Current events

The aim of the dossier – coordinated by Ángel A. Juan and María Antonia Huertas, from UOC; Hans Cuypers, from Eindhoven University of Technology, and Birgit Loch, from Swinburne University of Technology, Melbourne – is to publish international best practices in the field, presenting both the theoretical models and specific pedagogical systems.

Mathematics: new challenges

In the new scenario created by the European Higher Education Area, mathematics teaching now needs to take on board concepts such as continuous assessment, student-centred learning or competencies, among many others. This leads to new challenges for education and training, where new technologies will play a vital role.

Researching with the technology

One of the articles presents the EarlyStatistics programme, an online course for statistics teachers based on participative and collaborative learning. Others focus on students' continuous self-assessment, analyse the advantages of Moodle quizzes when used in two university mathematics subjects or look in depth at the role of digital formative training based on experiences at a Dutch university. Another article examines the development of specific competencies in the field of mathematics and presents the IWT platform, which offers personalised teaching and learning experiences. The dossier is completed with a review of Teaching Mathematics Online: Emergent Technologies and Methodologies, the first book to look at mathematics and e-learning at university level.

Other contents

The journal also includes five articles on digital learning, which look at subjects such as preservation of learning objects in digital repositories, virtual campus teaching competencies, social networks in university settings and a project based on wiki technologies. There are also two book reviews: Superficiales. ¿Qué está haciendo Internet con nuestras mentes? by Nicholas Carr, and Diseño y moderación de entornos virtuales de aprendizaje (EVA) by Juan Eusebio Silva.

New features of RUSC

This first issue of the journal's ninth year has a series of new features including the new header, the adoption of the Digital Object Identifier (DOI) system and the possibility to print out the whole journal. Alongside these changes, RUSC has also improved the indexing references, which represents a further step towards the journal's internationalisation and its consolidation as a publication of reference.