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This new online portal is the most important space to access the scientific production of the Universidad de La Frontera. |
The Office of Libraries and Information Resources (DIBRI) of the Universidad de La Frontera (UFRO) launched the online portal of academic journals, a new digital space that is meant to function as a unified and standardized access to all scientific journals developed at this university. The portal can be accessed through the website revistas.ufro.cl or through the website of the unit. “The Office of Libraries and Information Resources now also supports the work of the scientific journals of the university, as it also is the case at other important institutions for higher education in the world. Our purpose is to turn this unit into a legitimate internal interlocutor by specializing in the access and administration of top-level scientific production,” Dr. Carlos del Valle, the director of the Office of Libraries and Information Resources at the UFRO, said, and also thanked everyone who has been part of the development of this project. The website has been developed by the Office of Libraries and Information Resources within the framework of a Conicyt (Chilean Commission for Scientific and Technological Research) Project and includes three scientific journals: Journal of Soil Science and Plant Nutrition, Cubo. A Mathematical Journal, and Perspectivas de la Comunicación (Perspectives of Communication). In this regard, Dr. Alex Seguel, who is in charge of the project, explained: “This project has been financed by the Fund for the Publication of Science Journals of the Conicyt Program for Scientific Information. The idea was to strengthen three scientific journals of the Universidad de La Frontera through the increase of their international visibility, of the quality of the papers and to strengthen the publishing entities by improving the strategies of publication, especially by using the journal management and publishing system Open Journal System.” The Open Journal System (OJS) has been developed to expand and improve the access to research and allows to control the whole publication process, from the dispatch of the manuscripts, the revision by peers, the correction, diagramming, publication, indexing of the data bases and search engines, to the open access for any user. THE JOURNALS The recently launched online portal already contains fifteen journals of different fields of knowledge and even some historical publications, which have been recovered and digitalized for this purpose. It is a documentary and historical heritage that is now available for all users of the internet. According to the librarian Nicole Drouilly and the computer engineer Cristian Martínez, who have presented the characteristics of the portal and the way it works, the purpose is to nurture it with new publications that are going to be developed or already exist within the university. “It is in our interest that the editors and our team use the OJS tool. Therefore, we will make sure that they get the support they need. Some of the journals that are on the online portal are also on SciELO and other sites. In coordination with the editors, we care about including or duplicating them in this system, what will allow us to improve the communication and to make visible that they come from our university,” the librarian Nicole Drouilly explained. At the launching ceremony the director of the Scientific and Technological Bioresource Nucleus (BIOREN), Dr. Maria de la Luz Mora, was also present and said: “Since we started this project together, the idea has always been to get where we are now, with our work reflected on the online portal, having all publications in one place, visible for the whole world, thanks to this great initiative of DIBRI.” The editor of “Cubo. A Mathematical Journal”, Dr. Ruby Rodríguez, also referred to the online portal as “an excellent initiative” and added that they “have been working with the journal for a long time. We are very glad that we were able to establish this group within the university and that we could bring our scientific production together at one place.” Cubo is one of the oldest journals of the university and “thanks to this initiative, we were able to digitalize all articles since 1986 and to increase their visibility within the national and international mathematical community, what leads to more and better articles,” Dr. Ruben Sanchez, who was part of the initial coordination team and presented the origin of the online portal, explained.
Journals of the online portal: Current Scientific Journals Historical Scientific Journals
Written by: Katherine Chávez
Office of Libraries and Information Resources |
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At the national level, the Universidad de La Frontera achieved an approval rate of 56%, being the best university in Chile among the universities that sent in more than four project proposals. |
Lyophilizate with honey-flavored propolis, a platform to manage the work environment, the elaboration of healthy legume-based snacks and an innovative solution for osteoarthritis of the temporomandibular joint – these are some of the issues these eight project proposals of the Universidad de La Frontera (UFRO), that have been approved in the VIU (Valorization of Research in Universities) Stage 1 competition 2019 of FONDEF (Scientific and Technological Development Support Fund), deal with. These projects allow the UFRO to be in third place at the national level regarding the number of approved projects, and to value the theses and ideas of its undergraduate and graduate students. The VIU 2019 Stage 1 competition of FONDEF focuses on the elaboration of a work plan, a business plan, the formalization of an intellectual property agreement and the project preparation and defense, which will take place in December 2019 at the CONICYT (National Commission for Scientific and Technological Research) office in Santiago de Chile. Each of the projects received funding of 2 million Chilean pesos and has a 3 months completion deadline. The initiatives have the support of the Office of Innovation and Technology Transfer (DITT), through the Unit of Technology Transfer (UTT), regarding the development of business and work plans, as well as the implementation of a series of workshops, which aim at strengthening the innovation and entrepreneurship competencies of the beneficiaries. The eight projects are led by: Claudio Rojas, Fabiola Valdebenito, Consuelo Arias, Verónica Iturriaga, Joaquín Rilling, Cristina Mardones, Jennifer Silva and Matías Hernández. THE PROJECTS “Supplemented hyaluronic acid as a solution for osteoarthritis of the temporomandibular joint (TMJ)” is the name of the project led by Veronica Iturriaga, who is a dentist, specialist in TMJ disorders and a graduate of the UFRO Doctorate in Medical Sciences. She explained: “The objective is to address the treatment of joint diseases, in this specific case of TMJ, having in mind that the population is getting older and older. The idea is to promote a drug that is already available on the market – hyaluronic acid – and to add another compound to it, in order to improve its effects on the jaw.” Cristina Mardones, a psychologist with a Master in Total Quality Management Systems, leads the project called “Wave: Work environment management platform for complex organizations and universities”. Regarding the objectives of the project, she explained: “I am passionate about institutional management and its continuous improvement. That is why I am developing a software that efficiently measures the work climate and helps to manage it at the same time, so the organization gets healthier and the people who work in it feel better.” Project name: Hidatest: A fast, sensitive and specific diagnostic test for the diagnosis of hydatidosis Project name: Additive to improve the rheological properties of asphalt binders based on corn leaves and oat hulls Project name: Propo Health: Lyophilizate with honey-flavored propolis from the Araucanía Region Project name: Supplemented hyaluronic acid as a solution for osteoarthritis of the temporomandibular joint Project name: Development of a bioinoculant for wheat of easy traceability and colonization monitoring using CRISPR genes Project name: Wave: Work environment management platform for complex organizations and universities Project name: Elaboration of healthy snacks with high protein content and high amino acid quality based on the processing of flour from legume sprouts with quinoa and brown algae Project name: PhysLav VR: Interactive and immersive simulator for physics experiments
Written by: UFRO Communications Office
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The Universidad de La Frontera is seeking a permanent dialogue. In this context, the foreign students who are currently studying at the university were invited to an informative meeting with posterior conversations about the current situation in Chile. |
The purpose of this meeting, organized by the International Affairs Office and the Office for National and International Student Mobility of the Universidad de La Frontera (UFRO), was to understand the political and social episodes that have taken place in Chile during the last decades and that have originated the current public discontent and demonstrations all over the country. The psychologist Diego Espinoza and Claudia Mercado, a student of the doctorate in social sciences, were in charge of the presentation called “Social outburst in Chile” and contextualized the aspects with which the public discontent started, specifically the demands that involve the pension system, low and unjust salaries, access to health care services and coverage, the right of quality education, access to housing, the increase in basic services costs and the general rise in the costs of living, amongst others. The main purpose of this activity was, according to the speakers, to help the foreign students to understand what is happening and why this social explosion is taking place. “This is not just discontent as a phenomenon of crime and violence. It has a background that lies 40 years in the past, with processes that originated in the dictatorship,” the psychologist Diego Espinoza explained. It is a difficult task to condense the whole background information in less than two hours, but according to Claudia Mercado, the social scientist and student of the doctorate in social sciences, “it is very important to ask ourselves and share our thoughts about what Chile is at this moment, what country we are living in and what this public discontent is about. And in this context, we must consider antecedents that allow others to understand that we are facing an institutionalism and a state that was created at a specific moment in history and that is required to undergo structural changes.” At the end of the presentation, the students from Germany, Argentina, Brazil, Belgium, Bolivia, Colombia, Spain, the USA, France, the Netherlands, Mexico and Poland who joined the UFRO this year, were able to ask questions and to express their concerns. According to Consuelo Sanchez, who is in charge of the National and International Student Mobility Office of the Universidad de La Frontera, the institutional purpose these days has been to create the required spaces of dialogue and reflection for being able to maintain an appropriate climate. “We wanted to provide a space of dialogue, to give them the opportunity to get to know the background of what is happening and to convey a sense of calm; but also to get to know their personal vision, and their doubts and questions regarding their academic student exchange.”
 Written by: UFRO Communications OfficeThis email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. |
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The Universidad de La Frontera offers 10 doctoral programs in different fields of knowledge, which are all accredited by the Chilean Accreditation Agency CNA. |
"We confirmed our position as a university of excellence", Dr. Renato Hunter, the Vice-rector for Research and Graduate Studies of the Universidad de La Frontera (UFRO), pointed out within the framework of the two new accreditations of doctoral programs that allowed this university to be one of the first ones in Chile to achieve to have all of its current doctoral programs accredited by the official Chilean Accreditation Agency CNA-Chile. The achievement of this goal confirms the capabilities of the university in the field of postgraduate studies and regarding the level of its researchers, academic staff and doctoral candidates. In this context, Dr. Mónica Rubilar, the Academic Director of Graduate Studies of the UFRO, pointed out: “With the recent accreditation of the doctoral program in Communication Sciences and the doctorate in Engineering Sciences with Specialization in Bioprocesses, all of our programs in the area of doctoral studies count with a public guarantee of quality. That does not only reflect the prestige this institution gained, but also the success of our processes of continuous improvement and quality.” Today, the law on higher education demands, amongst others, the mandatory accreditation of all doctoral programs and the Universidad de La Frontera achieved to comply with this obligation. But this achievement also implies certain responsibilities and new challenges. “Now we have to maintain the level of excellence we achieved and to do significant efforts in order to keep strengthening these programs, their academic staff, infrastructures, equipment and internationalization processes,” the Vice-rector Dr. Renato Hunter added. To reach 100% regarding the accreditation of the doctoral programs is a contribution to the decentralization of knowledge and of the training of qualified human capital, considering that this is a regional university that, from the Araucanía Region in the south of Chile, confirmed its commitment to quality and the link with the community. “But our social commitment is also to bring the research results associated with doctoral programs closer to the community and to see how we can contribute and broadly permeate society within the context we are living in,” Dr. Hunter explained.
Written by: Karimme Riadi
Vice-rectorate for Research and Graduate Studies |
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What is the role of the Universidad de La Frontera in social change and how can it participate? This was one of the main questions asked at the assembly organized by AGA, AFUF, the students and ATMA, at which also the university president, Dr. Eduardo Hebel, was present. |
At a special assembly, the Universidad de La Frontera (UFRO) brought the university community together at the Aula Magna to analyze the current situation in Chile. The number of participants was high, with representatives of the different units and organizations, amongst others. What is the role of the Universidad de La Frontera in social change and how can it participate? This was one of the main questions asked at the assembly organized by the Gremial Association of Academics (AGA), the Association of Public Servants (AFUF), the students and the Association of Self-Convened Women (ATMA), at which also the university president, Dr. Eduardo Hebel, was present. Through a panel forum, each one of the representatives of the different organizations presented his or her proposal regarding the main question of the assembly and shared their messages of reflection and analysis of the events occurred in Chile recently. More than 700 people attended the assembly that was open to the university community. Among them were students, employees and academics who all provided their ideas and reflections in order to build a better university and society. One of the requests during the assembly was to organize formal and permanent spaces for meeting with social organizations and the local community. It is the active role of the Center for Studies and the Promotion of Human Rights at the UFRO and the Observatory of Gender Equity and Equity for Mapuche People to create a registry of the victims of repression in the Araucania Region and to establish a unit for support in situations of crisis.
Escrito por: UFRO Communications Office
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