Recursos

El presente artículo describe la experiencia personal en el uso de Moodle en la carrera de Bachillerato en Informática Empresarial en la Sede de Occidente de la Universidad de Costa Rica. Se destaca aquí las facilidades que proporciona como una propuesta de evaluación emergente a través de diferentes funcionalidades tanto para la interacción con los estudiantes como las alternativas que ofrece a los procesos tradicionales de evaluación. Se busca además compartir los resultados y logros obtenidos con su uso a lo largo de los años en los diferentes cursos de la carrera.

En la actualidad, se ha promovido con ma ́s fuerza el estudiar con detalle la situación de género en carreras de ciencia, tecnología, ingeniería y matemáticas (STEM por sus siglas en Ingle ́s). Cada día, los perfiles asociados con estas carreras han empezado a ser ma ́s demandados por las organizaciones debido a la idoneidad que estos tienen para desempeñar actividades laborales en la era digital. Debido a ello, existe un creciente interés por analizar la brecha de género en este tipo de carreras a nivel universitario. En este artículo se presenta un análisis acerca de carreras STEM a nivel de pregrado y grado que se imparten en el Departamento de Ciencias Naturales de la Sede de Occidente de la Universidad de Costa Rica durante el periodo 2000 a 2018. Resultados obtenidos evidencian que existe una disminución en la presencia de mujeres en las carreras analizadas, as ́ı como mayor efectividad en graduarse por parte de las mujeres cuando se enfrentan al reto académico de finalizar carreras STEM. Estos resultados sirven de motivación para potenciar su participación e incentivar su permanencia dentro de esta a ́rea.

Background: Monitoring of patients may decrease treatment costs and improve quality of care. Pain is the most common health problem that people seek help for in hospitals. Therefore, monitoring patients with pain may have significant impact in improving treatment. Several studies have studied factors affecting pain; however, no previous study has reviewed the contextual information that a monitoring system may capture to characterize a patient’s situation.

Objective: The objective of this study was to conduct a systematic review to (1) determine what types of technologies have been used to monitor adults with pain, and (2) construct a model of the context information that may be used to implement apps and devices aimed at monitoring adults with pain. Methods: A literature search (2005-2015) was conducted in electronic databases pertaining to medical and computer science literature (PubMed, Science Direct, ACM Digital Library, and IEEE Xplore) using a defined search string. Article selection was done through a process of removing duplicates, analyzing title and abstract, and then reviewing the full text of the article.

Results: In the final analysis, 87 articles were included and 53 of them (61%) used technologies to collect contextual information. A total of 49 types of context information were found and a five-dimension (activity, identity, wellness, environment, physiological) model of context information to monitor adults with pain was proposed, expanding on a previous model. Most technological interfaces for pain monitoring were wearable, possibly because they can be used in more realistic contexts. Few studies focused on older adults, creating a relevant avenue of research on how to create devices for users that may have impaired cognitive skills or low digital literacy.

Conclusions: The design of monitoring devices and interfaces for adults with pain must deal with the challenge of selecting relevant contextual information to understand the user’s situation, and not overburdening or inconveniencing users with information requests. A model of contextual information may be used by researchers to choose possible contextual information that may be monitored during studies on adults with pain.

Human posture and activity levels are indicators for assessing health and quality of life. Maintaining improper posture for an extended period of time can lead to health issues, e.g. improper alignment of the vertebrae and accelerated degenerative disc. This, in turn, can be the cause of back pain, neurological deterioration, deformity, and cosmetic issues. Some wearable prototypes have been proposed for spine posture monitoring, however, there has not been enough consideration for the users’ experience with these devices, to understand which characteristics are central to acceptance and long-term use. This paper presents a prototype of a low-cost spine posture wearable, along with its preliminary evaluation, which aims both to confirm that the wearable can measure spine posture and to evaluate user experience with this device. The results show that the wearable was comfortable, causing a sensation of security, and that feedback to users would be needed to help improve posture. Further work is required to make sure the device is easy to put on and remove, and discreet enough to be worn in public.

This article has the objective of presenting the experience gathered in the application of supervised business internship projects. These internship programs are part of the Bachelor in Business Computer Science program taught at the university of Costa Rica (Western Campus). This essay shows the way in which best practices can be applied when managing projects in instances that combine the academic field and the business sector of Costa Rica.

El presente artículo presenta los resultados de la autoevaluación que, con miras a la acreditación, se realizó en la carrera de Bachillerato en Informática Empresarial en la Sede de Occidente de la Universidad de Costa Rica. Para eso se utilizó la técnica del FODA, ya que ésta permite conocer la situación inicial, facilita una mayor participación de las personas involucradas en el proceso, brinda la retroalimentación de la información a las distintas poblaciones, incentiva la autocrítica dentro de la Unidad Académica y suministra espacios de discusión. El identificar y analizar las principales fortalezas y debilidades de la carrera resultó fundamental en la autoevaluación ya que son insumos a tomar en cuenta en el mejoramiento continuo de la calidad de la educación superior en general y de la mencionada carrera en particular

Developing high levels of competence in the execution of surgical procedures through training is a key factor for obtaining good clinical results in healthcare. To improve the effectiveness of the training, it is advisable to provide feedback to each student tailored to how the student has performed the procedure on each occasion. Current state-of-the-art feedback is based on Checklists and Global Rating Scales, which indicate whether all process steps have been carried out and the quality of each execution step. However, there is a process perspective that is not captured successfully by these instruments, e.g., steps performed, but in an undesired order, group of activities that are repeated an unnecessary number of times, or an excessive transition time between two consecutive steps. In this research, we propose a novel use of process mining techniques to effectively identify desired and undesired process patterns regarding rework, the order in which activities are performed, and time performance, in order to complement the tailored feedback for surgical procedures using a process perspective. The proposed approach was applied to analyze a real case of ultrasound-guided Central Venous Catheter placement training. It was quantitatively and qualitatively validated that the students who participated in the training program perceived the process-oriented feedback they received as favorable for their learning.

Pain is usually measured through patient reports during doctor visits, but it requires regular evaluation under real-life conditions to be resolved effectively. Over half of older adults suffer from pain. Chronic conditions such as this one may be monitored through technology; however, elderly users require technology to be specifically designed for them, because many have cognitive and physical limitations and lack digital skills. The purpose of this article is to study whether mobile or wearable devices are appropriate to self-report pain levels and to find which body position is more appropriate for elderly people to wear a device to self-report pain. We implemented three prototypes and conducted two phases of evaluation. We found that users preferred the wearable device over the mobile application and that a wearable to self-report pain should be designed specifically for this purpose. Regarding the placement of the wearable, we found that there was no preferred position overall, although the neck position received the most positive feedback. We believe that the possibility of creating a wearable device that may be placed in different positions may be the best solution to satisfy users’ individual preferences.

Diaries allow users to record personal events and experiences, and are frequently used to collect participant data in user studies. Digital diaries have several benefits over traditional paper-based diaries, reducing respondents’ burden, administrative costs, and improving navigation. However, for elderly users, there are several challenges in the use of a digital diary: they may have cognitive and motor impairments, and fewer digital skills than other populations. We implemented a digital diary called InMyDay, specifically designed for elderly users. The goal of this diary is to promote self-care and self-reflection, by allowing users to register their activities and emotions. Ten elderly users tested the diary for five days, recording entries related to their days and how they felt. All of the participants used the diary every day and after the experiment, nine declared that they would use such an application at least once a week. We found that the diary promoted reflection, that users felt that this allowed them a moment of self-care during their day, and that they felt this was especially important for them as elderly people. Future work will focus on increasing the number of participants and emotions that may be reported and exploring new mechanisms of interaction.

This essay has the purpose of presenting the results of a work performed as part of Third International Business Process Intelligence Challenge. This challenge presents an event log from Volvo IT Belgium Company related with incident and problem management, focusing on a couple process owner ́s questions. The authors of this document present the analysis realized applying different kind of tools and process mining techniques in order to solve the challenge presented. We provide an analysis, which discovered behavior characteristics, associated with products, resources and organizational lines. The results obtained provide useful information that Volvo can use to have more knowledge about the process that they are executing and have more information to make decisions and improve the actual process.