The objective of this meeting was to publicize the initiatives and opportunities that are developed around the two concepts, in the different units of the ULS.

With a high participation of academics, researchers and officials from the different units of the University of La Serena, the first internal work day on “Data Science and Big Data” was carried out, which is related to different direct actions with information and high volumes of data generated by the institution.

During the day, managers and academics spoke, among them, the Director of the Information and Computing Center, Mg. Andrés Moya, who highlighted the great advances that the University has made in this issue and, above all, regarding information security, since the ULS is the first public university in the State that formed the information security committee.

"We have managed to form the first Information Security Committee of Chilean universities, this concept does not exist in any other higher education institution, everyone has what is called data protection (...) The University is going to begin to establish the protocols "before any event and will address official strategies to safeguard this information," Moya said in his speech.

Regarding the holding of this conference, the Vice-Rector for Research and Postgraduate Studies, Dr. Eduardo Notte, pointed out that “as a research policy we have focused research; However, there are emerging focuses according to the needs of the territory and where we are inserted, which is why we are involved with Big Data and Data Science, since researchers use a lot of data that must be transformed into valuable information for those who are interested. Since 2017, a group was formed to begin the application of some technologies that have given good development, and getting together today is very valuable.”

The institution, as a “complex” university, must stimulate the development of activities that go beyond teaching, placing emphasis on innovation along with the development of new technologies, promoting different areas of research. And it is from there that the concepts of Big Data and Data Science came to stay in the institution.

The increase in data produced by research, in the opinion of experts, is an important matter to address, and not only as an institution, but as a territory. Hence the relevance of this first meeting, which makes projects related to these topics visible and also allows the different initiatives to be socialized.

The activity was organized by the Vice-Rector for Research and Postgraduate Studies of this university in collaboration with the Research and Development Directorate, Data Science group and the Strategic Development and Quality Directorate, within the framework of the Mineduc BigData ULS1895 Project.

Written by Patricia Castro, DirCom

There are 12 educational establishments divided between the provinces of Elqui, Limarí and Choapa assigned to the program.

The Program for Effective Access to Higher Education (PACE ULS), within the line of the Preparation Component in Secondary Education (PEM), has continued with its work of accompaniment in educational establishments attached to the government secondary school.

In order to be able to complete the closures of activities scheduled for the year, the Secondary Education Support (PEM) team of the PACE ULS Program is developing meetings with the management teams and workshops with 3rd and 4th year students during the month of December. medium, with the aim of closing the 2018-2019 workshop cycle.

Given these visits, Jovanna González, PEM PACE ULS Academic Manager, expressed that “the meetings we are holding with the management teams will extend throughout December and focus on evaluating the work carried out in 2019 and projecting actions for 2020, considering the context. social of each commune that makes up the Coquimbo Region.”

In this context, it was agreed to hold closing workshops with the third and fourth year students of the twelve PACE ULS educational establishments. Juan Pablo Fajardo, PEM PACE ULS Psychosocial Manager, stated that “for us it is important to be respectful of the times and needs of the high schools with which we work, that is why we were evaluating with whom it was possible at the end of the year to carry out the workshop proposal. ”.

In parallel, the closing workshops for 3rd and 4th grade students have already begun, adding in some educational establishments to other levels, to generate an open dialogue regarding the current context that the country is experiencing. Given these actions, Fajardo argued that “it was necessary to resume our workshops, considering what the students and educational communities have experienced during the social outbreak, so we prepared a special session in which the students could express what they have experienced, the changes that they have seen in their communities and how they envision the next year, especially for those who are in 4th grade, since this must necessarily be considered in the strategies and actions of our program.”

On the other hand, before the end of the year, it is expected to close the activities of the PEM PACE Secondary Education Preparation component with the teachers of the high schools and schools, as a reflection of the work carried out in 2019, and to propose actions for the work 2020, which will culminate with the visit to the Liceo Municipal Polivalente de Salamanca and the Liceo Nicolás Federico Lohse Vargas de Los Vilos.

Written by Daniel Aguayo, PACE ULS Program

The work team presented various investigations, focused on health-related topics, during the two days of the Congress.

With the objective of encouraging and presenting research in teaching in academics focused on the area of ​​health, the Center for Research and Technological Transfer of Health Sciences, belonging to the Faculty of Sciences of the University of La Serena, participated in both days of the Higher Education Teaching Congress 2019, with great acceptance.

In this way, the academics presented various investigations, which took as their central axis undergraduate scientific research in the area of ​​health, ethics within clinical subjects and the emotional intelligence and self-esteem of students.

Due to its good reception, the work team hopes to once again present themes focused on the health area in the continuous improvement of curricular and pedagogical processes.

This Nucleus, made up of academics from the Kinesiology, Nursing and Dentistry careers, was created in March 2019 and has allowed interdisciplinary work and mutual support in the area of ​​health research and technology transfer at the ULS.

Explaining theoretically and accurately disseminating the implications of the challenges for updating the university statutes was the central objective of the three-state conversation organized by the Faculty of Engineering and the Faculty of Social, Business and Legal Sciences of the University of La Serene.

Academic and non-academic officials and students participated in a three-state discussion chaired by the Director of the Department of Architecture of the Faculty of Engineering, Alejandro Orellana Mc Bride, and the academic of the Law career of the Faculty of Social, Business and Legal Sciences, Germán Solís Godoy.

The instance allowed the ULS Law academic to explain the scope of the first transitional article of Law 24.024 on the adaptation of the current university statutes and the legal framework in which said process is subscribed to on campus.

“The statutes are our constitution, therefore, I would like everyone to be aware of what is being done and for everyone to participate by giving their opinion and thus avoid them appearing later when everything is done, because the opportunity for “Making improvements and including other spheres is now part of the due process,” said academic Solís.

Likewise, Alejandro Orellana spoke about the content and scope of the current statute that governs the University of La Serena and about the prospects and challenges that the Statute Commission has in developing one that responds to the tri-state needs and demands of today.

“I think the most important and difficult thing for an institution is to achieve consensus and agreements because that requires a lot of negotiation, a lot of generosity on the part of everyone involved at the tri-state level. Therefore, communication is very important, making known what is being done and giving space to listen to all opinions and all voices,” said the Architecture academic.

The event allowed for the generation of an enriching learning dialogue through a series of questions and deepening of doubts generated by those present from each level of the house of studies.

In this way, the Dean of the Faculty of Engineering, Dr. Mauricio Godoy Seura, agreed with the Dean of the Faculty of Economic and Legal Social Sciences, Dr. Luperfina Rojas Escobar, to continue with the joint work of faculties in favor of development of the three-state thematic conversations that allow information to be democratized for the entire university community.

The initiative of tri-state conversations is part of the efforts and commitments of the University of La Serena as an entity responsible for the dissemination of knowledge available to everyone and hopes to be an articulating part of the challenges facing the country.

Written by Paula Godoy, ULS journalist

In its first version, this meeting aims to become an academic space where research and experiences linked to teaching in higher education are presented and debated.

In order to develop various initiatives that strengthen the development of research in higher education, the University of La Serena, through its Academic and Research and Postgraduate vice-chancellors, held the First Congress of Teaching in Higher Education “Challenges of the research-undergraduate teaching relationship”, which seeks to position itself as a space where more than one hundred academics and researchers can present and debate work experiences linked to teaching in higher education.

The activity, which is added to the two academic writing courses held during 2019, was held on December 5 and 6 and had the participation of more than a hundred representatives from different universities in the region and the country. .

“We were surprised by the large number of works we received, the reception that this event has had from people has been quite positive and in light of this we hope to continue working on the development of this congress, strengthening what has already been done this year” , indicated the Vice-Rector for Research and Postgraduate Studies and president of the CODES organizing committee, Dr. Eduardo Notte, regarding the good reception that the first version of this event has had.

One of the speakers at CODES 2019 was the Director of the Teaching and Learning Center of the Faculty of Economics and Business of the University of Chile, Dr. Oscar Jerez, who gave a conference on the systematic analysis of teaching and its effects on learning of the students.

“The work carried out by the University of La Serena is important, since being a state university, it must be an engine for the development of instances focused on teaching, and with spaces such as this Higher Education Teaching Congress, among others, ULS has managed to stand out within this area at the national level,” said Dr. Jerez.

The topics addressed during this version were: interdisciplinarity in training, evaluation systems and monitoring of learning processes, incorporation of ICT in the training process, curricular innovation and inclusion.

Written by Tomás Rodríguez, DirCom

“General Topics of Astronomy” is the fourth and final course of the UnIVrso project. Registration is available through the website http://univrso.userena.digital/.

Strengthening Astrotourism in the Coquimbo Region through citizen training is the objective of the UnIVrso project, an initiative executed by the Digital Campus of the University of La Serena, which has given free courses on different Astronomy topics and developed a Reality application. Virtual that simulates the skies of the Region from the Tololo Observatory.

Precisely, this December 18, the latest massive open course (mooc) called “General Topics of Astronomy” begins, which is designed to “provide new tools to entrepreneurs, small and medium-sized companies that are developed in the area.” of tourism. It addresses topics such as night photography, Astromistral, topics relevant to the context of the Elqui Valley and topics related to thematization and setting in this area,” said Humberto Farías Aroca, Director of the UnIVrso project.

The curricular designer of this course, Daniela Poblete Mahuad, stated that the course is mainly designed to publicize and provide technical and practical tools on astrotourism. “We invite all entrepreneurs, tourism agents, tourism businessmen and those who are interested in this area,” adding that “the Coquimbo Region is considered the Star Region. We wanted to design a four-week sequence with themes that address what Astrotourism is, showing the state of the art of it. Astromistral, which teaches the stories of Gabriela Mistral inspired by the skies of our region and night photography, where there is a niche that we have to continue promoting within the region. This is the sequence, areas that the region benefits from Astronomy, which is not only astronomical observation, but other themes that affect regional tourism."

“General Astronomy Topics” corresponds to the latest course developed by the UnIVrso team, which covers “all the topics that may be relevant to astrotourism and the Coquimbo Region,” indicates the Director of UnIVrso. However, “we will continue to dictate them systematically over the next few years as part of the work of the University of La Serena,” he concludes.

It should be remembered that UnIVRso is part of the “Virtual Reality to reinvent Astrotourism” project, an initiative financed through the Innovation Fund for Competitiveness of the Regional Government of Coquimbo (FIC-R).  

Registration is available through the website http://univrso.userena.digital/.