Discussion of competences at university level: review of the competency profile of social educators / Discusión de competencias en el ámbito universitario: revisión del perfil del educador social

Training in competences helps university students develop in a comprehensive way that is oriented towards working in their chosen profession. The profession focused on in this study is that of social educator. Degree programmes related to this profession are relatively new and their implementation is also open to variation. As a result of this, a review of the competency profile of the profession is considered necessary. The study presented here aims to validate the competences of this profession by means of expert judgement. The panel of experts assesses the relevance and clarity of each element, as well as giving their opinions on them. The contributions provided result in a set of qualitative and quantitative data whose analysis helps to redefine a profile comprising 23 competences distributed across two dimensions: basic competences (14) and professional competences (9).     

On Technology

The basic premise of this paper is that the problem of technology is not a technological one, but one of understanding and vision. The entire Western tradition, in its religious as well as its secular modes, has always admired technique. True, the modern age has increased the mechanization of technology, and more recent technological advances have extended our sensory modes of knowing, tempting us to fall in love with them much as Narcissus fell in love with his own reflection. However, there is nothing necessary in these developments or in the views spawned by them.Technology encompasses the instrumentalities with which we create the made world. The made world, not unlike the natural one manifests Being; it is the unconcealment of reality's potential to be made. It is up to us to understand technology in this way and not as the mere manufacture and use of tools.Education is the main means at our disposal to create a new vision of technology and a new yoga to yoke ourselves to Being. The goal is to learn to see technology as an aniconic symbol of Being.     

Meeting the needs of teachers and students within the CESAR training system

Computers seem to be an unquestionably useful tool to support the learning process, although positive students' and teachers' attitude towards the system is required to guarantee a successful introduction of new technologies in traditional classrooms. Training or exercises provide the students with the challenge of using their knowledge to solve concrete problems, so that they incite students to participate actively. Training can be adapted to different learning styles in order to strengthen student involvement. Moreover, tools to adapt the didactic material to several educational methods must be provided, in such a way that teachers consider the system a helpful tool rather than a substitute. Taking into account the foregoing, this paper describes a training system to create and use exercises in a hypermedia learning environment for hearing-impaired children called CESAR.     

Evaluation and publication delay in Ibero-American scientific journals

This article analyses the review, acceptance and publication dates of a sample of 21,890 articles from 326 Ibero-American scientific journals from all subject areas and countries included in the Latindex Catalogue 2.0 and published between 2018 and 2020 (freely available as an open access dataset). The aim is to discover evaluation and publication times. The evaluation process takes a median of 110 days, the publication process, a median of 82 days, and the whole process, a median of 224 days. Statistical differences are found according to periodicity, subject areas, countries, existence of a printed version and article type (Call for Papers or General articles). From the data we find that the delay in publication is longer than publishers themselves report to the DOAJ. STEM areas present the most similarity in publication patterns, having a higher number of evaluation days (Ed) than publication days (Pd); Arts and Humanities present the opposite pattern, with a higher Pd than Ed. In the case of Social Sciences, the times are similar. General articles and Call for Papers articles differ in terms of Ed, but not Pd, indicating that Call for Papers revisions are faster.     

The effects of explicit timing on middle‐school students’ writing production across 5‐ and 15‐min sessions

Enhancing rates of accurate, active, academic responding can enhance learning. Both temporal manipulations (i.e., reducing time to work on assignments) and providing multiple distributed temporal cues (MDTC), sometimes referred to as explicit timing, have been shown to enhance rates of accurate mathematics responding. The current study was designed to evaluate the effects of session length (i.e., 5 vs. 15 min to write) and temporal cues (i.e., a single initial temporal cue vs. MDTC) on seventh‐ and eighth‐grade students writing assignment rates and writing accuracy. Results showed that the 5 min writing sessions did result in significantly greater rates of accurate responding than the 15 min sessions; however, explicit timing did not significantly alter writing rates or accuracy. These findings suggest that educators can enhance rates of accurate writing by reducing writing session lengths. Discussion focuses on applied implications of providing briefer writing sessions and future research investigating the interaction between multiple temporal cues and assignments.     

Government innovation through social media

Social media in government is becoming one of the major trends in Electronic Government (e-government) research and practice worldwide. During the last few years, several authors have addressed the potential of social media for the innovation of public sector organizations. Most of these contributions have focused on the technical dimensions of social media, while other aspects have not attracted equal attention. In contrast, this introductory article interrogates the role of social media in the basic areas of e-government: government information flows and the availability of government information; the use of information technology to create and provide innovative government services; the impact of information technology on the relationships between the governed and those governing; and the increasing importance of information policies and information technologies for democratic practices. Accordingly, the next few pages propose and develop three dimensions of social media in government: tools, goals, and topics. We think that these dimensions could help to better understand the use of social media in government settings. Then, after a brief review of current trends in social media and government research, we present the articles included in this special issue. Finally, we present some practical lessons and suggest ideas for future research. This special issue could be seen as a starting point for the development of innovation through social media in public administrations around the world.     

Spirituality And The Body

Modern spirituality is still challenged by the age-old opposition between matter and spirit. But this traditional dualism has lost some of its sting because modern science itself has been forced to countenance the existence of invisible realities. This article presents some areas of contemporary life in which the spiritual is conspicuously entwined with the material even though the relationship often goes unnoticed. If spirituality can be helped to confront its own tacit acceptance of the material, then it may be possible to move toward a postmodern spirituality, one in which there will be less animosity against, and more acceptance of, the material dimensions of existence.