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

Higher Education Institutions play a fundamental role in the integral formation of professionals, in the environmental awareness and education of the university community, by developing and implementing actions that allow them to increase the knowledge they have about the environment, train them in decision making, develop skills and behavioral changes that contribute to promote environmental awareness and the solution of environmental problems. The objective of this research is to design a procedure for the incorporation of the environmental dimension in the decision-making process by the managers of university institutions. For its implementation, the theoretical references of the community environmental education management process were taken into account, as well as the characterization of the environmental situation at the University of Pinar del Rio. As a result, it was possible to design a procedure to incorporate the environmental dimension, which consists of 4 stages and 14 steps that consider the key strategic and support processes that are managed, contributing to enhance the analysis of environmental issues in order to improve the decision-making process and the solution of environmental problems at the University of Pinar del Rio.

Based on the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, approved in 2015 by the United Nations, the Development Plan of the Ministry of Tourism towards 2030 and the Guidelines of the Economic and Social Policy of the Party and the Revolution for the period 2016-2021, which describe the projection of tourism in Cuba with offers related to the sociocultural, historical, environmental and economic value, this research aims to make a methodological proposal in order to design tourism products that consider the dimensions of sustainability. In order to achieve the proposed objective, several methodological approaches for the design of tourism products were studied and, as a result of the gaps detected, a new proposal was developed. In this way, an attractive possibility of economic activation was created for the government and the operational sectors, generating benefits for the adjacent communities and their administrations, in addition to providing a new business alternative that allows taking advantage of and preserving the community's heritage.

The work proposes a plan of actions to implement the Local Agricultural Innovation System in the municipality of Pinar del Río, thus contributing to food security and local development that includes state and non-state service entities, enterprises and productive units, science and technology units, popular councils and non-governmental organizations, among others, as part of the implementation of the National Plan for Food Security and Sovereignty and Food and Nutrition Education, based on the governance of Local Food Systems, which favors the structural and content updating of the Municipal Development Strategy and the definition of Local Development Projects aimed at food production, processing and marketing. To this end, empirical methods, surveys, interviews and work with specialists were used to establish the practical theoretical bases for the diagnosis as a reference for the proposed objective: to propose an action plan for the Local Agricultural Innovation System that contributes to the plan for food security and sovereignty and nutritional education in the municipality in a sustainable way and that allows a healthy food production that meets the needs of local self-sufficiency in the municipality of Pinar del Río on the basis of good agroecological practices.

The challenges in the production and commercialization of food in the local context are very great; in Cuba and its territories it is promoted as a necessity to increase food production to satisfy the consumption of the population. The objective of the present research was to elaborate a proposal of actions that contribute to the improvement of the production capacity of vegetables. The research involved the use of theoretical and empirical methods. The analysis of documents, the application of interviews, as well as the survey of opinions resulted in the need to seek new ways to increase vegetable production capacity in the localities. As part of the actions, urban, suburban and family agriculture should resume its leading role and recover idle, empty or deteriorated spaces in order to meet individual and local needs. To achieve this, more comprehensive policies and actions are required, conceived in the municipal development strategy under the leadership of the local government food group, agriculture or other institutions involved. Hence the importance and validity of the topic addressed in response to the Economic and Social Policy Guidelines of the eighth Party Congress, the National Development Plan of the nation until 2030 and the fulfillment of the Sustainable Development Goals, in a prioritized sector such as agriculture in Cuba and, in particular, food sustainability.

Community tourism as a function of the development of rural communities is currently becoming a topic of great relevance. The present work, linked to the Innovation Project "Strategy to promote the heritage values of the Isabel María valley for the community development"; has as objective: to expose the results of the elaboration of a strategy for the promotion of the values of the cultural and natural heritage of the mining municipality. The Research-Action-Participation method was used together with other methods and techniques of social research, taking into account the respect for the cultural identity and customs of the inhabitants of the three proposed communities. The efficient implementation of the strategy requires the integration of the people who own this heritage, the cultural institutions and other social actors of the territory. It was necessary to analyze ways and means to encourage the communities to manage, care for and conserve this heritage in order to achieve sustainable community development based on tourism.

Cooperativism is a movement which ideology is based on principles, values and standards of behavior that regulate and guide the relations of cooperative members. Within this movement in Cuba, it has been witnessing processes that seek to incorporate the gender perspective in its actions, understanding that the approach to gender equity, from cooperatives, is an important link, considering that the values and principles governing cooperativism are aligned with the search for a more egalitarian society for women and men. In the spirit of advancing towards gender equity, the research aims to expose a diagnosis of gender gaps present in the coffee cooperative productive process in the municipality of Tercer Frente, Santiago de Cuba. The research is conducted from the methodological point of view, from the use of quantitative and participatory qualitative techniques that allowed revealing the gender gaps in the meanings of the actions of the coffee cooperative members from the gender roles and, on the other hand, the structuring aspects of the movement in terms of gender equity are extracted, leading to propose a set of good practices that allow achieving the sustainability of the coffee cooperative sector, placing men and women cooperative members in a unique political, economic, social and cultural context.

This article assesses the use and benefits of computer tools by teachers of the Ibarra Educational Unit during the school year 2019-2020. In this mixed research work using a descriptive method, an online questionnaire was submitted to the population made of 71 women and 41 men. Based on the analysis, it is established that all of the teachers questioned have integrated technology in their daily activities. Their use of computer devices and applications differ though. It is observed in the survey that only 5.36% of teachers consider their proficiency of technology as advanced, while 20.54% consider their knowledge as sufficient. Operating system, basic internet, e-mail and office software are the most common applications used by teachers. In conclusion, it can be said that teachers have partially incorporated these tools in their pedagogical and administrative activities. However, deciders must absolutely support teachers training in order to improve their teaching skills and contribute to the quality assurance of education.

Value based education is a fundamental aspect in the life of every human being and the professors act as a key element to reach that result by influencing through words and actions in the classroom. The research was developed with a quantitative focused methodology applying a 19 items instrument to 431 students of a public university seeking to know their appraisal on the practice of their teacher's values. Based on the obtained data, in spite of being considered inspirational people, the professors, with certain frequency are susceptibles to break university norms and values.  

This article presents the results of a study of the impact of incorporating Second Life on the didactics of a university degree subject as well as on student satisfaction, administering a survey to two groups of students enrolled in the same subject through a 24-item questionnaire scored on a 5-point Likert scale for data collection. Subjects comprised 75 students who used the traditional model and 75 students who used a virtual reality model. To verify the hypotheses, the data analysis focused on the descriptive statistics through a comparison of the mean scores for the dependent variables of each of the groups, and with the verification of parametric assumptions, statistical inference was applied to determine the significance of the variances through Student’s t-test. The results show that students perceive specific advantages linked to the design of VR activities in virtual reality. Hence, the potential of virtual reality for improving the teaching process is confirmed. This study leads to the conclusion that students at Universidad Don Bosco greatly value the teaching learning process mediated by virtual reality.