Mercedes Guinea

Building repositories of learning objects in specialized domains: the Chasqui approach

In this paper we describe the Chasqui approach to the construction of repositories of learning objects (LO) in specific knowledge areas. This approach is the result of our experiences in the virtualization of academic museums at the Complutense University of Madrid (Spain) as well as of some experiences in the visualization of the campus of this university. This approach promotes a close collaboration between two kinds of actors: domain experts (e.g., researchers and lecturers) and developers. This collaboration results in (i) the definition of a suitable model for the LO in the domain of interest, (ii) the construction by developers of a domain-specific tool for authoring LO conforming this model, and (iii) the population of the repository by domain experts using this tool. The domain specific LO models and the domain specific tools based on these models facilitate the production and maintenance of the repositories and the exploitation of the educational potential of the resources used by the experts in their daily work.

Exploiting Author-Designed Domain-Specific Descriptive Markup Languages in the Production of Learning Content

In this paper we describe an approach to the production of learning resources where authors (students and instructors) are actively involved in the production process. This active involvement is achieved by using descriptive markup technologies. Authors are compelled to produce learning resources in the form of documents, and to make the structure of these documents explicit by creating and using descriptive markup languages. This lets developers formalize these author-designed markup languages and provide suitable transformation specifications for translating these marked documents into their final presentations. We exemplify this approach with the production of DHTML pages by Ph.D. students in archaeology, oriented to be used as resources owned by reusable learning objects in Chasqui, an authoring and deployment tool used in the virtualization of academic museums at the Complutense University of Madrid (Spain).

Virtual objects: an approach to building learning objects in archaeology

This article describes the first stages of an educational project aimed at converting the archaeological and ethnographical objects of the Departamento de Historia de America II: Antropologia de America, of the Universidad Complutense de Madrid into digitalised educational resources that may be accessed by teachers, students and visitors alike. To create these educational resources, the concept of virtual object has been developed. This is a concept that is similar to that of learning object but is of a more generic nature, allowing us to use it to group together all the information about the real objects used by archaeologists. To demonstrate the viability of the virtual object concept a web site has been set up with hypermedia access for both the use and maintenance of the educational resources.

Antonio Blanc Altemir (2012): "La Unión Europea y el Mediterráneo. De los primeros Acuerdos a la Primavera Árabe"

En la presente obra el Doctor en Derecho y Catedratico de Derecho Internacional Publico de la Universidad de Lleida, Antonio Blanc Altemir, aborda la ambiciosa tarea de analizar en profundidad cincuenta anos de relaciones entre la Union Europea y los paises del Mediterraneo, sin olvidar los recientes desafios como las conocidas como Primaveras Arabes y la respuesta de la comunidad internacional. Se trata de un trabajo comprensivo y riguroso recomendado para cualquiera que quiera tener una vision detallada del desarrollo de las relaciones entre la Union Europea y su vecindad mas conflictiva, los paises de las riberas Sur y Este del Mar Mediterraneo.