Training and resources

The UOC organises a series of actions intended to provide visibility to matters of interest to people involved in R&I activity, whether from the institution or from outside. The idea is to bring the reality of R&I closer to its target audience by organising events, talks and activities in general.

The Open Thoughts blog is a space for experts and well-known international personalities to share synergies on a specific theme related to the R&I activity carried on at the university. 

The first of these blogs is related to gender and Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs). Open Thoughts 2012 is a website guided by the Gender & ICT group from the UOC’s IN3 research centre to give this up-to-the-minute research visibility at international level. 

The final intention of the action is to approach the Gender and ICTs theme in society in general and to highlight the leading research being carried out on this thematic area at the UOC. Neelie Kroesvice-president of the European Commission and head of the Digital Agenda for Europe (2012-2020); Mary Evans, lecturer at the London School of Economics’ Institute of Gender in the United Kingdom; Rebecca George, at Deloitte and head of the practices department of the National Health Service in the United Kingdom; Inger Lassen, lecturer in the Department of Culture and Global Studies at Aalborg University in Denmark are among the international collaborators and experts who have participated in the blog. In addition, Juliet Webster, from the UOC’s Gender and ICT programme, who also carries on her activities at Work & Equality Research in Britain, and Eduard Aibar, lecturer in the Department of Arts and Humanities at the UOC, have also written.

Ready for a SMARTer world? That’s the question that the contributors of the second Open Thoughts blog try to answer. The blog, opened in February 2013, is dedicated to the role of technology in making someone's decisions more effective, at any level.

Its first collaborations include the post of Ángel A. Juan, Associate Professor of the IN3, who handles the distribution of technological research as a source of global knowledge, or Aleix Valls, director of the Mobile World Capital, who shares his point of view on a video interview.

"How many peers does it take to change a light bulb?" On Open Thoughts blog 2014 edition, the UOC launches a debate on peer production on digital platforms and explores the possible dangers and benefits of this way of working. This initiative is being carried out through the third edition of the blog, where international experts from the academic, business and sociocultural worlds will try to answer the question “How many peers does it take to change a light bulb?”

Each day we generate a huge amount of data. Companies and organizations now have access to this so-called big data, which, once processed and analysed, could lead to more personalized services, even in education. Indeed, one of the aims of the new Open Thoughts Big Data & Analytics blog is to invite debate among international experts on the impact of big data and analytics in a range of sectors, and education in particular. The blog will ask a number of experts from around to world to answer the question “are big data and analytics shaping a smarter society? ” and to analyse the advantages and disadvantages of these technologies.

This blog is led by Ángel A. Juan alongside Julià Minguillón, lecturer in the same department and researcher at the eLearn Center.