system (1,2). This initiative calls for performance-based work, in which a desired outcome is specified rather than materials or techniques to be used by the contractors to maintain the asset items. In performance-based contracts, road administrators define performance measures that specify the minimum acceptable condition at which the asset items should be maintained. To ensure that contractors maintain the asset items according to these measures, road administrators must design and implement a comprehensive and reliable performance monitoring process. One of the most important areas in the performance monitoring process is inspections conducted in the field. Field inspections require a significant amount of planning and careful monitoring. Defining a procedure that guarantees the success of field inspections is a challenge. When defining such procedure, road administrators must consider budget and time limitations, among others. These constraints influence the final techniques adopted that address issues such as the portion of the population to be inspected, frequency at which inspections should be conducted, and methodology to be used to collect information. Since performancebased road maintenance contracts are relatively new, the availability of guidelines that address such issues (with focus on performancebased contracts) is limited (2). This paper presents a three-stage and seven-step statistical sampling procedure developed to ensure that findings from field inspections will be reliable and representative with high confidence of the actual condition of asset items in the entire population. Also, this paper presents three alternative approaches of sampling for the cases when sampling needs to be performed not just once, but multiple times over the duration of a performance-based road maintenance contract (e.g., once in every year to monitor a contractor working under the terms of a 5-year-long performancebased road maintenance contract). Of note is that this paper does not discuss the operational issues related to the condition assessment process, such as frequency of inspections and inspection techniques. Discussion of points presented is limited to the sampling aspect of the condition assessment process. RANDOM INSPECTIONSIn road maintenance evaluations, conducting a 100% inspection may not be feasible because of time and cost constraints. The condition data for a number of asset items such as pavement and shoulders can be collected by using road scanning vehicles at traveling speeds without necessarily deploying crews to perform manual assessments in the field. However, data collection with respect to many other asset items, such as pipes, ditches, underdrains, and fences, requires a considerable amount of time to be spent by the crews in the field. It is not feasible to collect the condition information for such asset items for the whole population when such information cannot be collected at traveling speeds. When collecting information for the Maintaining the road infrastructure at a high level of con...

In the late 1980's and early 1990's few transportation agencies around the world considered privatization as an alternative to improve the efficiency of the services provided to the public. As a result of this initiative, new partnerships between the public and private sector for maintaining and preserving public roadways were developed and implemented. These new contracting relationships are better known as Performance-Based Road Maintenance Contracts (PBRMC). PBRMC calls for performance-based work, in which a desired outcome is specified rather than a material or method. This contracting scheme promises to be an excellent tool to improve government efficiency in maintaining transportation networks; however, without proper analysis, this type of contract could likely yield adverse outcomes. Since PBRMC are relatively new, the availability of reliable and comprehensive sets of guidelines to evaluate the effectiveness and efficiency of this type of contract is limited. Transportation agencies currently rely on criteria and procedures they have had developed from their traditional methods used to evaluate performance. Unfortunately, some of these procedures cannot appropriately assess the benefits, if any, accrued by the government as a result of engaging a private contractor to perform outcome-based road maintenance activities. This paper presents a general overview of a framework for monitoring PBRMC more comprehensively and accurately. The framework considers the assessment of five main areas-level of service effectiveness, cost-efficiency, timeliness of response, safety procedures, and quality of services-in order to guarantee the comprehensiveness and reliability of the evaluation process. The major contribution of this framework is to provide transportation agencies with guidelines for evaluating the effectiveness and efficiency of PBRMC as an alternative delivery method to maintain and preserve the roadway system.

In the performance-based road maintenance setting, the contractor is given the responsibility and flexibility to maintain the roadway system's assets using innovative approaches. Increased control of the contractor and innovative techniques implemented by the contractor should yield a product with a predefined quality. This can be ensured by implementing a systematic performance measurement system composed of performance criteria, performance targets, and protocols for taking the measurements necessary to determine whether the contractor meets such criteria and targets. This performance measurement system should produce appropriate and user-friendly reports that can effectively communicate the results to stakeholders, such as the transportation agency, the contractor, and the traveling public. The Virginia Department of Transportation (VDOT) has been using a systematic and comprehensive framework to measure the performance of its performance-based road maintenance contractors and to communicate the results effectively to stakeholders. The steps for implementation of the level-of-service effectiveness component of such a framework are presented to illustrate to transportation agencies how the framework works. Although the framework was developed and implemented for VDOT, it can be adopted by any other transportation agency and adapted to meet that agency's own needs.

Este artículo constituye un avance de investigación del proyecto que adelanta el Grupo de Investigación Educativa de la Universidad Sergio Arboleda (Invedusa) sobre tutorías académicas. En este se presenta un estado del arte de algunas prácticas y programas que se han adelantado tanto a nivel nacional como internacional.

La competencia digital es un activo que debe poseer el docente para interactuar en el mundo digital. En este artículo se analizaron los marcos de referencia recientes sobre la competencia digital con el propósito de identificar las principales habilidades, aptitudes y roles que deben ser asumidos por los profesores en el siglo XXI. Se realizó un mapeo sistemático de la literatura que consideró varios aspectos: el aprendizaje de las tecnologías de la información y la comunicación, la pedagogía, la comprensión de las competencias digitales y su interrelación con las competencias investigativas. Los resultados indican que el humanismo digital es un eje central e insustituible de la práctica docente contemporánea y que el uso de las tecnologías en los procesos de aprendizaje es un aspecto importante a considerar en la formación de los profesores. Se concluye que el éxito del docente está dado por la cultivación de competencias tecnológicas, por la inclusión de estrategias creativas, investigativas e innovadoras en las aulas, y que el humanismo y la cultura son fundamentales para su desarrollo profesional.