Students’ and university professors’ challenges due to the COVID-19 worldwide pandemic have been enormous. Without prior notice, they had to switch from traditional education to virtual teaching. This study’s objective was to identify the perception of students and professors of the Bachelor in the English Language from the University of Chihuahua, Mexico, during the transition to virtual classes due to the pandemic. Researchers applied a survey of 28 items with a Likert scale to 152 students during the spring semester 2020 and the second instrument of 51 items to 26 professors. The students reported having complications in connectivity (21%) and difficulties interacting with professors and classmates (34%). Many students reported experiencing anxiety (69.1%) and feeling isolated (62.5%). Most agree that they learn better in face-to-face classes (85%). In turn, the professors agree that the students had a lower performance than in a face-to-face semester (69.3%). Despite this, the professors affirm that they followed the program to the letter (92.3%) and completed the programmed contents (84.6%). Besides, 92.3% of the academics are confident to face a new semester in virtual modality, if necessary. Although we can say that the transition from face-to-face to virtual classes in the institution was successful, students and professors encountered difficulties and disadvantages in the use of platforms for online classes. The benefit of this research´s findings is understanding the University must have all the necessary elements in place for online teaching. It must establish a formal regulation of virtual programs that includes professor´s and student´s profile, as well as the strategies to be followed. The students’ and professors’ perceptions highlight the crucial elements that professors need to consider to teach virtual classes and take advantage of these lessons to face the future better.

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to determine the challenges of scientific literacy that scientific journalism can promote or suppress as a scientific dissemination activity. To ensure that universities transfer knowledge to society, this vital activity is studied from the perspectives of their stakeholders: professors, researchers, newspaper directors and heads of research areas of two Mexican universities. Design/methodology/approach From a participatory action research perspective that consisted in applying semi-structured interviews, this study was conducted in two public universities in Chihuahua, Mexico. The group of participants constituted of a random sample of 90 Mexican professors, taken from a population of 246 subjects with the status of national researchers (confidence level = 95 per cent; margin of error = 5 per cent; P/Q correlation = 90 / 10 per cent), in addition to six local newspaper executives and eight research managers at participating universities. Findings Evidence suggests that scientific dissemination has a low social impact, its recognition by universities and scientific evaluation institutions is limited, and the act of making scientific content accessible to the general public is highly complex, especially when it comes to content related to the exact sciences. These results are predictable under the complex models that evaluate scientific production, because the measurement indicators that define scientific competitiveness levels prioritize specific scientific products other than dissemination products such as newspaper articles. Research limitations/implications Data were collected from two Mexican public universities under the implication that the behavior identified through data analysis can occur in other similar environments. Although a participatory action research perspective was assumed, and because this research of a projective nature can be a part of a larger research, no particular actions or interventions were planned or executed, apart from the interviews that aimed to collect data that emerged from participants’ own practice and experiences on the issues studied. Further research can consist of developing forward-looking actions that can contribute to the development of scientific literacy, as well as to the exploration and solution of the issues identified through participants’ own practice. Originality/value One of the social roles of universities is to ensure that scientific knowledge reaches all citizens. However, there are not sufficient studies regarding scientific dissemination, especially from the perspective of professors as generators of scientific knowledge, newspaper directors and heads of research areas.

This article analyzes the way in which educators and researchers have pronounced themselves for incorporating computer programming in the K-12 curricula (basic and secondary education), recognizing its cognitive benefits in those who practice it, which can be useful in contexts other than computing, by influencing the development of higher order thinking skills and problem solving, both concepts integrated in the so-called computational thinking (CT). The proposal includes the vision of various authors, who conclude that the transfer of cognitive programming skills does not happen correctly given the prevalence of educational interventions designed under the belief that it occurs as an automatic and spontaneous process. The structure of the article is made up of three fundamental aspects: (1) historical account of the definition of knowledge transfer (KT), its main theoretical and classificatory taxonomies; (2) integration of existing definitions on CT and the way in which the formulation of various study plans in different countries has resulted; and (3) the investigation of different challenges and implications present in the CT, as well as recommendations for its improvement, taking as a reference the results of experiments carried out in different academic fields, proposed in order to strengthen both the KT as well as the CT.

Purpose This paper presents the findings of a project that aims to analyze the ethical treatment of the news, with special attention to the reporting of violent events, as it is carried out by digital news outlets from the State of Chihuahua (Mexico). Design/methodology/approach A media observatory was established to collect and analyze the 9,115 news reports of violent events from February to June 2019 and was published by 12 digital news outlets in Chihuahua. Quantitative data analysis was carried out using three analytical axes – ethics, human rights and violence. Each axis was, in turn, subdivided into three criteria, and this paper identifies how compliant were each news outlet and individual news report with those criteria. Findings Data analysis established that 5,385 of the news reports (59.1 per cent of the total news analyzed) met all the nine desirable criteria, whereas other subsets did not comply with up to a minimum five criteria. How the observed news outlets and their reports complied with the criteria used is specified in this paper. Originality/value The methodology used and the data analyzed seek to develop ethical and socially responsible journalism. Hence, this paper offers various possibilities, such as raising new questions related to journalistic deontology, helps engage responsible journalists and also represents an area of opportunity for library and information professionals who are immersed in digital environments (e.g. digital libraries and library professionals that are the ideal professionals to store, manage and disseminate the records produced by media observatories). Moreover, the data analyzed help to set a maximum limit for the non-compliance with each of the criteria analyzed, which can even lead to the development of an ethical and social responsibility accreditation that can be granted to news outlets with the best practices for journalism.

La investigación tuvo como objetivo desarrollar la versión mexicana de la prueba de «Mind in the Eyes» de Baron-Cohen, la cual evalúa la capacidad para detectar emociones expresadas en los ojos, denominada empatía emocional. El estudio se realizó en tres etapas: a) se tradujeron al español las emociones incluidas en el test original, validando la equivalencia español-inglés mediante jueceo, traducción directa e inversa y contraste de imagen-palabra; b) se tomaron fotografías a un grupo de actrices y actores representando emociones y, c) se presentaron las imágenes correspondientes a cada emoción a un grupo de estudiantes (n = 48) para que seleccionaran la imagen que mejor representaba la emoción. Los resultados indican que la versión mexicana es mejor que la inglesa en un 21%, es similar en un 44% y es peor en un 35%. Con la prueba podremos detectar atipicidades, estudiar patrones cognitivos y determinar su correlación con resultados escolares.