UOC lecturer Albert Sangrà is considered a leading international expert on the use of information and communication technologies in education and training. In this interview, he reflects on key aspects of e-learning, including its conceptual foundation, modalities and influence on traditional campus-based universities. Dr Sangrà also addresses topical issues in this area, such as the development of massive open online courses (MOOC), development and assessment of competences in virtual environments, application of e-learning in companies, and collaboration between business and universities. The main conclusion drawn in the interview is that institutions that opt to focus on e-learning, whether or not they are universities, should do so in a strategic way. They also need to understand that e-learning is not just a matter of content development: it requires a specific teaching methodology and long-term planning. Also, despite the distance that has grown between companies and universities recently, he thinks they have no choice but to work together in this area.

The paper analyzes the role of e-vocational training in the achievement of new employability conditions that require the emergence of networking, knowledge economy and knowledge society. Under the analytical framework of skill biased technological change (e-SBTC) and from the results of three empirical analysis, four main conclusions have been obtained. First, e-vocational training is not yet strong enough to break the training gap. That is, e-vocational training of workers occurs mainly in more educated and digital skilled-based workers. Second, e-vocational training is revealed as a qualified instrument to improve employability, particularly on the dimensions of acquired skills and satisfaction with the educational design, but less with the training labour applicability. Third, the vast majority of firms, with no structural change, has a problem of relative over-education. That is, they don’t meet the association between a higher educational level and a higher wage. And fourth, although e-vocational training has made considerable progress as a tool to improve workers employability, it actually shows two major weaknesses: 1) the need to enlist more collectives of workers; and, 2) the need to promote e-vocational training as a lever on structural change in firms (complementary with organizational change and ICT uses).

This paper is part of the study on the validity, after a decade, of the transversal competences included in the design of the new degrees of the EHEA. It is based on a survey conducted among students, graduates and employers and on depth interviews with four CEOs of head hunters companies involved in the area of administration and management. The main resulting views are: there is a general consensus in considering the evaluation of all transversal competences as the axis of selection processes. Experts agree with considering both the teamwork and the development of international skills as predominant. They also show skepticism about the role of universities in the development of these abilities. Finally, they were particularly receptive to the importance of online learning, not only because of its advantages in terms of accessibility and compatibility with the profession, but also because it includes the development of skills, such as autonomy, the ability to critically analyze information, to organize work and for time management

Entrepreneurship has been from several years on the political agenda in many countries, since it is considered one of the main engines to promote, among others, innovation, competitiveness and job creation. In this sense, both public and private institutions offer training programs to increase entrepreneurship in general and specific programs for entrepreneurial population.

This article is a brief review of the current state of entrepreneurship education, with special emphasis on the situation of Spain compared to Europe. In order to achieve this goal and based on secondary sources, we present data regarding the percentage of training in entrepreneurship, the type of training and the levels of education in which this training is done. Then, we analyze the specific situation at university and the role of distance education.

The main results show that entrepreneurship training is widespread in both the general population and in the entrepreneurial population. Moreover, there is an overlap between the formal and informal training systems. Regarding the level of education, the school level and post-school level also overlap. Finally, we point out the heterogeneity of methodological approaches and content att universitiy level that influence the perceived low quality of the university and the concentration of training in economics and business faculties and business schools.

This article concludes that efforts must be made to adapt methodologies to a competencies approach in training programs, specifically at college level and expand education and training in entrepreneurship beyond the disciplines of Economics and Management. In this sense, distance education can help in increasing this training for other groups who so far are not sufficiently covered and contribute to increase the quality of training.

Business simulations or business games are increasingly used in classrooms around the world. This paper presents some concepts related to the growing use of gamification in the
classroom and proposes a terminology to help ensure their dissemination in a clear manner. The main advantages of the use of serious games in a teaching environment are presented in the results of an investigation that permanently studies the impact of the use of business simulations in the skills of the participants. The main advantages of the use of serious games in an educational environment are the ability to extend and deepen the knowledge acquired by participants through problem solving and decision making in real time, without affecting decisions or any critical key resources, and give more confidence to the participants to make critical decisions in the future. In the coming years, we will see an extension of the process of gamification and the use of simulators in teaching environments.

There is a high consensus in considering regulatory processes of learning as one of the key elements to ensure the knowledge attainment in distance university context, which allows students to periodically evaluate their learning process. In asynchronous learning environments, one of the normal strategies to facilitate this regulation is the use of feedback mechanisms between teacher and students. Though, in an environment with large groups of students, teacher feedback may become a tedious and unsustaianable task.

In this paper, we present the results of three pilot projects centred in the context of the Business degree from UOC, in which we have explored ICT tools (audio, video and screenshots) and differents stretagies to give feedback with the aim of improving the effectiveness and efficiency of the regulatory process of learning.