Sistema Regional de Información
en línea para Revistas Científicas de América Latina,
el Caribe, España y Portugal

The VAMPP Bovino software is a package to support decision-making in cattle, buffalo and pig farms. It was originally developed at the University of Utrecht (Netherlands) and brought to Costa Rica in 1986, as part of an international cooperation project (MHO program, Netherlands), to the School of Veterinary Medicine of the National University of Costa Rica (UNA). Here, at the Regional Center of Informatics for Sustainable Animal Production (CRIPAS), in the first instance, the program was adapted and validated to the Costa Rican productive conditions, to later transcend borders and be implemented throughout Central America, Mexico, the Caribbean and several countries of South America. This process has been possible, first of all, thanks to the support of the UNA to this project which, in fact, is the only one of its kind in the world that survives once the MHO financing ceased. Undoubtedly, this also has been possible thanks to the process of communication and constant dialogue with the stakeholders of the different segments of the livestock production sector of Costa Rica and the other countries where VAMPP is used. This dialogical process, which has gathered –and continues gathering– the knowledge and experiences of the people who are involved in, or are responsible for, the entire chain of bovine products, from production until consumption, is what makes it possible to incorporate them into a computer program that has benefited more than 2000 producers in different countries, especially more than 1500 in Costa Rica. Besides, it benefited all the participants in the production chain, but with special effect on the consumer who has good quality products (safe food) in good quantity (food safety). VAMPP Bovino is a successful university project model, carried out under the support of UNA.

A six-year experiment (2013-2018) was carried out to assess the effect of three types of fertilizers on agro-productive characteristics of coffee plants (Coffea arabica, Caturra variety) in Santa Lucía Experimental Farm of the National University, located in Barva, Heredia, Costa Rica. The treatments were as follows: T1 mineral fertilizer, T2 mineral fertilizer + vermicompost, and T3 compost + chicken manure. Height of plants (orthotropic axis), bandola length (plagiotropic axis), number of internodes, and per Costa Rican fanega (258kg/568.78 lb) production were measured. In order to observe the 2018 plant response to pruning, a total pruning was applied. In addition, an analysis of cup quality related to each fertilization type was also undertaken for 2014-2015, 2015-2016 and 2016-2017 crops. Regarding growth variables, the cumulative effect of the last year was retained. For the height variable, a statistical difference was found between T1 and T2 (higher). With respect to T3, similar results were found in the amount of internodes. The three treatments surpassed the national productive standard without significant differences between them. T3 showed higher values for emergent stems, with a mean of 9.29 stems per plant site. The best quality cup was found related to T3, which ranked the coffee in the specialty category.

The purpose of the research was to systematize the experiences in eight day centers for seniors in the province of Heredia during the period 2013-2017. The systematization was based upon human movement interventions aimed at preventing pathological aging. Interventions were based on strategies seeking to promote the maintenance of various physical variables that predict functionality, positive interpersonal relationships, the expression of emotions, and good use of leisure time. To evaluate the experiences of each session, an online recording instrument was used on daily bases. With this instrument, the different perceptions of all the participants from each center were carefully recorded, and each year of work was systematized. As a result, it was determined that a 50-minute human movement-based intervention, once a week, kept users of the centers happy, motivated, proactive and dynamic.

This work describes the experience of students who collaborate in the Training of Trainers in Robotics project in schools located in vulnerable areas of Costa Rica. This is a university extension project of the National University, which has been implemented in the field of educational robotics since 2015. Besides, this paper describes the impact this project has had on the participants’ training as future professionals in the area of information systems engineering.

This work is the result of the systematization of an experience developed for three years articulating three courses of the third level of the career of Business Management of Tourism and one of Engineering in Information Systems, through which students put into practice what they had studied about teaching, they developed criticism as future professionals, and they also contributed in the development of capacities in the members of those organizations. The objective of the work is to propose a methodology that allows students to carry out extension from teaching.

The exercise of university social extension as a substantive work constitutes a discursive and practical scenario that is always complex, dynamic, and, above all, a consequence of a dialogue with society. The text shows the results of research work on the academic discourse of the university extension at the National University, based on the use of the methodological principles of social cartography. For this, the paper mainly analyzes a selected set of texts, produced by a group of scholars distinguished by the institution with the category of “outstanding extension workers.” It identies different exploratory discursive perspectives within their intellectual production, generated over various decades. The primary purpose of the writing is to build an exploratory map of the discourse on university extension which, allows identifying the distinctive features of the nature and character of this form of substantive action at the National University of Costa Rica.

The present work systematizes some of the frequencies generated within the framework of the Methodological Innovation Program, student participation, and knowledge management of the School of International Relations at the National University of Costa Rica on student perceptions about university extension. These frequencies were obtained by applying Likert and Tourstone scales with a Cronbach alpha of .902 and n in 917 cases. The presence of two symptoms associated with how ideas about university extension are ideologically transmitted is visualized as a fundamental finding, where there is an approach responding to models of awareness, but, in everyday actions, altruistic and conservative tendencies are reflected. The importance of religious and educational organizations without formal political dyes is established as a space for linking young people, and questions about the university’s behavior in the field of guaranteeing respect for diversity without forgetting social justice.

University extension, teaching and research are the academic purposes of the National University of Costa Rica. The integration of these three pillars defines the academy doing as a resulting product of their fulfillment. Based on this assumption, concerns arise on how the statutory considerations referred to the importance of those university tasks are put into practice into the different academic instances in an articulated way. Most importantly, how to make these statutory considerations be reflected in the job of those who have full-time academic job. Hence, the objective of this research consists of supporting an academic conception of university which includes teaching, research and university extension with the purpose of encouraging the university instances to undertake their management through a daily basis action and a planning process by formulating an academic program that allows the articulation of those university tasks. The articulation of extension with research and teaching must be based on a clear conceptualization, and implementation will involve the commitment of the entire university community; for which it will be necessary, as a first instance, an evaluation of how the academic job is managed. That means to consider the distribution of resources, and it is likely to provoke a strategic reformulation to reach a university committed to the excellence of the formation of professionals, the development of research, and the dialogue with communities.

This paper describes the evolution of the State from the approach of authors like William Robinson, and based on the theory of globalization. Besides, in this analysis reference is made to the phases of the State formation in Latin America proposed by Pastrana and Castro from colonial times to present. We will relate this reference to other variables, such as the evolution of of the State institution of higher university education and its social constructs, university autonomy, and academic freedom, in the current stage of the development of the State, in the midst of the phenomenon called globalization.