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Friday May 20, 2022 at 11:54

The URJC wins the '@aslan' award for the second consecutive year

The Rey Juan Carlos University has won the award thanks to its project 'Digital transformation of university classrooms for the virtual collaboration of students and professors'.

Raúl García Hémonnet/Editor

For the second consecutive year, the URJC has won the '@aslan' award for Digital Transformation in Public Administrations, in the category of Digital Transformation in Education. The award was presented on May 18 in the framework of the #ASLAN2022 Congress, a reference in the sector, in an edition in which 67 initiatives from 49 administrations and public bodies were received.

For Alberto Sánchez, vice-rector for Digital Transformation and Teaching Innovation, "it is a pride and an honor to receive such a consolidated award, with fourteen editions, and which recognizes the efforts of companies and public bodies in the implementation of new technologies for the improvement of citizen services, cost optimization and efficiency, highlighting this year the alignment of the finalist projects with the objectives of the NextGeneration EU Funds”. The Vice Chancellor adds that “the award received means recognition of all efforts made to transform the entire URJC university community in recent years. It is one of the most inclusive projects that we have tackled from the Office of the Vice President for Digital Transformation and Teaching Innovation, since it covers both the technological and methodological improvement aspects, and different teams from the University have been involved transversally, with their good work, such as Audiovisuals, Microinformatics and the Center for Teaching Innovation and Digital Education (CIED), among others. Herein lies precisely its strength and value. It has shown the great capacity for transformation that the University has if we work together”.

A XNUMXst century university

The award-winning project consists of a 4-year plan to transform the 400 teaching spaces available at the Rey Juan Carlos University into multifunctional classrooms, and which are close to 100% occupied due to the use of our 49.000 undergraduate students. master's and doctorate.

It began in July 2020 as a response to the reflection that accelerated with the arrival of the COVID-19 pandemic on the need to modernize teaching spaces at the University and adapt them to the requirements of the XNUMXst century teaching process.

This digital transformation has made it possible to create multifunctional teaching spaces for self-recording, content generation and digitization with: 'streaming' of classes with automatic follow-up of speakers; ambient microphone with speaker detection; two-way audio to enable remote attendees; blackboard digitization; automation of recordings; high connectivity of external equipment; smart lighting; electrification of classrooms and removal of architectural barriers, among other improvements.

The project has had different technological 'partners': Telefónica and Ruybesa for the development of the pilot classroom, and Teknoservice for the hardware installation in the classrooms together with the audiovisual team of the Rey Juan Carlos University, and Microsoft as an integrator of services based on in Teams in classrooms. The technology used has important manufacturers in the sector such as Lightware, Aver, EXTRON or Sennheiser.

To date, more than 100 classrooms have been digitized (more than 25% of the total URJC teaching spaces), as a result of the first tender (processed between September and December 2020) and the process of electrification and de-anchoring is underway. of furniture in those that are necessary. Currently, the digitization of another 100 classrooms corresponding to the second year of the project has already been put out to tender, incorporating improvements and learning from the previous tender.

The award jury, according to a press release, “recognizes the successful cases of Digital Transformation in the Public Administration in Spain and the efforts of those responsible who have led them to provide better services to citizens, improve efficiency and optimize costs [ …] has especially valued success stories aligned with the objectives of the Next Generation EU Funds, and those related to the digital job, cybersecurity or integration with public services from the cloud, which have facilitated important advances in the digitization of citizen services”.

Cultural change

According to the vice-rector's office, the digital transformation process promotes an important component of cultural transformation, enabling teachers to use innovative teaching methodologies and the adaptation for students to new teaching scenarios by being at the forefront of hybrid teaching.

It also represents a benefit to the entire university community and quality education, by promoting the digitization of teaching information thanks to the use of the digital whiteboard. And finally, it will facilitate the incorporation of the Rey Juan Carlos University in consortia of European Universities and will improve interactions with foreign universities and speakers.

It is the second consecutive time that the URJC has won this award, both awards make visible and value the work of the Rey Juan Carlos University as one of the benchmarks in public higher education in terms of infrastructure and teaching innovation , rewarding projects whose scope has been radical, affecting the entire university community. Specifically, the development of these proposals has allowed the University to advance in multiple areas and position itself at the forefront of electronic administration and hybrid teaching.

The Rey Juan Carlos University has been committed to the digital transformation of people for some time, the results of which can be seen in the definition of its 2020-2025 Digital Transformation Plan. "Technology, by itself, is not enough to ensure a good experience for its users, so technological development must not only be based on infrastructure improvements, but must also be associated with improvements in the processes that are digitized," he says. Albert Sanchez. That is one of the main objectives of the University with this plan, betting on the digital transformation of people, and "it seems that this philosophy and the good work of its members is bearing fruit with these awards", adds the vice-rector.

A comprehensive and long-term transformation

This award-winning experience is part of a broader process of digital transformation of the Rey Juan Carlos University, within the framework of which many other projects have already been developed and some have also been recognized with the prestigious @aslan award (in 2017 the @aslan for the MyApps application for virtualizing applications and desktops for teaching software, which is currently used for a week by 9.000 different students, with a total of 330.000 sessions).

For example, within the execution of the Electronic Administration plan to move towards a completely digital administration, the pillars have been built on which to subsequently build completely digital procedures. Thus, work has been done to create an infrastructure for printing, reprographics and digitalization of electronic documents, where the establishment and understanding of the concept of authentic copies is key in the transformation.

In general, there are different steps in the advancement in the digitization of people, infrastructures and processes of the URJC included in its Digital Transformation Plan on which we continue to work, in our clear commitment to quality and improvement of teaching and research activity and of management and administration.

The @aslan awards are granted by the association of the same name, which has more than 30 years of experience, with 166 associated technology companies and whose objectives include the dissemination of digital innovation to increase competitiveness in key sectors. of the economy in Spain.