Search

The International Paper Conservation Seminar has now been held as four face-to-face events and four online events. It is a three-day international event delivered in Spanish and Portugese with keynote talks from national and international conservation professionals from Mexico to Chile presenting projects covering works on paper in diverse formats including documents, photographs historic books, and artworks. Countries such as Argentina, Chile, Bolivia, Peru, Ecuador, Mexico, Paraguay, Uruguay, Colombia, Brazil, Spain and Costa Rica have sent delegates to discuss both the social and cultural aspects of conservation work. The seminar is a completely free event for its attendees. It is intended to be suitable for all, with high-level talks addressing issues of management, preservation, conservation, restoration and disaster recovery among many others. From the third event onwards, training workshops for basic treatments have been developed, with the participation of recognized conservation professionals from universities and international institutes, allowing the number of attendees to remain constant since the Covid-19 pandemic. It creates networks and fosters collaboration for professional and institutional projects. The seminars have generated a connected and active community of paper conservators in the region, aware of our limitations, and capable of solving problems collaboratively and according to local resources. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper considers the changing nature of internationalisation in higher education in response to the COVID-19 pandemic and how this change has required institutions to strengthen the case for internationalisation by linking it more explicitly to institutional purpose. It argues that this development requires institutions to formulate approaches to internationalisation that are explicitly linked to vision and mission statements, that often directly cite the support and development of society in general and local communities specifically, as strategic institutional priorities. In turn, this requires an examination of how internationalisation is addressed in strategic statements and the implications for practical delivery. The paper is underpinned by the authors' understanding of the nature and operation of institutions of higher education which is exemplified by the MARS model. It briefly describes this model and argues that within it, internationalisation activities should be seen as a transversal theme, which affects all operations of the institution in a coordinated matter, rather than an isolated or "exceptional" activity which can be allocated exclusively to specialised units such as the International Office--termed "exceptionalism". Exploring this theme further, the paper sets out how internationalisation should be embedded into all aspects of institutional operations in a way that is consistent with the hierarchy of priorities set out in the MARS model. A case study from Latin America in which this approach was adopted is presented in which some of the practical implications are considered. The paper concludes by exploring the implications of these outcomes and the potential for, and the nature of, future applications of the MARS model to the development and delivery of re-imagined internationalisation strategies in the post-COVID-19 world.

This article aims to list environmental practices used by Latin American companies in the pulp and paper industry, to create a list, through a scientific method, that can direct other researchers and managers interested in the subject. The research strategies used were bibliographic research and content analysis. The content analysis used 36 sustainability reports published by Latin American companies in the industry between 2018 and 2019. Although 264 companies were mapped, only 36 of them presented sustainability report possible to be accessed. Through the sample of 36 sustainability reports, 36 sustainable environmental practices were identified that could be grouped into five groups, namely: (1) Reuse of waste, efficiency in the production process and effluents treatment; (2) Preservation and area recovery; (3) Energy efficiency; (4) Initiatives with stakeholders; (5) Control of gas emission. Despite the exploratory nature, the information presented here can be used by managers in the area and researchers interested in improving environmental practices of the pulp and paper industry.

The proposition of thinking about the Organizational Studies from Latin America (LA) has as its premise to acknowledge that epistemology is political and that there exists an epistemology of domination which is inseparable from its material foundation. First, this essay discusses the meaning of LA, arguing that it is both a geopolitical space and a category of analysis. It then analyzes Organizational Studies in LA from the Brazilian perspective. Finally, the study emphasizes the importance of knowledge based on a critical ethic that contributes to make organizational processes that confront the multiple concrete expressions of coloniality visible, which be also relevant to struggling communities and collectives.

Global university rankings (GUR) have become increasingly influential as a proxy measure of higher education quality. The more recent development of regionalised forms of rankings has increased their global reach, drawing a greatly expanded range of institutions into their orbit. As a result, regionalised GUR have developed an increasing potential power to shape social perceptions, institutional actions, and everyday academic practices. In this paper, the perceived impact of regionalised forms of GUR is analysed from the perspective of Latin American higher education. Based on a critical meta-synthesis framed by a "glonacal heuristic" (Marginson and Rhoades, Higher Education 43:281-309, 2002), the tensions arising around the application of regionalised forms of global rankings are mapped. Specifically, the impact of rankings on conceptions of the mission of universities is foregrounded. The meta-synthesis identifies three primary tensions around the regional application of GUR in Latin American contexts: how conceptions of regional higher education quality are most effectively developed, how the local university is imagined under the weight of global expectations, and the relativised value of local agency in assessing quality outcomes. The findings suggest that GUR have created strong fissures in Latin American higher education regarding the missions of institutions, particularly in confronting the powerful hegemonies of the epistemologies of the Global North imposing themselves on Latin American higher education. The paper concludes that the stratification and social anxiety caused by the regional applications of GUR may not be necessarily productive in encouraging regional institutional diversity or in enhancing the local relevance of higher education.

Computer programming is a skill of increasing importance in scientific and technological fields. However, in introductory computer science (CS1) courses in higher education, approximately one in every three students fails. A common reason is that students are overwhelmed by an accelerated and inflexible pace of learning that jeopardizes success. Accordingly, in the computer science education literature it has been suggested that the pedagogical philosophy of 'mastery learning,' which supports students progressing at their own pace, can improve academic outcomes of CS1 courses. Nevertheless, few extended mastery learning implementations in CS1 have been documented in the literature, and there is a lack of guidance and best practices to foster its adoption. In this paper, we present a four-year action research study in which a modular mastery-based CS1 course was designed, evaluated and improved in successive iterations with cohorts of engineering freshmen in a Latin American research university (N = 959). In the first year of the intervention, only 19.3% of students passed the course in their first semester attempting it. In successive iterations, the instructional design, teaching and learning activities, course content, and course management were iteratively improved such that by the fourth year of offering 77.1% of students passed the course in their first semester. Over this period, course attrition was reduced from 25.0% to 3.8% of the cohort, and students' mean time spent in the course decreased from 23.2 weeks (SD = 7.38) to 14.9 (SD = 3.64). Results indicate that modularization for mastery learning is a viable approach for improving academic results in a CS1 course. Practical considerations towards successful implementation of this approach are presented and discussed.

As part of a recent change, Augmented Reality (AR) has filled engineering classrooms, being employed for various pedagogical purposes around the world. However, little is known about the different features and uses of this technology in Latin America. This Scoping Review asks how are educational AR systems designed, used and evaluated in the region, comparing this to the international literature. To address this question, we charted 36 conference papers and scientific articles, taking care of the quality gaps and methodological diversity within our sample. Our results show that, even though most converge on conventional research, design and pedagogical practices, engineering educators working at institutes are taking the lead of design, pedagogical and research innovation. Furthermore, we show that Latin-American literature distinctively reveals how teachers adapt to the particular contexts of teaching, and the special importance of the usually overlooked conference papers literature.

Research outputs are a form of testimony with researchers serving as expert testifiers. Research outputs align with philosophical understandings of testimony, as research represents an everyday, informal communicative act. If research outputs are a form of testimony, they are open to ethical and epistemic critique. The open access (OA) article processing charge (APC) in the Global South serves as an apt topic for this critique. The APC is a financial barrier to publication for Southern researchers, and thus raises problems around epistemic and testimonial injustice. The second half of this paper examines a variety of equity issues in prestige scholarly publishing and OA APCs, which are then more fully illustrated by the development of a hypothetical testimonial injustice case study focused on a researcher working in Latin America. Ultimately, I propose the following argument: If people use journal rankings as a guide to which testimony they should take seriously and the OA APC publishing model systematically excludes researchers from the Global South on non-meritocratic grounds, then the OA APC publishing model contributes to testimonial injustice. This paper is a philosophical, theory-based discussion that contributes to research about equitable systems of scholarship.

Evaluation has been expanding as an important discipline in Latin America, yet there are significant challenges regarding capacity development through educational and training initiatives in the region. This paper first analyzes the evolution and state of the field in terms of the teaching of, and training in evaluation in Latin America, with a special focus on young and emerging evaluators. The paper then draws on published literature, interviews with evaluation experts, and the results of a survey with VOPE leaders and a survey focused on young and emerging evaluators to illustrate Latin American evaluators' challenges and needs in terms of capacity building and training in evaluation. Lastly, this paper provides some examples of innovative activities and strategies that are being put in place by different actors to address training and teaching needs of Latin American evaluators.

In this paper, a quantitative, descriptive, and correlational research is carried out on the perceptions of the digital competence of Latin American engineering professors, their assessment of the didactic use of Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) in different didactic areas (interaction, communication, distribution, and administration and evaluation), and on the growth or decrease in the frequency of their use after the COVID-19 pandemic. In particular, the Latin American engineering professors' perceptions of digital competence is studied. Also, the existence of gender gaps (both in general and differentiating between private and public universities, and between professors with a more or less teaching experience) has been explored in the assessment of the perceptions of digital competence and the didactic use of ICT by engineering professors, as well as in the influence that the pandemic has had on the habits of ICT use. The results reveal that the use of ICT by engineering professors has achieved increases of over 40% in some educational activities due to the pandemic, and it has had a homogenizing effect on the frequency of use of ICT tools in the different activities. Female engineering professors have increased their use of ICT more than males, and engineering professors in private universities more than those in public universities. Consequently, it is suggested to the universities to reinforce the continuous training of engineering professors, considering the pedagogical specificities of engineering education and the necessary integration of ICT in the teaching activity of female engineering professors.

The purpose of this research paper is to investigate how technology has influenced the economic growth of developing countries and what steps are needed to be implemented in the regions of the world such as Latin America and Sub-Saharan Africa. The paper reflects the arguments and the conclusions brought up during the discussion with a student roundtable answering the general research question; 'Are certain developing countries doomed to remain emerging'? In answering this question, the group identified four factors for economic growth: (1) human resources, (2) natural resources, (3) physical capital and (4) technology. Of the four factors technology was the single most significant factor for economic growth in developing countries, although the others are just as important. The group concluded that countries that lead the world in generating advanced technologies and leveraging their full productive capacity can gain a strategic comparative advantage and become an advanced country. Innovation and entrepreneurship are crucial for long-term economic development.

This paper presents an explorative holistic analysis of digitally-constructed gamification processes in mathematics education. The main aim of this study is to identify the key issues, intentions and trends by examining peer-reviewed publications using a combination of social network analysis (SNA), computerized lexical analysis and content analysis. Research findings indicate that there is a growing trend in gamification in mathematics education (GIME) research. GIME is mostly employed in primary school level. It was also found that, numbers is the most gamified math topic. Another research finding reveals that the researchers mostly use gamification to improve mathematical problem-solving, math achievement and math performance apart from the motivation and engagement. According to SNA findings, the most strategic terms in GIME research are as follows; geometry, fractions, mobile-learning, gender-studies, human-computer interaction, intelligent tutoring systems and tangible user-interfaces. GIME research is mostly influenced by USA and Brazil hence, the developing countries have an increasing interest in GIME research. Finally, findings on general research discourse implies that the general discourse among the sampled papers is positive. The findings obtained in this study may be useful to improve mathematics education by mapping a research agenda for researchers and educators with the exploration of potentials of GIME research.

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to analyse through a systematic literature review the evolution of the theme of environmental social and governance (ESG) in universities, correlating variables and presenting a panorama for Latin American universities. Design/methodology/approach: This paper uses a systematic literature review approach. The Web of Science database was used for data collection, and a set of keywords (Environmental, Social and Governance × Universities) and a classification method were used, resulting in 111 articles classified in the Zotero software. After classification, these publications were analysed in the VOSviewer software. Findings: The main evidence about ESG and universities shows that its relevance has been growing worldwide with an emphasis on England, the USA, Spain, followed by Brazil in fourth place regarding the number of papers published worldwide. The most representative areas identified were governance, sustainability, higher education, sustainable campus, environmental science, ecology, science and technology. The journals presenting more published papers under the topic are "International Journal of Sustainability in Higher Education," "Journal of Cleaner Production and Sustainability." As for the most relevant authors, the Europeans Lozano and Leal Filho, Velasquez from Mexico and Brandli from Brazil were identified. As for institutions, the University Durham, State University System of Florida and State University of Campinas do Brazil stand out. Research limitations/implications: As the main limitation of the study is related to the sample of articles. This study is focused on the analysis of publications from the last decade, presenting only 111 results. However, this restriction in the timeline is justified as it is a new topic; this study was also limited to the use of a single database; in this sense, future research can carry out a more comprehensive review of the sustainability literature covering periods prior to a decade and an analysis in other databases. Originality/value: These results provide a basis for improving sustainability in universities and ESG in Latin America. It also allows to explore and reflect on several indicators, enabling the evaluation and planning of actions to improve competitiveness.

Purpose: Many studies have developed the corporate sustainability topic. The United Nations has implemented the 2030 Agenda and has brought "quality education" and "industry, innovation, and infrastructure" as two of the 17 Sustainable Development Goals. The educational processes in higher education can be focused on adding brand value and social value, and they can be promoting the social inclusion. In this sense, the purpose of this study is to answer some questions related to the corporate sustainability practices under the 2030 Agenda lenses in the Latin American higher educational scenario. After the literature review analysis, a conceptual framework was developed. Design/methodology/approach: This exploratory research study proposes an educational conceptual framework, improving the corporate sustainability under the 2030 Agenda lenses. A literature review was developed, involving the seven variables: "Latin America," "higher education," corporate social responsibility," "personal social responsibility," "corporate sustainability," "governance" and "sustainability." A matrix was developed with 25 variable combinations, connecting the seven variables. Three questions have been proposed and answered: "How much research has been developed in the Latin American higher education?" "How can the corporate social sustainability be applied in higher education?" and "Which perspectives can be considered?" Findings: The results of the literature review are presented through the number of papers found with the analysis of the year of publication and the conceptual background. A total of 524 papers were found. Of these studies, 49 addressed the Latin American panorama, 33 had a general approach and 16 promoted interactions between Latin American and European countries, as well as between regions and continents. Six topics emerged from the literature analysis: digital inclusion, internationalization, innovation, research, servitization and social inclusion. These topics are connected in the "discussion" section, and the educational conceptual framework shows the corporative perspectives on sustainability in higher education. Originality/value: This research study presents "A conceptual framework for the corporate sustainability higher education in Latin America" and it brings some discussion topics: digital inclusion, internationalization, innovation, research, servitization and social inclusion. These topics were identified through the literature analysis, and they were applied in the conceptual framework to improve the quality of education. The implications of this study are connected with the conceptual framework to promote the discussion topics. The implications involved the public and private governance spheres, third sector, as well as the professors, students and other stakeholders of higher educational institutions. These implications can represent an agent of positive change in the Latin American scenario.

The attitude towards ICT determines the amount of incentive for practicing with it, which may directly affect ICT literacy. So, students' attitude inter alia is one of the substantial building blocks of ICT literacy, which in turn is an important component of improved student achievement brought about by it. This paper is devoted to exploring the determinants of students' attitudes towards ICT. On recognizing the complexity of integration of ICT into education systems and unlike previous research that has largely focused on the idea that student's learning engagement can be boosted through the availability and use of ICT alone, this paper acknowledges that integrating ICT into education is a complex process and the link between supplying ICT resources and enhanced student attainment is far from straightforward. Using rich PISA 2018 survey data from N = 129,724 students in 47 countries/economies, the results from this paper indicate that girls have better attitudes towards ICT than boys; students in private schools have more interest in ICT than those in public ones; students using ICT outside of school for leisure have a higher level of interest; and students with higher levels of fear of failure are more interested in ICT.

Several studies have indicated that stakeholder engagement could ensure the successful adoption of learning analytics (LA). Considering that researchers and tech developers may not be aware of how LA tools can derive meaningful and actionable information for everyday use, these studies suggest that participatory approaches based on human-centred design can provide stakeholders with the opportunity to influence decision-making during tool development. So far, there is a growing consensus about the importance of identifying stakeholders' needs and expectations in early stages, so researchers and developers can design systems that resonate with their users. However, human-centred LA is a growing sub-field, so further empirical work is needed to understand how stakeholders can contribute effectively to the design process and the adoption strategy of analytical tools. To illustrate mechanisms to engage various stakeholders throughout different phases of a design process, this paper presents a multiple case study conducted in different Latin American universities. A series of studies inform the development of an analytical tool to support continuous curriculum improvement, aiming to improve student learning and programme quality. Yet, these studies differ in scope and design stage, so they use different mechanisms to engage students, course instructors and institutional administrators. By cross analysing the findings of these three cases, three conclusions emerged for each design phase of a CA tool, presenting mechanisms to ensure stakeholder adoption after tool development. Further implications of this multiple case study are discussed from a theoretical and methodological perspective.

The main theories of the thriving field of study of public policies have been formulated at institutions of developed countries, mostly by the American academy, based on the particular conditions of policy-making processes of their own country. However, its heuristic premises are considered, initially, as universal and are used extensively in teaching and academic studies around the world. This paper examines the complexities derived from the application of such predominant theoretical approaches to the study and teaching of public policies that are implemented in Latin American countries. Based on an extensive use of specialized literature, 10 public policy variables are identified and organized into two dimensions, one institutional and the other procedural. It is argued that the values of these variables in the countries of this region differ significantly from those observed in the United States, which reveals the explanatory shortcomings of those approaches to account for the particular modalities of public policymaking in these countries.