Find terms
To search the names the UOC has given to its programmes, faculties, departments, units, offices, institutional bodies and certain positions, go to nomenclatura.uoc.edu.
These terms are given in four languages and are subject to updates in keeping with the University's constant evolution. Should you care to make any observations or suggestions, please write to serveiling@uoc.edu.
Name of the university
In all languages and contexts, the university's name is Universitat Oberta de Catalunya (it remains untranslated) or UOC.
In spoken English, the Universitat Oberta de Catalunya's abbreviated name is an initialism, so it is spelled out U - O - C (/juː - əʊ - siː/). This contrasts with usage in Catalan and Spanish, in which it is an acronym, pronounced /wɒk/.
UOC-specific capitalization
The UOC nomenclature uses title case for the names of:
- programmes, e.g. the Bachelor's Degree in Catalan Language and Literature;
- faculties, e.g. the Faculty of Health Sciences;
- administrative departments and units, e.g. the Globalization and Cooperation department or the Scientific Support Unit; and
- chairs, e.g. the UNESCO Chair in E-Learning.
This contrasts with the use of sentence case in the following contexts.
There is no need to capitalize generic references to words such as bachelor's or master's. For example:
Likewise, there is no need to capitalize the names of disciplines when referring to them generically. For instance:
This same logic can be applied to references to titles and ranks. Capitalize them when they refer to a specific person and could theoretically be replaced by that person's name without affecting the sentence's grammatical accuracy or meaning. Lowercase them when they are generic references to the office or position itself. Thus:
The Vice Rector for Research, Knowledge Transfer and Entrepreneurship described the new project to attendees.
For more information on the UOC's specific preferences with regard to capitalization, see the Capitalization section in Style.