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In addition to French, German, Italian and Chinese courses, the Language Coordination Center of the Universidad de La Frontera will also offer these two languages. |
There are several reasons because of which learning a new language contributes in a positive way to the training process of the students. It does not only allow them to get to know new cultures, but also breaks down borders, offers new opportunities and experiences, and gives them new tools to confront current social issues easier and to react more appropriately to them. Therefore, the Language Coordination Center (CODI), in cooperation with the Office for Comprehensive Training and Employability of the Vice-Rectorate for Undergraduate Affairs, adds Korean and Portuguese courses, as well as a German (level 2) course to the offer for the second semester of 2021. The inscriptions went very well, what shows that the students really appreciate this new offer. The coordinator of CODI, Felipe Opazo, emphasized the fact that the Universidad de La Frontera (UFRO) maintains a strong commitment with the internationalization of its students through the implementation of different strategies in order to contribute to the students’ training to become global citizens. “One of our strategies is to strengthen the field of elective language courses, since they allow the students more closeness to the world, to get to know new realities and to improve their critical thinking. For the Language Coordination Center, it is very important to know the students’ preferences and interests. Therefore, we applied an online survey on our Social Media Accounts, in order to know which languages would be interesting for them to learn. That is why we added Korean and Portuguese to our offer. We hope to be able to keep improving over the next semesters,” he added. During the first semester of 2021, 202 students joined the French, German, Italian and Chinese courses, in addition to the foreign students who participated remotely from different parts of the world in UFROs Spanish language courses. This semester, the number of participants is even higher. There is no doubt that the use of technology has been very important in order to continue with these courses. CODI has always implemented this kind of resources and actions in the teaching and learning process, in order to overcome the challenges of learning a new language, always in line with the internationalization process of UFRO. The Korean language teacher Sung Young Yun emphasizes that the possibility to learn Korean gives the students the chance to get to know and speak this language and to get access to different exchange programs and scholarships to study in Korea, besides of getting to know the Korean culture. “I am positively surprised regarding the number of participants who signed up for each of the courses and it is great to see that the students are very enthusiastic,” he says. The Portuguese language teacher Sofia Penido Esparza explains that “the students are highly involved in the development of the course. To learn a new language means to learn to communicate in a new way, what is also important for their training process in terms of building relationships and being able to network”. Erick Rubilar Vidal is a student of the Faculty of Engineering and Science. “What motivates me is that learning a new language – Portuguese in my case – gives me the possibility to get to know the culture and to easily communicate, whether for private trips or work opportunities,” he says. According to him, the course allows him to improve his training, because it gives him the basic knowledge of a language, facilitates the communication and adaptation abroad or in case of attending seminars or congresses where he needs the Portuguese language, as well as in formal or informal meetings with people who speak that language. Written by: Rocío Yáñez Álvarez |
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The Oxford Placement Test allows students to know their level of English language ability according to the categories established within the Common European Framework of Reference for Languages. |
The Oxford Placement Test (OPT) developed by the University of Oxford was acquired by the Universidad de La Frontera (UFRO) and will be used for the undergraduate students who joined the English Minor this semester. The first part has already been taken at the beginning of the semester and the second part will be taken at the end of the semester, in order to see the progress made. According to Felipe Muñoz, the person in charge of the General Training Electives and the Minor Programs, “the aim of this test is to evaluate the effectiveness of the English Minor regarding the language development of the students. This information will also help us to identify the aspects of the program that have to be improved, because in order to guarantee a training of quality the General Electives and Minor will always be an important aspect to work on”. The director of the Language Coordination Center, Felipe Opazo, explained that the Placement Test identifies the level of English language ability according to the categories established within the Common European Framework of Reference for Languages, especially in Listening and Use of English. It consists of a multiple-choice format and is self-adaptive, what means that it adapts to the different levels of English proficiency. The test is internationally highly valued because of its efficiency in the results. Therefore, the Office of General Training Electives and Minor Programs and the Office of Academic Student Support and Comprehensive Training have chosen this new instrument in alliance with the Language Coordination Center of UFRO. Written by: UFRO Communications Office
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This Ranking analyses the performance of the universities in Chile. UFRO is ranked fifth overall, and fourth in the category “Innovation and Technology Transfer”. |
The Universidad de La Frontera (UFRO) once again achieved to be in the group of Chilean universities with the best performance in the fields of research, development and innovation, standing out for its productive capacity, impact, quality, technologies and innovation. The second Ranking R&D&I 2021, led by the advanced study group Universitas, analyzed the performance of the different universities of the Chilean university system regarding their development of scientific production, in which UFRO is ranked in fifth place. One of the explanations for this great position is the high level regarding scientific production, thanks to the researchers of UFRO, who recently had to overcome great challenges, due to the global health crisis. Another relevant factor that allowed UFRO to stand out among the universities is the quality and impact of the international publications (which are more than 800 annually) developed by the research teams that contributed in more than 200 fields of knowledge with their research. FOURTH BEST IN CHILE IN INNOVATION AND TECHNOLOGY TRANSFER The democratization of knowledge is one of the main axes of UFRO, and the Vice-rectorate for Research and Graduate Studies puts a strong emphasis on efficient scientific transfer and a strong link between state, business and university. The work developed by the Office of Innovation and Technology Transfer plays an important role in that relationship and is reflected in this great result. The director, Franklin Valdebenito, commented that these results in the field he directs make him “very proud, since it puts UFRO in a very select group of universities in Chile. At the same time, it is a great motivation to keep working in order to make our research results visible to the whole community and in order to be an important and concrete contribution for society. Innovation occurs when we develop science with an impact – that is our goal and what we focus on, when it comes to Innovation at UFRO”.
Written by: UFRO Communications Office |
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The teaching process currently takes place with a mix of face-to-face classes, hybrid classes and online classes. |
The return to face-to-face classes in higher education is a topic of national concern. The State Universities are starting with a progressive return to face-to-face classes and in the La Araucanía Region, the Universidad de La Frontera (UFRO) promotes the reunion of the students in-person in the classrooms, laboratories and on the campuses. University life slowly returns, but with the due precautions. For months, classes were carried out online, using digital support tools that now are also the basis of a mix of face-to-face and online classes, a teaching and learning model that the state universities adopted in order to quickly respond to the new health and confinement measures. The Vice-rector for Academic Affairs, Dr. Renato Hunter, commented: “The improvement of the sanitary conditions in our country allows the university to progressively return to our face-to-face activities, and hopefully to welcome all of our students in-person, soon. And also to start again with our student mobility activities and our face-to-face support, which is very important for a lot of the management processes of our university.” UFRO set up a Commission for the progressive return of its undergraduate students, which is directed by the Vice-rectorate for Undergraduate Affairs and five other directors. The preparations for the return to face-to-face activities included a diagnosis of all activities, in order to define the most essential ones to achieve the desired profile of the graduates. “Our purpose was to offer a save return, and the joint work with the faculties, deaneries and the teaching-teams has allowed us to respond positively and according to the health measures,” said the Vice-rector for Undergraduate Affairs, Pamela Ibarra. She emphasized that “there is still a lot of work to do, but we have already delivered the guidelines and proposals to appropriately adapt the teaching and learning environment to the current context, and we provide a variety of support programs for the students and teachers, especially for socio-emotional support”. All of the programs of the Faculty of Medicine and the program in Dentistry already returned to face-to-face classes, addressing practical aspects in the laboratories of the Faculty; and the senior students are carrying out their internships, for example in the Hospital Dr. Hernán Henríquez Aravena in Temuco, in Family Health Centers, among others. Regarding the Faculty of Education, Social Science and Humanities, 60 % of the students already returned to face-to-face classes and the Faculty of Agricultural and Forestry Sciences was one of the first to present a work plan for getting back to in-person classes. Thus, during the first semester the priority activities were defined together with the Student Associations, in order to strengthen the return process and the familiarization with learning and work spaces (classrooms, laboratories, greenhouses, Experimental Campuses, etc.). The activities of the three study programs of this faculty are taking place in a mix of face-to-face classes, hybrid classes, and practical training activities. HYBRID MODELS The director of the Office of Curricular and Teacher Development, Solange Martínez, emphasizes that 122 classrooms / laboratories have already been equipped for hybrid teaching and learning activities. Additionally, the teaching staff of the different faculties has been trained in order to achieve the best hybrid learning and teaching experience possible, with the best resources available for pedagogical support. Questions about the vaccination status, family circumstances, and the familiarization with new professional training systems are some of the factors the young students have to face in this current scenario. However, more than 92 % of the UFRO students already completed the vaccination process at the beginning of the second semester of 2021 – a very positive figure. Over the next weeks, an increasingly positive panorama is expected regarding the return, which seeks to meet the needs of the students, providing the necessary support they need to return to the face-to-face activities in the most appropriate way, after a long time of curfews during the pandemic. Written by: Communications Office, UFRO |
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Dr. María de la Luz Mora Gil, the director of BIOREN-UFRO, is the editor-in-chief of the Journal of Soil Science and Plant Nutrition, which increased citations from 1,440 in 2018 to 3,256 in 2020. |
Web of Science (WOS) informed that the Journal of Soil Science and Plant Nutrition (JSSPN), which is edited by the Universidad de La Frontera (UFRO) and the Chilean Society of Soil Science, reached an Impact Factor of 3.872, an indicator that positions it in the group of top scientific journals with the highest impact in the world and in the field of plant sciences, soil sciences and environmental sciences. This is a milestone for UFRO and a great achievement for Chile. The Journal Citation Report (JCR) of WOS, provided by Clarivate Analytics, allows obtaining comparable statistical data of citations, including the Impact Factor, which systematically and objectively determines the relative importance of the world's leading scientific journals according to their respective thematic categories. In its fields of expertise, JSSPN is positioned in first quartile (Q1) in Plant Sciences and in second quartile (Q2) in Soil Science and Environmental Sciences. At the national level, JSSPN maintains the deserved and meritorious second place among all journals published in Chile, and first in the field of Soil and Environmental Sciences. It is remarkable that the two best-positioned Chilean journals significantly increased their impact factor during the pandemic. THE JOURNAL AND ITS HISTORY The journal was created as an initiative for scientific dissemination in Chile, impulsed by the outstanding academic and researcher Dr. Achim Ellies of the university Universidad Austral de Chile. When he died in 2005, the Chilean Society of Soil Science entrusted Dr. María de la Luz Mora Gil, a highly estimated academic and researcher of UFRO, with the responsibility of directing and promoting this scientific project. In 2008, the internationalization process for the journal began by being indexed in Thomson Reuters (currently WOS Clarivate), thanks to its alliance with the SciELO publishing house, the support of national and international collaborators and the different projects funded by the National Agency for Research and Development (ANID). In 2018, an agreement was signed with the global publisher Springer Nature, so that the journal started to be published by this huge and renowned international publisher since 2019. This was a fundamental and strategic step, since it gives the managing entities, in this case the Chilean Society of Soil Science and the Universidad de La Frontera, a greater visualization and international reputation. Consequently, the number of citations more than doubled from 1,440 citations in 2018 to 3,256 citations in 2020. After joining Springer, the Impact Factor of the journal JSSPN fluctuated around 2 points without major variations for a couple of years. Now, after a long period of hard work carried out by the editors and reviewers, and a long-term strategy, the journal has an Impact Factor of 3.872. This figure is highly relevant, since it places JSSPN in the first quartile (Q1) in the field of Plant Sciences, a segment reserved for the most important scientific journals in the world. This converts JSSPN into an important reference for researchers and scientists from all over the world. Dr. María de la Luz Mora Gil, the editor-in-chief, comments that “we are very proud to see how the journal has grown over the last ten years, especially considering that the management is based at the Universidad de La Frontera, with outstanding and very hard working collaborators who dedicated many hours to this project. Some of them are Dr. Alex Seguel, Dr. Fernanda Cid and an entire editorial team led by Dr. Patricio Barra. We are very happy, because we are convinced that this is a tremendous achievement for the Universidad de la Frontera and for the entire country. This has been possible thanks to the hard work of many people – a lot of them graduates of the Doctorate in Natural Resource Sciences of UFRO – who have made available all their skills and knowledge in order to reach our goals”. One of the strategies to achieve a constant growth of the journal is to have a team of internationally recognized collaborators in the Editorial Committee, such as Dr. Nanthi Bolan (University of Newcastle, Australia), Dr. Leo Condron (Lincoln University, New Zealand), Dr. Petra Marschner (University of Adelaide, Australia), Dr. Miroslav Nikolic (University of Belgrade, Serbia), Dr. Maria A Rao (Università di Napoli Federico II, Italy), Dr. Alan Richardson (CSIRO Plant Industry, Australia) and Dr. Cornelia Rumpel (French National Centre for Scientific Research, France). “These internationally renowned Associate Editors are actively participating in the reviewing and editing process of our journal,” explains Dr. Mora. Regarding the quality of the contents, Dr. María de la Luz Mora Gil points out that “we are very strict when it comes to the selection of articles for our journal, because we are looking for novel and excellent papers of quality, with high impact. Of about 1500 papers we receive over the year, we publish about 20%. That requires meticulous work, which is carried out by our team of collaborators and editors”. According to Dr. María de la Luz Mora Gil, this remarkable achievement motivates the team to keep working and developing their strategies. “In a competitive world like ours, it is not easy to maintain our standards – that is our main task, and the second one is to enter the first quartile (Q1) in the fields of Soil Science and Environmental Sciences. Actually, we are already working on that, for example through Special Editions,” she concludes. Written by: Andrea Poblete Pacheco |
