a tour of the open university of catalonia (uoc)

15:00 – 16:30 Tour of the participating institutions

A tour of the Open University of Catalonia (UOC)

16:30 Go to Castelldefels Campus by car17:00 Visit to the Computing Centre17:30 Go to 22@ building by car18:00 Visit to the 22@-Labs

Computing, Multimedia and Telecommunication Studies (CMTS) – English –Estudios de Informática, Multimedia y Telecomunicion (EIMT) – Spanish –

21.05.2012, Barcelona

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Agenda: Tour of the participating institutions A tour of the Open University of Catalonia (OUC)

I. Virtual Resources Virtual Campus.

o Overview: Francesc santanacho Virtual Classroom (Rooms for teaching and study): Muriel Garretao Library: Toni Espadas

Virtual Labs in EIMT o Introduction: Josep Prietoo Computing: Josep Jorbao Multimedia: César Córcoleso Telecommunication: Carlos Monzo

II. Innovation projects CMTS projects: David Masip OUC projects: Francesc/Muriel

III. Physical spaces Computing Centre: located at Castelldefels campus. (Alvaro Pernas) Physical Labs: located at 22@ building (C.Monzo, J.Jorba, J.Córcoles)

CMTS = EIMT = Computing, Multimedia and Telecommunication Studies 2



o Overview: Francesc santanacho Virtual Classroom (Rooms for teaching and study): Muriel Garretao Library: Toni Espadas


II. Innovation projects CMTS projects: David Masip OUC projects: Kiko/Muriel



I. Virtual Resources

Virtual Campus: Overview

Francesc Santanach

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I. Virtual Resources: Virtual CampusOverview

Campus 5.0: The UOC’s LMS

The Learning Management System of Universitat Oberta de Catalunya


About UOC Students• There are many typologies of students with different

ages, backgrounds, experiences, needs, desires and expectations.

• They are “on” 24/7.• They are active participants in the learning process.• They are overwhelmed with information.• Asynchronous activities the most, but synchronous in

some cases.• “We are all disabled”. It depends on the context and

the time (at home, bus, train, car drive and other situations).


About UOC Faculty• Would prefer using different tools and

services based on the subject taught or previous experience.

• The online environment is their only medium to teach and motivate students.

• Their “teaching” is essentially asynchronous.• The contents they use evolve very fast.


About UOC's Virtual Campus• A virtual campus designed and developed by the UOC• 17 years old • C++, Java, PHP and Ruby. HTML, XML, Flash, among others.• With many dependencies (more than 15 years of development).• High Performance:

– average: 2500 users at the same time.– maximum: 6000 users at the same time.– Real-time info at:

http://www.uoc.edu/portal/english/la_universitat/tecnologia_uoc/infraestructures/campus/index.html

• From the UOC's perspective, the future of e-learning will be focused on the interoperability among tools and services, learning platforms, social networks, contents and organizations.


The UOC’s Virtual Campus History• 1995: First Class. Commercial product. 30 concurrent

users.• 1996: UOC Campus 1.0. C++ CGI. Monolithic

architecture. 200 concurrent users.• 2002: UOC Campus 2.0 (iCampus). Cluster of Java

Services. 3-tier architecture.1700 concurrent users.• 2008: UOC Campus 5.0 beta. SOA. Open Source &

Open standards approach. 4000 concurrent users.• 2009: UOC Campus 5.0. SOA. Interoperability with

other e-learning tools and systems.


Lessons Learned• Today, the development of LMS cannot be faced alone without

considering other initiatives alike. It is fundamental to work and develop in collaboration with other institutions.

• The future will look different and will require from us to quickly adapt.• Interoperability is not easy to accomplish, years of hard work are to be

invested in. • There are different user types, each of them with specific needs.• Integration does not mean to modify the tool source code but rather

to extend it with plug-ins and connectors.

• In a virtual campus there are very different tools, some more specific for just a few courses, others intended to be used by all users. Every

type needs its own technology and architecture.


Campus 5.0FROM TO


The Campus 5.0 Design Principles

• Performance and availability.• User-centered Design.• Sharing and integrating technology. • Standards, Specifications & Guidelines. • Educational Innovation.• Personalization & flexibility.• Service-oriented Architecture.


Virtual Campus: Virtual ClassroomRooms for teaching and study

Muriel Garreta

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I. Virtual Resources: Virtual CampusCampus Virtual


Virtual Campus: Library

Toni Espadas

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The first virtual library from the first virtual university, created in 1995.An information and documentary resource centre that provides support to teaching and research work at the UOC.

The UOC Virtual Library is a permanent gateway to all manner of resources and library services.

Providing instant, non-stop, round-the-clock access to both the institution's own resources and remote resources in an effort to meet users' needs 'just in case, just in time and just for them'.

http://biblioteca.uoc.edu/eng/

I. Virtual Resources: Virtual CampusVirtual Library

The library’s presence in the classroom, through the Classroom Resources section, places it at the centre of the UOC educational model, alongside the University’s other working groups and faculty.

A library model, which enables uninterrupted access to all resources from inside the classroom at any time of day, any day of the year; but also access to its services.

As a library that is present in all Campus classrooms, its librarians/information officers must work closely with the university faculty to meet the different user needs, in accordance with the specific requirements of each degree programme, field of knowledge, subject, etc.

Course 2010-2011: 21.854 resources in the classrooms


112.516 docs

34.743 docs




o Overview: Kiko santanacho Virtual Classroom (Rooms for teaching and study): Muriel Garretao Library: Toni Espadas






Virtual Labs: Introduction

Josep Prieto

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Virtual Labs in CMTSIntroduction

One special feature to learn Computing, Multimedia and Telecommunication programs.

•Practical laboratory activities

One important resource to learn in a Virtual Learning Environment:

•Virtual Laboratories

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I. Virtual Resources: Virtual Labs in CMTSIntroduction

Practical laboratory activities

They are an essential part of any engineering curriculum since they strengthen concepts presented during lectures.

Virtual Laboratories

Virtual Labs are interactive virtual spaces that incorporate all the technological, pedagogic and human resources for carrying out practical activities, adapted to the needs of the students and teachers in a virtual learning environment.

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I. Virtual Resources: Virtual Labs in EIMTIntroduction

VPLab Structure: Technological resources

1.Virtual communication environment (VCE)2.Simulator (SIM)3.Remote laboratory (REM)4.Automatic assessment tool (AAT)5.Virtual machine (VM)6.Software support (SUP)

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I. Virtual Resources: Virtual Labs in EIMTIntroduction

VPLab Structure: Pedagogic and strategic resources

7.Learning methodology (MET)8.Evaluation (AVA)9.Support documentation and other materials (DOC)

VPLab Structure: Human resources

10.Student (STU)11.Teacher (TCH)

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I. Virtual Resources: Virtual Labs in CMTSIntroduction

Main Virtual Labs in - Computing,

- Multimedia and - Telecommunication:

• Virtual Programming Laboratory (VPLab)• Virtual Operating System Laboratory (VOSLab)• Virtual Database Laboratory (VDBLab)• Virtual Electronic Laboratory (VELab)• Virtual Networking Laboratory (VNLab)• Virtual Computing Architecture and Organization Laboratory (VCAOLab)• Virtual Mathematic Laboratory (VMathLab)

In the CMT programs

64 Virtual Lab classrooms have been implemented

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Virtual Labs: Computing

Josep Jorba

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Computer Engineering (& Related Studies) Labs Use Cases:

• Hardware and software experimentation

• Development of practical competences

• Can be accessed from anywhere (24x7)

• Three available laboratory typologies for hands-on student experimentationo Simulation Lab: Use of software and simulationso Home Lab: Hardware (and its associated software) is physically sent to studentso Remote Lab: Remote hardware access

I. Virtual Resources: Virtual Labs in CMTSComputing

01Computer Architecture and Operating systems

• Use of software:• Gnu/Linux distributions (Fedora / Debian / Ubuntu) & others• Customized OS micro-kernels (Linux & others)• Computer architecture simulators.

• 24/7 resource access from anywhere, Software is available at Virtual Class rooms ( links to soft repositories).

• Hardware• Physical servers with various operating systems and architectures (GNU/Linux Intel/AMD x86_64, Solaris Sun Sparc)• HPC environments (Cluster systems and multi-core machines)

•Different experiments can be performedo Distributed Programming (Bag of Tasks, Boinc)o Parallel Programming (MPI & OpenMP)o Operating systems programming.


02Home Lab (Embedded Systems)

• Experimentation with real hardwareo Results from Embedded Systems Lab@Home innovation project.o Up-to-date wireless sensor networks (WSN)o Electronics components (e.g. transistors)

• Different kind of experimentso Microcontroller programming.o Radio chip programming.o Sensors interaction.

• Communityo Wiki / videos available to build a community around the WSN field to share obtained expertise.


03Security Remote Lab

• Online 24/7 access to a real networking simple configuration.

• Students didn’t know internal network architecture , only some basic parameters “You have a laboratory to try our studied techniques, with machines at IP’s x.x.x.x”.

LabSeg1

LabSeg2

LabSeg3

Firewall

Internet


03Security Remote Lab II

• Some of the infrastructure is created dynamically via virtual machines, to provide multiple instances of different operating systems and database servers.

LabSeg 1

LabSeg3

Seg Sistemes Operatius

Virtual Servers

LabSeg2

Seg Bases de Dades

Virtual Servers


04NetLab (Remote networking Lab)

• Online 24/7 access to a Cisco networking lab, that is available to the students to implement dynamic configurations of switches and routers, with different subnets schemes.



05Automatic Assessment Tool for a Virtual Programming Lab

AAT is a web-based grading system that carries out the source code in the programming assignment.

AAT process consists of the compilation and execution against test data and user-specified data (benchmark).

05Automatic Assessment Tool for a Virtual Programming Lab

The AAT also provides the teacher with all test reports of the students.



Virtual Labs: Multimedia

Cesar Córcoles

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Multimedia Labs

I. Virtual Resources: Virtual Labs in CMTSMultimedia

Multimedia Labs

• Physics• PHP+MySQL

• Interface design tools• Web design tools• 3D Graphics tools• Imaging tools


Multimedia Labs


Multimedia Labs

• Basic FTP and HTTP

• comoras.uoc.edu (PHP+MySQL)

• Amazon EC2 (Linux system) administration


Multimedia Labs

Arduino for Interaction Design


Multimedia Labs



Virtual Labs: Telecommunication

Carlos Monzo

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• Hardware and software experimentation

• Development of practical competences

• Experiments can be accessed from anywhere

• Three available laboratory typologies for hands-on student experimentationo Simulation Lab: Use of software (including license management) and simulationso Home Lab: Hardware (and its associated software) is physically sent to studentso Remote Lab: Remote hardware access

I. Virtual Resources: Virtual Labs in CMTSTelecommunication

01Simulation Lab

• Use of software and simulationso Online software license managemento Online/Offline software and simulations execution

• 24/7 resource access from anywhere

• Online access control to high cost software licenses

• High computational cost applications by means of online execution • Different experiments can be performed in simulation lab

o Signal processing (e.g. Matlab)o Electronic communications (e.g. Matlab)o Microwave circuits analysis and simulation (e.g. ADS)o Digital electronics (e.g. Xilinx ISE)o Etc.


02Home Lab

• Experimentation with real hardwareo Experiments board with PC USB-connectivityo Electronics components (e.g. transistors)

• Measurement and generation equipments are providedo Basic measurements: multimetero Advanced measurements: digital oscilloscopeo DC power supply (±15V, ±5V and +12V)o Function / Arbitrary waveform generator

• Portable deviceso Experiments can be performed anywhere

• Different experiments configurationso Very first contact with Electronicso Complex experiments depending on subject needs


03Remote Lab

• Online 24/7 access to real hardware and signals from anywhere

• Oriented to high cost and complexity experimentso High cost devices: e.g. radio transceivero High complexity: e.g. fiber optics

• Different kind of experiments can be performedo Communication systems (NI Elvis/Emona DATEx)o Fiber optics (NI Elvis/Emona FOTEx)o RF communications (RF NI USRP)o Digital Electronics (NI FPGA Board)o Etc.

• Resource access is controlled in terms ofo Scheduling (i.e. booking system)o Connection and use (i.e. remote control)


II. Innovation projects

CMTS Projects

David Masip

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II. Innovation projects: CMTS Projects

CMTS Projects (Innovation projects developed inside the CMTS)

CMTS Professors have a strong leadership in innovation projects inside the University and in external public calls

•Approximately 25% of the proposals of the last APLICA call belong to the CMTS.

Main innovation goals for the short and mid-term future:

•The construction of an innovation map linking all the past and current projects developed in the CMTS.•Develop a taxonomy of the projects and identify areas and synergies among groups from the CMTS.•Bring this innovation projects to the Virtual Classroom

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Main areas: Students evaluation and assisted self assessment

CMTS teaching staff use their TIC technical skills to develop Ad Hoc tools to solve our students special needs.

• CMTS students deliver a final degree project: We have developed an environment for virtual dissertations of final degree projects: Present@.

• Students evaluation: Some of the subjects taught allow for automatic assessment of the contents. We used WIRIS and MoodleQuizzes to evaluate specific topics.

• The quizzes give immediate answers to students to know their qualifications.

• Each student faces a personalized Quiz, which is conveniently parameterized to be unique in the virtual classroom.

• The quizzes are used first predagogically providing a training step with personalized feedback about the correct solutions and the wrong steps taken.

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Main areas: New Educational resources, repositories and multimedia rich contents

Many CMTS professors develop specific tools for their subjects, which are used in designing:

• Knowledge repositories• New forums with advanced properties (opinion mining, rating, collaborative,…)• Microblogging• Multimedia educational resources: hypervideo and virtual scene personalization• Circuits verification and simulation• Educational services

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Main areas: Mathematics and specific problematics

CMTS staff and students must face extra difficulties based on the specific contents of their curricula and their languages. Some relevant initiatives are:•Introduction of mathematic formulae in the virtual campus•Locution of mathematical contents•Handwritten Math Recognition•eLearning of logics•Math video lectures

http://cimanet.uoc.edu/DistribucioNormal/

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CMTS Innovation and research

The whole UOC is a living Lab for doing research on elearning topics and innovation. Many CMTS members are also enrolled in the eLearn research center and focus their research projects on improving the virtual campus and developing new innovation tools. This research covers areas such as:

• Collaborative learning• Datamining in virtual campus Logs to analyze:

• Students drop rates• Academic results• Demographic and marketing data.

• Free Software and open courses• Repositories of open learning objects

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OUC Projects

Muriel Garreta / Francesc Santanach

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OUC Projects

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Thank you very much for you attention!

Marta Borràs, [email protected]

César Córcoles, [email protected]

Toni Espadas, [email protected]

Muriel Garreta, [email protected]

Josep Jorba, [email protected]

David Masip, [email protected]

Carlos Monzo, [email protected]

Joan Antoni Pastor, [email protected]

Josep Prieto, [email protected]

Francesc Santanach, [email protected]

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a tour of the open university of catalonia (uoc)

Education

virtual campusoverviewcampus

virtual campusoverview

uoc campus

toni espadas virtual

castelldefels campus

elearning tools

uocs lms

concurrent users