EDTECH Projects - The evolution of the virtual campus environment

Some of upcoming challeges are:
- An increase in native students (those who grew up using technology) will have a strong impact in the metaphors used today to design the virtual campus environment. Native users have integrated technology into their daily lives.
- The convergence of all type of students will set a challenge for UOC. Continuous evaluation of the research methodologies used will be required to understand the needs for the different audiences.
- Ongoing User Centered Design will be required to guarantee a high level of quality, adjusting the virtual campus to the new trends, technologies and uses.
- An integration of newest technologies and standards will require maintenance.
- Adapting and adjusting to new technologies and user needs will call for an ongoing understanding of the impact of ICT in society.
- Understanding the evolution of UOC students, their frustrations and needs will help proposing innovative initiatives that the University will need to consider, even though it may mean changing some key strategic aspects of UOC.

MYWAY Projects - The new generation of learning materials

My Way is currently a set of tools to edit and deliver content in different formats. After three years of development, the UOC wants to open and transform the project with the objective to be helpful to the open learning community. Our goal is to develop tools for the editing process in an open learning environment.

The objective of this work is to share our ideas and to invite other institutions to build on a larger initiative in this area.

JOY OF LEARNING Projects - Increasing learners’ satisfaction throughout their online learning experience

The Joy of Learning Projects include all of the Office of Learning Technologies’ projects that are directly concerned with the engagement and satisfaction of the virtual campus users throughout their online experience at UOC.

Our main objective is to identify the elements of engagement in a virtual campus environment, beyond the classroom, yet those that may intervene in their learning processes. By identifying them we hope to engage and empower students.
- To identify the right tools and initiatives that will allow e-learning institutions to engage the students into the learning process, allowing them to achieve both their academic/credit objectives, and their study-for-pleasure objectives.
- To identify the way in which the learning environment may need to interact with their personal and social environment, to facilitate the integration of the learning process into their daily lives.