FICS Scholarly Articles

Permanent URI for this collection

https://repository.upou.edu.ph/handle/20.500.13073/8
Faculty and staff research papers from the Faculty of Information and Communication Studies.

Browse

Browsing FICS Scholarly Articles by Title

  • Item
    17 MOOCs In Six Emerging APEC Member Economies –Trends, Research, and Recommendation
    (Routledge, 2020) Jung, Insung ; Garcia Mendoza, Gibran A. ; Fajardo, Jennifer Christine ; Figueroa, Roberto B. Jr. ; Tan, Siaw Eng
    A collaborative team of five foreign researchers who reside in Japan purposefully conducted research to describe the development of MOOCs in Thailand, the Philippines, Malaysia, Indonesia, Vietnam, and Mexico. It is important to point out that these countries represent six emerging economies that are members of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC). It seeks to answer three key questions: (1) When did MOOCs begin in APEC countries in Southeast Asia and Latin America? (2) How did they develop? (3) How were they supported? To accomplish these goals, research articles published in relevant local, regional, and international journals together with related books and reports were thoroughly examined. Furthermore, interviews of local experts were also conducted to provide meaningful context. This chapter begins with a review of the overall trends of MOOC growth in the six selected countries. It then discusses research findings and local experts’ comments on MOOC-based learning experiences and points out various challenges currently faced as well as apparent opportunities moving forward. Finally, it concludes with several valuable lessons learned from the MOOC experiences of those emerging economies.
  • Item
    ACES: Automated Academic Essay Scoring Using a Natural Language Processing-Based Regression Mechanism
    (Asian Association of Open Universities, 2022) Pugoy, Reinald Adrian
    Academic essays are essential testing instruments that evaluate the students’ ability to organize thoughts and synthesize information. However, grading them is an exhausting and cumbersome process that requires considerable manpower. It may be prone to errors, and there are also serious concerns about fairness, such that an essay graded B+ today may be graded B- tomorrow by the same checker. Therefore, the author proposes ACES, an essay scoring mechanism that employs natural language processing (NLP) to address the issue at hand. NLP is a sub-field of artificial intelligence (AI) concerned with granting computers the ability to understand texts in much the same way humans can. With essay scoring reformulated as a regression problem, ACES takes the essay answer as the input, converts it to a vector representation of numbers in the embedding space, and feeds it to the neural network model (which serves as the approximate regression function) to predict its score as the output. In this paper, the author successfully implements four versions of ACES that employ different embedding sources and neural network models, with the ACES variant that considers context and word frequency information performing the best (i.e., ACES-BERT).
  • Item
    Adapting the Compass Framework in a hybrid course on wearable technology design and futures thinking
    ( 2022-11) Maranan, Diego S.
    The Wearable Futures Hackathon (WFH) was a 12-week long, hybrid learning experience was collaboratively created with and for undergraduate students at UP Open University’s Bachelor of Arts program in Multimedia Studies (BAMS). The course explores wearable technology, e-textiles, speculative design, and futures thinking. The course is the first of its kind at the university in terms of the following aspects: - The course themes (i.e., physical computing, e-textiles, speculative design, and futures thinking); and - The use of a hybrid format (80% online, 20% face to face) for BAMS studio course. For this course, the Index Project's design thinking framework--the Compass--was integrated with UPOU’s standard principle and practices in outcomes-based online learning design resource-based course authoring.
  • Item
    Ambahan ni Ambo: A Digital Experience
    ( 2021) Dival, Rodeliza Joyce T.
    Ambahan ni Ambo: A Digital Experience is an initiative to adapt one of Ed Maranan’s stories into a digital platform that focuses on the experiences of each character and how these would translate in real life and give inspiration to its users to follow their example. Two frameworks have been implemented - first is to simplify content by dividing the program into age-appropriate branches that each age-group can easily manage, while the second framework focuses more on the experiences of each of the characters in the story and how readers might see their own real-life experiences with them. This research follows a perspective similar to Design Thinking and revolves around Planning, Creation, and Evaluation.
  • Item
    Anthropology Of, For, And With Design: A Philippine Perspective
    ( 2014) Cajilig, Pamela G. ; Maranan, Diego S.
    The intersection of the fields of design and anthropology emerges as fertile ground for study as societies increasingly acknowledge the tremendous impact the objects we create for ourselves have on our lives. As anthropologists and ethnographers involved in running our own design research company in the Philippines, negotiating the alignments and contradictions between the two fields of knowledge is an essential component of our everyday research practice. This paper outlines different models of the relationships between design and anthropology as systems of knowledge and practice. We first extend a theoretical framework that distinguishes between anthropology of, anthropology for, and anthropology with design (Gunn and Donovan 2013): we maintain that anthropology with design underlies an approach increasingly used in commercial industries known as "design thinking", and describe the different ways by which knowledge is generated and mobilized in each of these relationships; we further describe how the artifacts of design can be seen to either materialize, shape, or probe culturally-mediated meanings, power relations, and values. We illustrate these concepts through client-commissioned projects that our organization has conducted in the Philippines. We next examine how and when these design-anthropology relationships are realized when working with clients. While anthropology with design will likely create better outcomes for our clients, larger clients must often settle for anthropology for design; we describe how we have negotiated these tensions and present our outcomes from our engagement with them. We end with a call for the development of a local prism through which practitioners in the field of design can further engage in critical reflection of the production of artifacts, particular those created with the intent of addressing social concerns. Specifically, we call for more localized conceptual frameworks of design that can be patterned (for instance) on India's notion of jugaad, and advance an increased engagement for anthropology with design across various sectors of Philippine society.
  • Item
    Archiving as Artistic and Personal Practice: Tools, Methods, Examples, and Learning Resources
    ( 2022-05-22) Maranan, Diego S.
    This presentation was given at the Philippine Documentary Heritage Webinar Series: Digital Technology and Documentary Heritage. See https://www.facebook.com/PHDHDigitalRepository/videos/2798957150400534 for the full video of the presentation. See also: *https://www.facebook.com/PHDHDigitalRepository/posts/171802621911907 *https://www.facebook.com/PHDHDigitalRepository/posts/174371968321639 *https://www.facebook.com/PHDHDigitalRepository/posts/173741721717997
  • Item
    Artscience Thinking for the Global South
    ( 2023-03-16) Maranan, Diego S.
    Pluridisciplinary practices that span art and science are well-known in Western research and creative communities. Some of the most interesting and significant of these works confront audiences with deep questions about "life, the universe, and everything” (with apologies to Douglas Adams). But in the Global South—where addressing basic human needs, achieving economic and political security, and adapting to the unfolding climate crisis—are widely regarded as priorities, is there even space or time for the same? Using recent artscience research and creative projects I have been involved in, I argue that despite—or indeed because—of the challenges confronting the Global South, research, practice, and education on the intersections of the arts and the sciences is more necessary than ever.
  • Item
    Artscience, cultural policy, and epistemological empathy: Towards imaginaries of the future as a new commons in the Philippines
    ((Unpublished), 2025-12-12) Maranan, Diego S.
    Who gets to imagine the future? In the Philippines, there is a governance gap surrounding this question: government agencies for science, technology, and trade drive discussion of the future around innovation, growth, and "creative industries", while the agencies for culture and the arts are mandated to focus on the past and on culture as heritage. Drawing on Justin O'Connor's proposition that culture is neither a luxury or an industry, but a foundational capability—one that equips citizens to participate in shared meaning-making and democratic decision-making, this talk argues that there is a potential for science institutions to be "safe spaces" where democratic futures are co-imagined, through artscience practiced on equal footing with cultural workers and artists.
  • Item
    ASEAN CONVERGENCE. Towards an ASEAN Identity: Discourses on Communication and Culture
    (Faculty of Information and Communication Studies, UPOU, 2019) FLOR, ALEXANDER G. ; GONZALES-FLOR, BENJAMINA PAULA G.
    This monograph is a collection of papers used as required reading for ASEAN Studies 231. The course was developed as a contribution of the UPOU Faculty of Information and Communication Studies to the Master of ASEAN Studies (MAS) Joint Program of the five open universities in Southeast Asia: the UP Open University; Universitas Terbuka in Jakarta; Sukhothai Open University in Bangkok; the Hanoi Open University; and the Open University of Malaysia. MAS was meant as a major initiative for the regionalization of education in the ASEAN region. Hence, this course takes on a regional outlook on communication. By communication, we refer to information and communication technologies and media (traditional, mass and new media). This course is also crosslisted under the UPOU Master of Development Communication program as DEVC242.
  • Item
    Biodiversity Tower: A community art project by SEADS, Compostmeesters Willebroek & Kris Mys
    ( 2019-10-21) Vermeulen, Angelo ; Maranan, Diego S.
    This presentation was given during the 2019 Institute for Public Art (IPA) Research Network Meeting. The meeting was part of the 2019 International Award for Public Art event, during which Biodiversity Tower was awarded the Eurasia Commended Project designation. For more details, see https://www.instituteforpublicart.org/case-studies/biodiversity-tower/
  • Item
    Biomodd: A Case Study In Combining Online Learning With On-Site New Media Art Practice
    ( 2011-09) Librero, Al Francis D. ; Maranan, Diego S. ; Vermeulen, Angelo
    Biomodd is a new media art project that integrates cross-cultural dialogue, ecology and technology while encouraging innovative collaboration. The project started in 2007 in the United States, and has since spawned multiple versions that have been built both by the people that originally came up with the idea, and by other communities throughout the world. During its run in the Philippines, a team was formed to build an installation that went on display was exhibited in two cities in the Philippines. The UP Open University, in return for its sponsorship, employed the project as a springboard in a course for students to explore and practice new media art. Since Biomodd involved a series of on-site workshops and classroom sessions, the challenge was to find a way to engage students despite their ability to physically attend the workshops. This was addressed through the use of various online applications to accomplish tasks outside the construction of the art installation. Communication was coursed through several avenues, including the university's official learning management system, text messaging, mailing lists, online photo albums, personal blogs and mass media. Through an analysis of the exchanges conducted through these various channels of communication, we show how learners and course facilitators were able to build and sustain a sense of community, as well as connect with external stakeholders who enabled learners to extend their exploration in new media art practice as shaped by their experience of working on Biomodd, thus constituting a highly enriching learning experience.
  • Item
    Biomodd: Exploring Relationships Between Biological, Electronic, And Social Systems Through New Media Art
    ( 2014-11-17) Maranan, Diego S. ; Librero, Al Francis D.
    Biomodd is a collaborative new media art project that explores the symbiosis between biological, electronic, and social systems. The project started in 2007 in the United States, and has since spawned multiple versions globally. The Philippine team was led by educators from the UP Open University, who organized a course on new media art practice as a springboard for exploring and developing the project. We discuss the imaginative and abstract relationships between biological, eletronic, and social systems that learners articulated over the course of the project. We describe how local, culturally-specific narrative elements were imaginatively integrated into the physical and interactive design of the installation, resulting in a technically complex, visually poetic expression of the relationship between nature, technology, and humans.
  • Item
    Biomodd: the integration of art into transdisciplinary research practices
    (oekom verlag, 2023-05-20) Kuchner, Ulrike ; Nasser, Mona ; Steyaert, Pieter ; Maranan, Diego S. ; Birsel, Zeynep ; Haines, Agatha ; Peeters, Ann ; Vermeulen, Angelo
    Biomodd is an artistic project with the potential for supporting transdisciplinary practices in blended virtual and in-person environments. After describing the project components, we discuss the collaborative process of idea generation and participant engagement. In this paper, we argue for the integration of collaborative art practice in transdisciplinary (TD) research to generate ideas and engage researchers and non-academic stakeholders. We draw on the virtual and in-person (hybrid) participation of members of the TD collective Space Ecologies Art and Design (SEADS) during Biomodd, an art installation that addresses global challenges in ecology, humanity, technology, and technological waste. Using survey responses, diaries, and meeting minutes, we reflect on the process, methods and ideation during Biomodd and map them to the concept of the “idea journey” discussed by Jill E. Perry-Smith and Pier Vittorio Mannucci. We find that while in-person ideation was driven by utility, materiality, and emergence, the hybrid mode provided favorable conditions for a feedback loop of expansive, individual experimentation and online sharing.
  • Item
    Changing the Lives of the Filipino Teachers and Students: Participants' Perceptions of the PLDT Infoteach Outreach Program
    (International Journal of Latest Research in Humanities and Social Science (IJLRHSS), 2023-06-02) Amoloza, Emely M.
    As part of its role in serving the nation, the University of the Philippines Open University (UPOU) has collaborated with various institutions in implementing projects that support community development. One of which is the PLDT Infoteach Outreach Program. To enable the participants to acquire the essential digital skills for 21st century teaching, learning, and working is the program’s goal while changing the lives of Filipino teachers and students is the program’s aspiration. This study focused on the third phase of the PLDT Infoteach Outreach Program and sought to present the participants’ perceptions of the PLDT Infoteach Outreach Program. Applying a case study method, this research made use of various available data that were gathered from messages, focused group discussions, and participant observations. Data were analyzed using thematic analysis. The results of this study showed that the participants have positive perceptions of the project; they feel grateful for the knowledge gained and the extended assistance. A complete list of the participants’ comments and recommendations on improving the modules, training, schedule, quiz, and program were included in this paper. Constant communication among partner institutions, conduct of FGDs, and cascading the training were the best practices identified by the participants.
  • Item
    Cinemaspace, Cyberspace: Mapping the Philippine Moving Image
    ( 2008-11-20) Trice, Jasmine ; Maranan, Diego S.
    This presentation will consist of two, interrelated parts, reflecting the interests of the participants in integrating the critical and theoretical, on the one hand, and the artistic and material, on the other. Operating under the same rubric and tackling parallel conceptual problems regarding nation, the moving image, and notions of the public, we hope to unravel some distinctions between art and criticism, following the cue of many practitioners and theorists in the Philippines, in order to sketch out possibilities for links between Philippine cinema as a digital mode of production, the usual way in which cinema and new media are linked, as well as examining the use of Philippine online spaces as a digital mode of circulation.
  • Item
    Collaborative Relational Database Software-as-a-Service as Authoring Tools for Online and Offline OERs: Using Airtable and Notion to Make Your Own Learning Management System
    ( 2022-11-22) Maranan, Diego S.
    In this presentation, I describe how specific collaboration, authentication, and sharing features of two popular, low-cost, relational database software-as-a-service (SaaS) platforms, Airtable and Notion, can be used to create open educational resources (OERs) that are easily updatable, shareable, and repurposable. Not only do these SaaS platforms provide opportunities for student assessments to be closely align with course content, but they also afford course facilitators a way to quickly verify and monitor such content-assessment alignment. Using two examples of courses taught at the UP Open University, I additionally describe how SaaS relational database platforms facilitates the use of previous student outputs as learning material for subsequent iterations of courses and drives the continuous improvement of course design.
  • Item
    Conference Track Description: “Death, Degrowth, and Finitude in the Age of the Lifelike” (PoM Conference Aachen 2024)
    ( 2024) Maranan, Diego S. ; Vermeulen, Angelo ; Holt, Amy ; Kuchner, Ulrike ; Steyaert, Pieter
  • Item
    Course Module Archive - MMS 150: User Interface and User Experience (UI/UX) Design (3rd Trimester, AY 2022-2023)
    ( 2023) Maranan, Diego S.
    This archive contains the instructional materials for MMS 150: User Interface and User Experience (UI/UX) Design, a core course under the Bachelor of Arts in Multimedia Studies (BAMS) program at the University of the Philippines Open University (UPOU). Developed and refined by Diego Maranan, this version of the course package was implemented during the 3rd Trimester of Academic Year 2022-2023. While the course has been previously offered, this iteration represents a significant refinement of earlier versions and is submitted for formal consideration. MMS 150 introduces students to the foundational principles, tools, and collaborative practices of UI/UX design. Framed around the 5-phase Design Thinking model, the course guides learners through activities in user research, problem definition, ideation, prototyping, and usability testing. Emphasis is placed on ethical design, user empathy, and critical engagement with design processes across multiple platforms. Students work in teams to create functional low- and high-fidelity prototypes that address real-world needs and reflect iterative design thinking. Modules were delivered asynchronously through UPOU's Moodle-based learning management system, MyPortal. Students engaged with interactive activities, online workshops, discussion forums, and a peer-evaluated final project. The course culminated in a public-facing presentation and design critique session. This PDF archive includes: 1. A copy of the full authored course package; 2. A snapshot of the LMS course site (teacher view) showing how the content and activities were structured and implemented.
  • Item
    Course Module Archive: MMS 198: Wearable Futures Hackathon (1st Trimester, AY 2022-2023)
    ( 2022) Maranan, Diego S.
    This archive contains the instructional materials for MMS 198: Wearable Futures Hackathon, a special topics course offered as part of the Bachelor of Arts in Multimedia Studies (BAMS) program at the University of the Philippines Open University (UPOU). Developed and facilitated by Diego Maranan, the course was conducted during the 1st Trimester of Academic Year 2022–2023. Structured as an online speculative design and prototyping lab, the course invited students to imagine, design, and prototype wearable technologies situated in multiple possible futures. Using the BBC micro:bit and engaging in participatory design workshops, students explored critical fashion, physical computing, embodied interaction, and futures literacy. Each week built on speculative methods to deepen students' engagement with technological, social, and ecological challenges across different time horizons. Modules were delivered asynchronously via a web-based platform and included embedded video, interactive tutorials, and collaborative reflections. Live workshops with international facilitators from the SEADS collective and the Emerging Futurists Residency complemented the learning experience. For the best experience, access the full interactive site here: https://url.upou.edu.ph/WearableFuturesCourseModules This PDF archive includes: A static version of the complete web-based course package; Embedded artifacts, links, and activities from the original asynchronous design.
  • Item
    Designing clinical trials for future space missions as a pathway to changing how clinical trials are conducted on Earth
    (Journal of Evidence-Based Medicine, 2020-05-25) Nasser, Mona ; Peres, Nicholas ; Knight, Jacqui ; Haines, Agatha ; Young, Charlie ; Maranan, Diego S. ; Wright, Julian ; Carvil, Philip ; Robinson, Karen ; Westmore, Matthew ; Griffin, Joanna ; Halkes, Matthew
    Objective The project aims to build a framework for conducting clinical trials for long-term interplanetary missions to contribute to innovation in clinical trials on Earth, especially around patient involvement and ownership. Methods We conducted two workshops in which participants were immersed in the speculative scenario of an interplanetary mission in which health problems emerged that required medical trials to resolve. The workshops used virtual reality and live simulation to mimic a zero-gravity environment and visual perception shifts and were followed by group discussion. Results Some key aspects for the framework that emerged from the workshops included: (a) approaches to be inclusive in the management of the trial, (b) approaches to be inclusive in designing the research project (patient preference trials, n-of-1 trials, designing clinical trials to be part of a future prospective meta-analysis, etc), (c) balancing the research needs and the community needs (eg, allocation of the participants based on both research and community need), (d) ethics and partnerships (ethics and consent issues and how they relate to partnerships and relationships). Conclusion In identifying some key areas that need to be incorporated in future planning of clinical trials for interplanetary missions, we also identified areas that are relevant to engaging patients in clinical trials on Earth. We will suggest using the same methodology to facilitate more in-depth discussions on specific aspects of clinical trials in aerospace medicine. The methodology can be more widely used in other areas to open new inclusive conversations around innovating research methodology.