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

This theoretical article aims to uncover the epistemological choices that arise during research and the events generated between the subject who teaches how to research and the learner who both require rationality for understanding in an intellectual approach with all its complex magnitude. With that natural language, it has been possible to investigate the elements and intersubjectivity of the subjects involved, considering that the source of all agreements in academic settings cannot be substituted by the scientific approach. The reflection was based on the postulates of Cerda (2000), Fleury (2003), Martínez-Miguélez (2004) and Stake (1998). Since this study is focused on communication, it was considered pertinent to conduct it using the socio-phenomenological approach, since renowned researchers and novices are the social actors that reproduce their investigative context based on their daily interactions. Hence, the discussion focuses on intersubjective relations, from the viewpoint of interaction, giving a relevant role to the elements of negotiation and communication in the social construction of the contexts of meaning. This dialectic relationship is taken as the starting point for the social construction of reality.

This work shows current development of the technoscientific system (TSS). This system has grown from a neutral to a policontextural perspective. In the latter, Luhmannian intersystemic interpenetration has great importance. Here, different kinds of human knowledge unite and configure a new way of understanding reality and facilitating our confrontation with highly complex situations. In this hermeneutic (Kinsella, Santos, Ursúa, etc.), commitment to others has an important place in TSS, which allows us to transmit the interdisciplinary, contextualized and intercultural connection of the TSS, teaching a more humanized technoscience, encouraging technoscience study as a cultural vehicle, connecting technoscience with real world problems and promoting a repertoire of sufficient, interpenetrated types of knowledge that allow us to situate ourselves in a certain area of reality.

Starting from criticism made by postcolonial authors, this study refers to colonialism seen from construction of the Eurocentric imaginary as a phenomenon traversed by the thought of key modernity figures. Following a synthetic type of research, an analysis was made of how the geopolitics of knowledge become expressions of a power entrenched in colonialism, for which a bibliographic and documentary review was needed. Subsequently, the study reconstructs the analyzed categories into a scheme proposed to identify an alternative epistemology based on Andean thought and delineate a reading of youth insurgencies as other resistance practices. Finally, the paper argues that the relationship between epistemes and practices articulates a necessary counter-hegemonic path.

This article seeks to reveal the relationship that exists between epistemology and research, in order to establish the general conditions of the scientific approach that give legitimacy and validity to knowledge produced by the social sciences. The exposition is supported by bibliographical review and analysis of different sources. The way that efforts to construct theories, especially medium-level theories, have developed is presented summarily in the paper, recurring to specific examples (Merton 1980; Ward 1995; Vásquez 2009) and empirical research endeavors, whose results constitute a notable theoretical advance, even though the challenge of finding a more inclusive theory still remains. These issues make it possible to conclude that mastery of the relationship between epistemology and methodology by researchers in academic communities gives strength to the results of scientific research and advances explanations consistent with reality.

This article aims to discuss the concept of models from a theoreticalepistemic perspective that permits clarifying their use, particularly in social sciences. First, acceptance of a model as a representation is discussed, which leads to its consideration as a theory. Next, the concept is approached as an analogy, and finally, as an axiom. The work is classified in the framework of theoretical and descriptive research with a documentary- bibliographic design, using bibliographic and hemerographic analysis and content analysis as techniques. As a result of the discussion, a concept of model is proposed that attempts to integrate aspects of representation, analogy and axiomatization and is expressed in terms of theoretical constructs and theories.

La noción de totalidad es una noción filosófica. Tal vez se le deba considerar como una “categoría” de la filosofía. No hay un filósofo digno de este nombre que no haya contribuido a elaborarla. No hay un filósofo digno de este nombre que no se haya esforzado en alcanzar una representación del Universo como totalidad. El empirismo, el pluralismo, en la medida en que permanecen siendo filosofías, no escapan a esta constatación

Presentación de las revistas Comunicación y Revista Venezolana de Gerencia.  

Since the 2000 Constitution entered into force, achieving technological autonomy and independence has been pursued in Venezuela in order to contribute to the economic, social and political development of the country. Thus, the obligatory use of free software in public administration was ordained to promote the opportune and efficient rendering of public services, since this technology is included as an instrument for the above-mentioned tasks. For example, the Ministry of Popular Power for Internal Relations and Justice, through the Autonomous Service of Registries and Notaries and the emission of decrees and laws that govern the corresponding competence, such as Presidential Decree 3.390 (Presidency of the Republic, 2004), has implemented modernization through the automation of registry and notary processes by employing electronic means in which free software has a place. Interest has arisen in establishing an effective legal application for the public function developed by Registries and Notaries by implementing such an IT migration. Research of the documentary type with a bibliographical design was adopted using the documentary observation method based on the Law of Public Registry and Notary (National Assembly, 2006) and the Organic Law of Civil Registry (National Assembly, 2009), that regulate registry and notary matters in Venezuela, making it possible to obtain results through a legal hermeneutic applicable in the method of dogmatic juridical analysis, concluding with knowledge of the legal effects that determined the essentialness of concrete actions to use this type of software, according to precepts applicable to the specified public function.

This investigation has meaning in social practice generating an interdependent relationship among universities, circulating enough intellectual production to generate wealth in the context of a fair and balanced relationship. These premises serve as a reference for this study whose general aim is to state challenges facing the 21st century university in order to strengthen university social responsibility and the research process. Theoretically, the contributions of Cavero (2006), Martínez and Pico (2006), García (2000), Congreso Nacional (National Congress) (1970) and Nava (2008) were considered, among others. Methodologically, a dialectic and hermeneutic focus was used, considering the principles of subject activity in the knowledge production process and multilateralism. The population consisted of 20 doctoral and master's students who acted as key informants, with an equal number of reports to develop the field work, using natural conversation procedures as a dialectic form, supported by seminars, discussion groups, and backed up by registries, field diaries and analysis matrices, among others. After ten work sessions, two conversations and discussion about selected contents, 13 indicators were proposed to apply to analysis of the final papers, using documentary review, reflecting literal, inferential and critical levels. Conclusions were formulated based on collective, interactive strategies to interpret the information using a matrix, argumentation, plenary sessions and reports, indicating that research develops in the university with unequal policies, translated into the hegemony of institutionalism and academe, attached to a linear concept of science, producing as a consequence research practices that are not related to local needs, visualizing little social responsibility for themselves.

The objective of this study is to describe the quality of taxi service in the Maracaibo Municipality, since taxis comprise part of the city’s urban transport system and represent a fundamental public service for social coexistence. To achieve this objective, an adaptation of the SERVPERF model was made, designed as a questionnaire-type instrument with 32 items in 6 dimensions, adapted to the characteristics of taxi service. In order to confirm that items on the instruments corresponded with the adapted dimensions, the factorial analysis technique was applied, producing a new instrument with 24 items in 3 dimensions. The Likert scale was used with three (3) alternative answers. Research was of the descriptive, applied type, using a non-experimental design of the cross-sectional, descriptive and field variety. The population consisted of taxi line users in the Maracaibo Municipality. Random sampling by conglomerate was applied. Reliability of the instrument was measured using the Cronbach alpha coefficient, resulting in a 0.82, which is considered acceptable. Results reveal that the quality of taxi service in the Maracaibo Municipality is moderate; therefore, this service is apt for improvements, necessary to elevate the quality of life for Marabinos. This result was obtained with the originally adapted instrument of 32 items and the resulting factorial analysis questionnaire of 24 items, confirming the appropriateness of this technique, since it reduced the number of items and the originally adapted dimensions and no significant differences were found on comparing results from the two instruments. Thus, the quality of taxi service in the Maracaibo Municipality can be measured through the dimensions: reliability of the service, socialization and responsibility.