Volumen 1 No. 1 (2010)

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Browsing Volumen 1 No. 1 (2010) by Author "Feyen, Jan"

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    La clasificación de universidades como herramienta de gestión universitaria
    (Universidad de Cuenca, 2010-12) Feyen, Jan; Vázquez Zambrano, Raúl Fernando; Universidad de Cuenca; DIUC; Dirección de Investigación de la Universidad de Cuenca
    The recent discussion on university ranking raised quite some commotion among the Ecuadorian academic society. Because Ecuadorian universities do not produce Nobel Prize winners, public and private investment in research are limited, academicians hardly produce articles in recognized scientific journals, among other factors, are responsible that the higher education institutions in Ecuador do not rank in the top of the world university ranking systems. The tendency exists to impeach the value of the world ranking systems by stating that the criteria used are far away from Ecuador‟s reality. True, but the moderate to low ranking might be an incentive for the universities to be more alert and look for ways to improve the institutional performance and in doing so enhancing its competitiveness at national and international level. In this respect, the paper first examines the relation between higher education and development with Ecuador as case study, as to come to an MASKANA, Vol. 1, No. 1, 2010 Revista semestral de la DIUC 4 interpretation of the ranking of Ecuador‟s higher educational institutes. In contradiction to the misinterpretation of the ranking systems by local academicians, the article explains briefly the basis of 5 world university ranking systems, illustrates that a given institution ranks different in each of the ranking systems, compares and explains the ranking of 10 Ecuadorian institutions that classify in the Ranking Iberoamericano SIR 2010 and the Ranking Web, to conclude that the Ranking Iberoamericano SIR 2010 and the ranking of the Consejo Nacional de Evaluación y Acreditación (CONEA) yield upon a few exceptions very similar results. Since international rankings put quite some emphasis on research and research output, two avenues are discussed to improve the institutional publication record, i.e. (i) attracting junior staff with doctorate, having experience writing scientific articles, including the creation of an inductive research environment, and (ii) establishing in the institution a scientific journal offering to inexperienced staff the opportunity of acquiring and/or improving writing skills.
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    Evaluation of a data-based hydrological model for simulating the runoff of medium sized Andean basins
    (Universidad de Cuenca, 2010-12) Célleri Alvear, Rolando Enrique; Willems, Patrick; Feyen, Jan; Universidad de Cuenca; Dirección de Investigación de la Universidad de Cuenca; DIUC
    Using timeseries of rainfall and streamflow of two basins in the Andean mountain range, South Ecuador, different in size (300 and 1260 Km2), a generalized lumped conceptual model (VHM), offering the possibility of using different levels of complexity with number of model parameters varying between 5 and 15, was tested. To increase the information timeseries of total streamflow were split in timeseries of quick, intermittent and baseflow, and the timeseries were discretized to select independent events of high and low flows. The paper outlines in detailed the procedure for the model structure identification, calibration and validation, as well as the multi-objective criteria approach used to evaluate the performance of the model and its components. It has been shown that the model structure, consisting of a module for soil storage and quick flow, was able to model for both basins the water balance and streamflow components with acceptable accuracy. A low value of the soil water storage facilitates the model calibration but it is not a guarantee that the model performs better. The study further reveals that the risk of over-parameterization