Open University of Catalonia

About: Open University of Catalonia is a education organization based out in Barcelona, Spain. It is known for research contribution in the topics: Context (language use) & Higher education. The organization has 1943 authors who have published 4646 publications receiving 64200 citations. The organization is also known as: Universitat Oberta de Catalunya & UOC.

Providing Information Security to MOOC: Towards Effective Student Authentication

Abstract: Despite the vertiginous growth and fast development of Massive Open Online Courses (MOOC) over the last two years, there exist still relevant drawbacks that impede MOOCs to prove their actual potential for education. Among these drawbacks, we investigate the lack of provision of Information Security to MOOC, with regards to anomalous user authentication, which cannot verify the actual student's identity to meet grading requirements as well as satisfy accrediting institutions. In order to overcome this issue, we propose a global user authentication model called MOOC-SIA.

Irrigated areas drive irrigation water withdrawals.

Abstract: A sustainable management of global freshwater resources requires reliable estimates of the water demanded by irrigated agriculture. This has been attempted by the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) through country surveys and censuses, or through Global Models, which compute irrigation water withdrawals with sub-models on crop types and calendars, evapotranspiration, irrigation efficiencies, weather data and irrigated areas, among others. Here we demonstrate that these strategies err on the side of excess complexity, as the values reported by FAO and outputted by Global Models are largely conditioned by irrigated areas and their uncertainty. Modelling irrigation water withdrawals as a function of irrigated areas yields almost the same results in a much parsimonious way, while permitting the exploration of all model uncertainties. Our work offers a robust and more transparent approach to estimate one of the most important indicators guiding our policies on water security worldwide.