In this article we present a review of the state of the art in mathematical e-learning and some personal experiences on this area developed during the last eleven years at the Open University of Catalonia (UOC), a completely online university located in Spain. The article discusses important aspects related to online mathematics courses offered in higher education programs, including: benefits and challenges, universities offering this type of education, methodological considerations, emergent technologies, learning projects and environments, etc. Also, key aspects of the UOC mathematical e-learning model and its historical evolution are described and analysed. Special attention is paid to mathematical curricula in computer sciences degrees, where a lot of work needs to be done in order to adapt mathematics courses to the continuously changing educational necessities of students. A curricula design proposal, based on a top-down approach, is presented as a best practice. Finally, some trends and future perspectives on the subject are suggested.
This chapter presents a case study of online teaching in Statistics and Operations Research (OR) at the Open University of Catalonia (UOC). UOC is a purely online university with headquarters in Barcelona, Spain, with students from many countries. As common to most math-related knowledge areas, teaching and learning Statistics and OR present difficult challenges in traditional higher education. These issues are exacerbated in online environments where face-to-face interactions between students and instructors as well as among students themselves are limited or non-existent. Despite these difficulties, as evidenced in the global growth of online course offerings, Web-based instruction offers comparative benefits to traditional face-to-face instruction. While there exists a plethora of literature covering experiences and best practices in traditional face-to-face instruction in mathematics, there is a lack of research describing long-term successful experiences in Statistics and OR online courses. Based on the authors’ experiences during the last decade, this chapter aims to share some insights on how to design and develop successful online courses in these knowledge areas.
La difusión de Internet, junto con la evolución que ha experimentado el software estadístico y matemático, nos ofrecen nuevas formas de enseñar, aprender y aplicar conceptos y técnicas cuantitativas en ámbitos como el informático y el de las telecomunicaciones.En este artículo presentamos el proyecto e-Math del Internet Interdisciplinary Institute (IN3), en el cual participan profesores de la Universitat Oberta de Catalunya (UOC) y otras universidades de ámbito estatal. Este proyecto tiene por finalidad fomentar y difundir la utilización e integración de las herramientas tecnológicas actuales en los currículos de asignaturas cuantitativas aplicadas.En el artículo se muestran también experiencias que, siguiendo las líneas metodológicas propuestas en e-Math, se han llevado a cabo en la UOC; en ellas se ha apostado por un uso intensivo de los recursos que Internet ofrece y también por la utilización de software matemático y estadístico como parte integral de los currículos formativos.
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