What are the UOC's learning resources like?
Subject: Multidisciplinary
More than 5,000 authors from 42 countries have taken part in preparing new resources.
The UOC provides students with all the teaching resources they may need during the academic year, such as ebooks and ejournals, videos and software. All this content, in its different formats, makes up their learning resources.
Some are created by the UOC itself at the request of teaching staff, with the University acting as a publisher or producer. They are commissioned from experts in the different subjects studied in its classrooms. Over the course of the last decade, more than 5,000 authors from 42 countries have taken part in preparing new resources.
For the start of this academic year, 1,661 resources have been created or updated. In total, our classrooms have 20,311 resources that have been tailor-made to ensure that our students can meet the challenges posed by each course. The contents are multi-device, meaning they can be read and synced between different devices, thereby optimizing study time.
In addition to the learning resources directly commissioned from authors, there are others already on the market that the University makes available to students by purchasing licences or managing usage rights.
40 different kinds of formats
Each classroom's Resources area features digital learning resources chosen by teaching staff as being most suited to the course. The formats used include:
Videos (interviews, reports, discussions, talks, etc.)
Academic articles
Text-based modules
Ebooks
Websites
Real-life case studies
News archives
Statistical data
Infographics
Company reports
Legislation, regulations and jurisprudence
Software
Psychological tests
Video games on the Steam platform
Films on movie platforms
Our catalogue of resources is periodically updated, and we are always studying innovative solutions to meet the needs of the university community.
What's more, the Library's digital collection is regularly updated with dozens of platforms, ebooks and ejournals specializing in your fields of study. Last year, the UOC community carried out around four million downloads.
Some examples of our resources
Here are just a few of the learning resources produced by the UOC that will be helping students learn this semester.
For example, in the Applied Ethics in Social Education course (on the Bachelor's Degree in Social Education) two audiovisual resources in different formats are used to help students consider ethics in professional practice.
The most recent one consists of a discussion with experts in applied ethics. Taking part are Jesús Vilar, PhD in Education, professor at Ramon Llull University and the UOC, and coordinator of the Ethics Committee of the Catalan Institute of Social Educators; Begoña Roman, PhD in Philosophy, professor of Philosophy at the University of Barcelona, and chair of the Ethics Committee of the Social Services of Catalonia, and Josep Ramos Montes, psychiatrist and member of the Bioethics Committee of Catalonia and of the Ethics Committee of Catalonia's Social Services. The discussion's moderator is Joan Canimas Brugué, PhD in Philosophy, trainer and advisor, professor at the University of Girona and the UOC, and member of the Ethics Committee of Catalonia's Social Services.
As part of the same course, students also watch a video, Decidir por otro (Deciding for Someone Else), created by the UOC, in which actors depict independence-related ethical issues in decision-making regarding a dependent person.
For the class in Cognitive Neuroscience (in the University Master's Degree in Cognitive Neuroscience), a series of animations, La Galaxia Neuronal (The Neuronal Galaxy) has been prepared. A spaceship guides students as they learn, in a highly visual way, the basic concepts of neuronal connectivity and the organization of the central nervous system.
As part of the same programme, the course Child Neuropsychology, uses an interactive infographic, with the keys to neuropsychological rehabilitation. With each click they make, students open up new content.
For the Strategic HR Management course (from the University Master's Degree in Human Resources Management), we have prepared a series of interviews in podcast format conducted by Eva Rimbau, professor at the Faculty of Economics and Business. The interviewees, senior human resources managers, explain their role in their organization's strategy.
For the School Organization and Educational Settings course (from the new Bachelor's Degree in Primary Education), interviews have been recorded to help students draw up their own personal definition of educational quality: one is with Xavier Chavarria, professor at the UOC and Chief Inspector of Education in Barcelona, and the other is with Jordi Serarols, Inspector of Education in Barcelona.
In many courses, software is essential for putting the subject matter's concepts into practice. Examples include the statistics tool SPSS, frequently employed in the Faculty of Psychology and Education Sciences, the Adobe Creative Cloud package (which includes Photoshop and Illustrator) and the MATLAB mathematics system, which is used in the Faculty of Computer Science, Multimedia and Telecommunications.
More than half our courses are now working with the new model for learning resources
This semester, 1,755 courses offer learning resources in the new Niu mosaic format.
This change in model forms part of the redesign of our courses and has the goal of helping students to learn by resolving challenges or completing activities linked to professional practice. All our courses will gradually offer their resources in this way.
