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.

Approaches to teaching online: Exploring factors influencing teachers in a fully online university.

Abstract: In recent years there has been widespread interest in the implementation of online courses in universities. While most studies about online learning environments primarily focus on technology-related issues or instructional methods, little attention has been given to online teachers and their teaching approaches. The aim of this paper is to provide an overview of how teachers approach online teaching and the factors affecting individual teachers' approaches to teaching online, particularly in a fully online university. Nine hundred and sixty-five (965) online teachers belonging to the Open University of Catalonia were surveyed. The dependent variables include three approaches to teaching online: the Content Acquisition approach, the Collaborative Learning approach, and the Knowledge Building approach. The explanatory variables are socio-demographics, academic background, online teaching experience, studies taught, online teaching dedication, and teachers' roles in teaching online. Multiple regression analyses are used to make inferential judgements and test the effects of the independent variables. Findings suggest that age, academic background, online teaching dedication, and especially teachers' roles in teaching online are important predictors of the adoption of a particular approach to teaching online. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Probability-Based Dynamic Time Warping for Gesture Recognition on RGB-D Data

Abstract: Dynamic Time Warping DTW is commonly used in gesture recognition tasks in order to tackle the temporal length variability of gestures. In the DTW framework, a set of gesture patterns are compared one by one to a maybe infinite test sequence, and a query gesture category is recognized if a warping cost below a certain threshold is found within the test sequence. Nevertheless, either taking one single sample per gesture category or a set of isolated samples may not encode the variability of such gesture category. In this paper, a probability-based DTW for gesture recognition is proposed. Different samples of the same gesture pattern obtained from RGB-Depth data are used to build a Gaussian-based probabilistic model of the gesture. Finally, the cost of DTW has been adapted accordingly to the new model. The proposed approach is tested in a challenging scenario, showing better performance of the probability-based DTW in comparison to state-of-the-art approaches for gesture recognition on RGB-D data.

Student interactions in online discussion forums: their perception on learning with business simulation games

Abstract: Digital technology offers new teaching methods with controversial results over learning. They allow students to develop a more active participation in their learning process although it does not al...

Centering complexity in ‘educators’ data literacy’ to support future practices in faculty development: a systematic review of the literature

Abstract: As algorithmic decision-making and data collection become pervasive in higher education, how can educators make sense of the systems that shape life and learning in the twenty-first century? This p...