricultura para el Desarrollo: Resultados preliminares

Comunicación presentada en el I Congreso Investigación en Agricultura para el Desarrollo, celebrado en Madrid el 17 y 18 de octubre de 2011.La investigación en agricultura para el desarrollo en España carece de un organismo o una estructura que coordine la información y la producción científica. El único informe previo donde se analizó la actividad en este ámbito fue el "Informe sobre la Cooperación Universitaria al Desarrollo en al Ámbito Agroalimentario - El caso español", realizado por las fundaciones Triptolemos y Cultura de Paz, correspondiente al año 2006-2007.Este trabajo está financiado por el proyecto AECID CAP10-0080 y la ayuda INIA AC2010-00037.Peer Reviewe