3.4.7.1. E-Learning
Tools Integration (Technology)
As touched upon in the section on UOC’s IT history and approach, the university has a lean model of technology development and planning. The identification and exploration of software tools that might be beneficial to the learning practice of the students has been institutionalized in the Educational Technology Department. Once a technological opportunity has been assessed positively, it is next implemented in a test environment where further evaluation and testing is underway. Innovations tested in this way undergo a fomenting process until a certain positive threshold is reached, a suitable ‘live’ test can be arranged and the political climate is assessed to be adequately suitable. New technology like wikis and blogs are then deployed in some courses- on a voluntary basis at the professor’s discretion.

Special mention has to be made of UOC’s own e-learning developments. Despite its general approach of utilizing available technology whenever possible, UOC has a long tradition – starting with the campus itself - in developing innovative software to solve problems where no standard solutions have yet been developed. One example of such a tool is the MyWay [i] application which allows the transformation of content into different formats. MyWay uses the XML formats feature of separating and structuring content and presenting information in order to enable the same textual content to be favourably displayed: on paper, on a website, accessed through web-interfaces for the impaired, having the content recorded to be played on a DVD-player, or transformed into an audio-book.

Current Practices (Use Cases)
The following paragraphs outline the organization of the e-learning platform imparted by the UOC. Each field of study is managed by a director who reports to the governance council and participates in the strategic committee. All careers within one field are managed by a program director who is the overall manager of the educational conduct within the line of study. The actual e-learning, is delivered through a highly distributed collaboration of subject specialists. The e-learning material is developed by the course author, whose work is then put into a multi-media format and home study packages (consisting of text-book-style reading material and sometimes books and CD with video or software) by one of UOC’s sister companies. Once the course is produced, one of UOC’s teaching staff is made responsible for the academic supervision. He/she takes care of managing the course tutors, who are the ones who actually lead the courses and deal with students, etc. Additionally, each student has an assigned counsellor, who consults and advises on whatever questions the student might have. Last but not least, there are support functions implemented by the technical program manager. This individual ensures correct compliance within the administrative/bureaucratic flow of the activities being implemented by the students and professors.

UOC’s pedagogy has been developing since the first years of operation and is now constantly being refined through the application of insights from UOC’s own research into, and reflections upon, its own practices. UOC’s initial e-learning approach has been laid out extensively by a volume developed by UOC stakeholders and edited by Sangrà i Morer & Duart Montoliu (2001). The approach and tools developed in the first years have proven to be effective, and they have therefore been only partially amended over the last years [ii]. Up till now, UOC’s pedagogy has been purposefully, and exclusively asynchronous (Ferrate Pascual, Alsina, & Pedro, 1997). Basically, each course has at its core, a virtual classroom with a calendar, a forum, and a digital learning resource library, and printed textbook style material. The students engage in text-book work and, if adequate, complete the exercises and send them to their teacher via the virtual campus. The second important element, which makes the online medium superior to traditional print or video based distance education, is that the learning community engages in debate and poses questions dynamically, which are then answered by the teacher or peers. Depending on the type of course, an assessment and final examination is either based on participation and the online delivery of learning products (such as conducted exercises, or free homework papers) or conducted at a final physical examination location.

3.4.7.2. E-Research
Tools Integration (Technology)
On an institutional level UOC’s is primarily utilizing four e-research instruments. The hub for presenting UOC’s investigation efforts is the website of the IN3 research centre. Here, information about the research groups, publications and the flagship Proyect Internet Catalunya are available.

Next, there is the Researchers Portal (GIR) which serves as an information hub and internal curriculum/portfolio builder for individuals and research groups. More concretely, the GIR offers the following functionalities: An agenda is used for publishing information about relevant conferences. Under the title ‘Convocatories,’ the editors publish funding opportunities. The Curriculum Builder is one of the core features of the GIR. It allows the UOC to build one central database that contains all of the personal data (like education, professional and research experience) of its researchers. Furthermore, the GIR provides access to some of UOC’s research applications (an online bibliography builder, and the survey tool described below) [iii].

Third UOC is publishing eight e-journals [iv] and thematic publishing spaces. This printing platform serves to build up institutional reputation but also represents a publishing opportunity for UOC’s researchers as the thematic focus is naturally matched very well with the interests of its own scholars. The journals are all accessible via UOC’s website and are therefore a primary dissemination instrument for UOC’s research work.

Lastly, UOC has – in line with its outsourcing approach - a close collaboration with a local online survey service provider. Small as well as large scale questionnaires can be created and managed completely in an online space. This practice immensely facilitates data collection since all input is directly computable, which also leads to the elimination of transcription errors.

Current Practices (Use Cases)
Almost all research done at the UOC has some e-research component. The common research practice has been summarized quite nicely by one faculty member who stated that UOC is offering all possibilities for developing research themes, as long as they are accessible through the internet for negligible costs (UOC faculty 28). UOC’s researchers are pursuing e-research, deploying a host of methodologies and subjects, from cyber-ethnography to e-business and open-source programming. While there are many individual or small team collaborations, especially from the 473 doctorial researchers (2005), the large scale Project Internet Catalunya Study serves as a springboard for many such related research efforts. The IN3 is also maintaining an email bulletin service which provides information about relevant funding opportunities on an ad hoc basis.

Overall, it is assessed that even though UOC’s researchers do use the internet extensively as a subject for their research, there are no particularly advanced uses of internet based innovations (such as research on virtual worlds, or publishing methods like Dspace or even PLSone )

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[i] http://www.uoc.edu/in3/myway/

[ii] Please excuse the very brief outline of UOC’s pedagogy given herein. To treat and discuss the finesse of UOC’s reflections and variations of this institutionally, both obviously such important themes, simply exceeds the possibilities of this research. The interested reader is referred to the publications cited as well as e.g. (Godoy, 2003; Ros Híjar, 2001).

There are several functions of the GIR dealing with research group management, intellectual and industrial property (also a website building tool is listed in the manual section) that were not functioning when evaluating the GIR.

[iii] It has to be pointed out that only some of the journals can be considered scientific as some lack peer-review processes etc.

[iv] www.plsone.org

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