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

Carrying out the assessment of the quality of virtual education implies taking into account a set of dimensions determinant for its definition. New quality models are created in order to propose, describe and assess such dimensions. Nevertheless, these models do not always offer a common perspective when it comes to the dimensions of the assessment of the quality of virtual education. Moreover, no comparative studies have been carried out regarding those models. The purpose of this article is to carry out a comparative analysis of several models designed to assess the quality of virtual education. The article focuses on the assessment dimensions proposed by the analyzed models in order to determine those considered to be the most relevant and frequently applied. The author sums up a bibliographical research based on a comparative analysis of a number of models and assessment dimensions drafted, among others, by researchers, universities and assessment organizations. All the analyzed models have been offered to the universities in order to improve the quality of their virtual education. According to the results of the research, the most relevant assessment dimensions are: institutional context, impact/results, program/course development, program/course assessment, educators, and technological infrastructure. It should be noted that some of the dimensions are used by several existing models, while other are only used by some of them. Furthermore, the definition of each dimension may vary depending on the model. As a result, it can be concluded that there are no unified criteria to be applicable to the abovementioned dimensions. 

In the last years the development of the information and communication technologies has had a significant impact on the university distance learning, both in a quantitative and in a qualitative manner. It has been observed that, despite the appearance of numerous and novel didactic resources, video, in its conventional format or incorporating interactivity, is still preferred by teachers and students to improve the quality of learning process in economic quantitative subjects. The goal of this research is to contribute to the increase of the small number of papers which have been published in our country about the way in which the effects of educational resources in video format (standard and interactive) influence on improving learning in a distance learning university environment. The analysis has been focused on a subject perceived as particularly difficult for students, called Financial Mathematics, which is studied in the Administration and Management Degree, Distance Learning National University (UNED). Over three consecutive academic courses a sufficient representative sample was collected through a sample to verify, by using different statistics techniques, a positive relationship between the use of these resources over the academic performance, the global utility that these resources provided to the students who used them and the added value that these resources presented to them, over other traditional alternatives to study, such as written materials (texts and teaching guides). 

Founded in 1980, the IberoAmerican Association for Distance Higher Education (“Asociación Iberoamericana de Educación Superior a Distancia” or AIESAD) is probably the most relevant organization of open and distance education in IberoAmerica. One of the fundamental objectives of this association was to create a periodic academic publication as an ideal medium for the scientific dissemination and improvement of non-face-to-face educational processes. Thus, in 1982 the "Informative Bulletin of the IberoAmerican Association of Distance Higher Education" was created. This bulletin laid the foundations for the real inception of a scientific journal, the “IberoAmerican Journal of Distance Higher Education” (Revista Iberoamericana de Educación Superior a Distancia or RIESAD) whose first issue was published in 1988 and the last one in 1996, with a total of 172 articles. In 1998 this publication was updated under a similar name, “IberoAmerican Journal of Distance Education" (RIED. Revista Iberoamericana de Educación a Distancia). As a way of adapting to modern tendencies, it bears the subtitle of "Iberoamerican Journal of Digital Education" and, up to this current issue, it has published a total of 513 articles. These are the 30 years of history (1988-2018) of a scientific publication, with a total of 685 papers that came to light on distance education and digital technologies applied to teaching and learning.

Universities are currently undergoing the transition from a conventional teaching model based on knowledge transfer through lecturing and printed cultural objects, towards a pedagogical model based on student active and constructive learning and their interaction with digital resources. This special issue addresses the analysis of universities´ digital transformation guided by questions such as: Where should university education evolve to? Which is the pedagogical interpretation of digitalization  in university education? How does technology transform teaching professionalism, what students should learn, or the environments and methodologies of eLearning?

In recent years, there has been a rapid growth in the implementation of Blended Learning as a teaching modality, as well as in the research of methodologies related to improvement in learning outcomes. However, in non-Anglo-Saxon universities, research on the institutional policy related to this type of teaching is scarce. In two earlier studies, the authors have published previous outcomes on this modality, at a general level, referring to 20 European universities, as well as an in-depth study at the University of Barcelona. This research analyzes the current implementation of Blended Learning in the twelve universities integrated in the university system of Catalonia (NE Spain) in order to identify the key elements that determine the strategic adoption of this modality. With this aim, Thus, semi-structured surveys were carried out to the twelve vice-rectors responsible for educational policy in each university. This article describes the current state of the Blended Learning in the Catalan university system and it is analyzed in comparison to the data of six years ago. It is evident, on the one hand, as at the grade level, the increase has not been expected in relation to previous expectations. On the other hand, it becomes clear the conceptual change of the formal blended teaching, with the accreditation of academic authorities, towards new, more flexible approaches to hybrid or combined learning.

The technological innovations and their impact on education is a curricular content in the initial training of the degrees in Education. The rapid changes in technological development make the contents of this training obsolete, thus we need to train in scientific and technological arguments to deal with innovations that do not yet exist. This involves developing digital skills and a scientific and technological argumentation with new methodologies and technologies that help to enhance these competencies. The present study aims to measure the impact produced by a methodology and e-rubric of argumentation -extracted from the Toulmin model- together with the self-evaluation of the processes of argumentation and the qualifications of 30 students of the Pedagogy degree with b-learning. With this aim, a mixed research is proposed: On the one hand, a qualitative analysis  of 262 annotations  given by the students to two exercises of argumentation (one with and another without the e-rubric) on two similar cases of technological innovation; and on the other hand, a quantitative and correlational analysis of the self-assessment by students and its correlation with the teacher assessments  using the Wilcoxon statistic. The outcomes allowed to verify the positive impact of the argumentation e-rubric, and how this correlates (Z = -2.440, Z = -3.276 and Z = -2.783) with the best grades, allowing for  more elaborate argumentations.

The competencies of teachers working in virtual learning environments are complex; they have distinctive characteristics associated with novel formats of instructional design and teaching. They involve mastery to manage and monitor students' learning, to give feedback on their performance, to stimulate motivation and group cohesion, to promote facilitating emotions and student's self-regulating and metacognitive processes; so, it is necessary to generate a comprehensive model to evaluate them. This paper describes a Teaching Competences Assessment Model for Online Teaching (MECDL), which considers types of participants’ presence (teaching, cognitive, social, emotional and learning), as well as conversational cycles and instructional sequence. Focus groups with virtual learning modality experts (researchers and teachers) to validate the content of the dimensions, competences and indicators of the MECDL. The resulting parameters were contrasted with different models of online teaching to elaborate the final version of the model, which includes the forecast dimension of the teaching-learning process (five competences and 27 indicators), conduction of the teaching-learning process (three competences and 40 indicators), and evaluation of the impact of the teaching-learning process (one competency and six indicators). The MECDL is proposed to be used as a conceptual framework to guide the performance, evaluation and training of online learning faculty. 

The use of gamification in the blended learning environment constitutes an innovation that greatly impacts learning possibilities. It shares features with blended learning, such as an increase in motivation and the optimization of results with respect to an activity that stimulates learning. In this sense, this paper outlines an analysis of publications in international databases in which the subject of gamification is addressed within the blended learning environment. This scientific literature review has been prepared using documentation as a method of systematization.  This research analyzes 34 contributions between 2012 and 2017* indexed in the WOS and Scopus databases, using a search strategy with four criteria:  recipients, topic, methodological design and main conclusions.  Results demonstrate that the documented publications are focused on higher education students, especially in the area of engineering, display prototypes and models and feature methodological designs, in which the conceptual-theoretical framework predominates, followed by empirical and quantitative research. Amongst other outcomes, this paper concludes that there is a need to continue boosting the convergence between gamification and blended learning, due to its positive effects related to motivation, feedback and the acquisition of competencies by students.

The revolution in the democratization of software has reached hardware. We face a new scenario that incorporates cheap and easy to access hardware, which enables the design and creation of real objects. Faced with this new reality educational contexts must reflect on their practice and adapt to it by redesigning both their digital and face-to-face learning spaces. In this paper, we review the contributions of eLearning 2.0 to education. We take a tour around the diverse and complex educational opportunities generated by the development of blended learning and the active methodologies combined with emerging technology. This is, we investigate the contributions of the Web 2.0 to education and the situation that educational institutions face from the Web 2.0 revolution to the current hybrid learning contexts and the creation spaces or FabLabs that contribute to the diffusion of the fine line between formal and informal learning. The evolution of technology involves the adaptation of learning processes to innovative methodologies for the development of skills in problem solving. In conclusion, the design of learning contexts based on the horizontality of knowledge transmission and construction to contribute, in this way, to the development of technology itself. 

The results obtained thanks to the flipped classroom with ‘just I¡in time’ teaching method are reviewed. This method allowed to know what the students did not understand after trying to study the instructive materials assigned to them. To achieve that the students work before class methods of marketing and gamification were developed. Methods for the analysis of student responses were also developed. The JiTT method allowes the teacher know in advance those aspects that are most interesting or most dificult to understand for the students as well as their most urgent doubts. Finally, we have developed methods to use the urgent doubts of the students to generate formative feedback and activities to do in the classroom. In the method named “flipped learning forte” the teacher answer the urgent doubts of his students. In the method named ‘flip in colours’ the teacher classify the doubts by their posible utility in the classroom using a color code. With the combined application of these methods in university courses the failure rate of the students has decreased and the mean grade in the exams for the assessment of learning has increased in more than one standard deviation. The rate of students that attain the level of mastery has increased, as well as the student evaluations about the teachers of these courses. Finally, the reasons underlying the efficacy of the proposed flipped method are discussed.