The international consortium NMC selects the UOC to translate a prestigious report on libraries
The international body New Media Consortium (NMC), with headquarters in Houston (USA), brings together around 100 universities worldwide and regularly publishes the Horizon reports. These reports, devoted to analysing the impact of emerging technologies on learning, are considered essential for assessing and projecting trends in technology applied to university teaching worldwide. For the second year running, a report has been published devoted to university libraries, which analyses the key trends in this sector. The report is published in English by the NMC, in Chinese by the Beijing Open University, and in Spanish and Catalan by the UOC.
Ciro Llueca, director of the UOC Library believes that taking on this role "is a good indication of the high level of cooperation that we have established with this consortium, and of our level of commitment to Catalan- and Spanish-speaking universities". He considers that it is, furthermore, "a magnificent letter of introduction" for the alliances the UOC is building with university libraries in Colombia, Peru and Mexico.
The report is the result of participation by 53 experts drawn from libraries, consortia and associated companies from 16 countries, and it centres on the trends that accelerate the integration of technologies, the challenges hindering their adoption, and important technological developments. For each of these issues, a short-, medium- and long-term analysis is presented.
Among the factors analysed are the generalization of open access tools and policy, the adoption of e-learning, data management and the interoperability of research tools, as well as the integration of Latin American universities into international research.
The Horizon report also makes reference to the improvement in information skills, the integration of libraries into research and course plans, and the adoption of automatic learning systems.
Lastly, the report calculates that by 2020 80% of the world's population will own a mobile device, and for this reason stresses that content and service development needs to maximize the emphasis on making it mobile.
About the Library
The Virtual Library of the UOC forms part of the University's teaching model and is a key support service for learning, teaching, research and management, which the University provides for its community. The library was created and developed on the Internet, right from the UOC's foundation. It is, therefore, a tool that exists in, and for, the virtual environment, designed to satisfy the needs of the UOC's own users as well as the wider community of all those who carry out their research, training and academic documentation online.
What is the NMC?
The New Media Consortium (NMC) is an international body with headquarters in Houston (USA) which brings together around 100 universities worldwide, including the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), the Instituto Tecnológico y de Estudios Superiores de Monterrey, Princeton University and Yale University, as well as the UOC.
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