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Impact of Teaching Workload on Scientific Productivity: Multidimensional Analysis in the Complexity of a Mexican Private University

Researchers primarily dedicate their time to teaching in Latin American universities. For this reason, it is essential to determine how teaching time affects (or contributes to) the scientific productivity of researchers working under these conditions. We analyzed the incidence of gender, groups taught at undergraduate and graduate levels, the researcher proficiency level, and the number of thesis students advised, among others, for the impact on the scientific productivity (annual publications) of a group of professors. We analyzed the data using both statistical and regression methods. Contrary to our initial hypothesis, the number of groups taught does not significantly influence research productivity; it is affected by other factors such as belonging to the Mexican Researcher System (SNI) or having a researcher or administrative position at the institution. Our results can help guide the formulation of academic and research policies that contribute to the scientific productivity of Latin American universities.

Influence of institutional seniority and type of ownership on university quality rankings: correlational analysis of Peruvian universities

This study evaluates the correlations between the universities' type of property (public, private associative and private corporate), institutional seniority (<20, 20–45 and >45 years) and the presence and position in national and international university rankings. It considers 90 Peruvian universities certified by SUNEDU (public agency for the accreditation of universities in Peru). According to their presence in 20 university rankings (yes/no) and the position (tertiles) in two world rankings: Webometrics and SIR Iberoamericano, four universities participated in 10 or more rankings and only 16 (18%) in six or more. The private corporate universities were the least old (p < 0.01). No association was found with the type of property both in the presence in rankings and in the positioning (p > 0.05), except in one where there was less participation of public institutions. Long-lived universities had higher participation and better positioning in rankings than those with less seniority (p < 0.01). The presence and better positioning in university rankings depend on institutional seniority and not on the type of ownership in Peruvian licensed universities. This research highlights the lack of equity in several international rankings for the evaluation of the quality of universities, in the respect that most of them give priority to aspects related to institutional seniority and size. At the same time, the results of younger and smaller institutions are not put into perspective.

Media competencies of university professors and students. Comparison of levels in Spain, Portugal, Brazil and Venezuela

Media competencies are a set of skills that every individual should possess in order to be able to consume and produce media and digital and information products in a critical and analytical way. This exploratory and comparative work analyses the level of media competence among 1,676 university students and 524 professors in Brazil, Spain, Portugal and Venezuela. One of the main results shows that the level of knowledge of technology and interaction — which is linked to digital competencies — does not depend solely on age, thus contradicting theories of digital natives and migrants. Our study also found that the general level of media competence is no better than medium to low when considering language, technology, interaction, production and dissemination, ideology and values, and aesthetics. These results point to the need to develop transversal actions for instructing both university professors and students in media competencies to face an ecosystem dominated by fake news and disinformation, as well as public policies directed at improving these skills among citizens at large.

The University as a Common Pool Resource

This book gathers the contributions of the Common Goods Research Group of the Salesian Polytechnic University, created in 2016 to deepen and identify the implications and possibilities of imagining the university as a "commons". This option must be explained as the connection of the use of the commons - as understood by Elinor Ostrom in her work The Governance of the Commons. The Evolution of Collective Action Institutions (2011) - with the possibility of rethinking the university across the board is neither immediate nor coincidental and, at first glance, such a connection sounds strange in times when we assess relevance based on evidence accessible at first glance.