Technologies and innovation second international conference, CITI 2016

Rafael Valencia-García · Katty Lagos-Ortiz
Gema Alcaraz-Mármol · Javier del Cioppo
Nestor Vera-Lucio (Eds.)

Communications in Computer and Information Science

Technologies
and Innovation
Second International Conference, CITI 2016
Guayaquil, Ecuador, November 23–25, 2016
Proceedings

123

658


Communications
in Computer and Information Science

658

Commenced Publication in 2007
Founding and Former Series Editors:
Alfredo Cuzzocrea, Dominik Ślęzak, and Xiaokang Yang

Editorial Board
Simone Diniz Junqueira Barbosa
Pontifical Catholic University of Rio de Janeiro (PUC-Rio),
Rio de Janeiro, Brazil
Phoebe Chen

La Trobe University, Melbourne, Australia
Xiaoyong Du
Renmin University of China, Beijing, China
Joaquim Filipe
Polytechnic Institute of Setúbal, Setúbal, Portugal
Orhun Kara
TÜBİTAK BİLGEM and Middle East Technical University, Ankara, Turkey
Igor Kotenko
St. Petersburg Institute for Informatics and Automation of the Russian
Academy of Sciences, St. Petersburg, Russia
Ting Liu
Harbin Institute of Technology (HIT), Harbin, China
Krishna M. Sivalingam
Indian Institute of Technology Madras, Chennai, India
Takashi Washio
Osaka University, Osaka, Japan


More information about this series at />

Rafael Valencia-García Katty Lagos-Ortiz
Gema Alcaraz-Mármol Javier del Cioppo
Nestor Vera-Lucio (Eds.)
•

•

Technologies
and Innovation
Second International Conference, CITI 2016

Guayaquil, Ecuador, November 23–25, 2016
Proceedings

123


Editors
Rafael Valencia-García
Universidad de Murcia
Murcia
Spain

Javier del Cioppo
Universidad Agraria del Ecuador
Guayaquil
Ecuador

Katty Lagos-Ortiz
Universidad Agraria del Ecuador
Guayaquil
Ecuador

Nestor Vera-Lucio
Universidad Agraria del Ecuador
Guayaquil
Ecuador

Gema Alcaraz-Mármol
Universidad de Castilla-La Mancha
Toledo

Spain

ISSN 1865-0929
ISSN 1865-0937 (electronic)
Communications in Computer and Information Science
ISBN 978-3-319-48023-7
ISBN 978-3-319-48024-4 (eBook)
DOI 10.1007/978-3-319-48024-4
Library of Congress Control Number: 2016954941
© Springer International Publishing AG 2016
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Preface

The Second International Conference on Technologies and Innovation (CITI 2016) was
held during November 23–25 2016, in Guayaquil, Ecuador. The CITI series of conferences aims to provide an international framework and meeting point for professionals who are mainly devoted to research, development, innovation, and university
teaching in the field of computer science and technology applied to any important field
of innovation. CITI 2016 was organized as a knowledge-exchange conference consisting of several contributions about current innovative technology. These proposals
deal with the most important aspects and future prospects from an academic, innovative, and scientific perspective. The goal of the conference was the feasibility of
investigating advanced and innovative methods and techniques and their application in
different domains in the field of computer science and information systems that represent innovation in current society.
We would like to express our gratitude to all the authors who submitted papers to
CITI 2016, and our congratulations to those whose papers were accepted. There were 65
submissions this year. Each submission was reviewed by at least three Program Committee (PC) members. Only the papers with an average score of ≥ 1.0 were considered
for final inclusion, and almost all accepted papers had positive reviews or at least one
review with a score of 2 (accept) or higher. Finally, the PC decided to accept 21 full
papers.
We would also like to thank the PC members, who agreed to review the manuscripts
in a timely manner and provided valuable feedback to the authors.
November 2016

Rafael Valencia-García
Katty Lagos-Ortiz
Gema Alcaraz-Mármol
Javier del Cioppo
Nestor Vera-Lucio


Organization

Honorary Committee
Martha Bucaram Leverone
Javier del Cioppo, Msc
Nestor Vera Lucio, Msc

Mitchell Vásquez Bermúdez

Universidad
Universidad
Universidad
Universidad

Agraria
Agraria
Agraria
Agraria

del
del
del
del

Ecuador,
Ecuador,
Ecuador,
Ecuador,

Ecuador
Ecuador
Ecuador
Ecuador

Universidad
Universidad
Universidad

Universidad
Universidad

de Murcia, Spain
Agraria del Ecuador, Ecuador
de Castilla-La Mancha, Spain
Agraria del Ecuador, Ecuador
Agraria del Ecuador, Ecuador

Organizing Committee
Rafael Valencia-García
Katty Lagos-Ortiz
Gema Alcaraz-Mármol
Javier del Cioppo
Nestor Vera Lucio

Program Committee
Claudia Victoria Isaza
Narvaez
Alejandro
Rodríguez-González
Carlos Cruz-Corona
Dagoberto
Catellanos-Nieves
Juan Miguel Gómez-Berbís
Jesualdo Tomás
Fernández-Breis
Francisco García-Sánchez
Antonio Ruiz-Martínez
Maria Pilar Salas-Zárate

Mario Andrés
Paredes-Valverde
Luis Omar
Colombo-Mendoza
Alejandro
Rodríguez-González
Katty Lagos-Ortiz
José Medina-Moreira
Mitchel Vasquez
Jorge Hidalgo

Universidad de Antioquia, Colombia
Universidad Politécnica de Madrid, Spain
Universidad de Granada, Spain
Universidad de la Laguna, Spain
Universidad Carlos III de Madrid, Spain
Universidad de Murcia, Spain
Universidad
Universidad
Universidad
Universidad

de
de
de
de

Murcia,
Murcia,
Murcia,

Murcia,

Spain
Spain
Spain
Spain

Universidad de Murcia, Spain
Universidad Politécnica de Madrid, Spain
Universidad
Universidad
Universidad
Universidad

Agraria del Ecuador, Ecuador
de Guayaquil, Ecuador
Agraria del Ecuador, Ecuador
Agraria del Ecuador, Ecuador


VIII

Organization

Vanessa Vergara
Rocio Cuiña
Ileana Herrera
Muhammad Fahim
José María
Álvarez-Rodríguez

Pavel Novoa-Hernández
Thomas Moser
Lisbeth Rodriguez Mazahua
Raquel Vasquez Ramirez
Jose Luis Sanchez
Cervantes
Cristian Aaron Rodriguez
Enriquez
Viviana Yarel Rosales
Morales
Humberto Marin Vega
Silvana Vanesa Aciar
María Teresa
Martín-Valdivia
Miguel A.
García-Cumbreras
Begoña Moros
Salud M. Jiménez Zafra
Arturo Montejo-Raez
José Javier Samper-Zapater
A.M. Abirami
Elena Lloret
Anatoly Gladun
Yoan Gutiérrez
Miguel A. Mayer
Gandhi Hernandez
Manuel Sánchez-Rubio
Mario Barcelo-Valenzuela
Alonso Perez-Soltero
Gerardo Sanchez-Schmitz

Mahmoud Al-Ayyoub
Francisco García-Peñalvo
Rubén González
José Luis
Hernández-Hernández
Marca Bayas San Pedro
Ronald Rovira Jurado
Martin Lukac
Manuel Campos
Jose M. Juarez

Universidad Agraria del Ecuador, Ecuador
Universidad Agraria del Ecuador, Ecuador
Universidad Agraria del Ecuador, Ecuador
Istanbul Sabahattin Zaim University, Turkey
Universidad Carlos III de Madrid, Spain
Universidad Técnica Estatal de Quevedo, Ecuador
St. Pölten University of Applied Sciences, Austria
Instituto Tecnologico de Orizaba, Mexico
Instituto Tecnologico de Orizaba, Mexico
Instituto Tecnologico de Orizaba, Mexico
Instituto Tecnologico de Orizaba, Mexico
Instituto Tecnologico de Orizaba, Mexico
Instituto Tecnologico de Orizaba, Mexico
National University of San Juan, Argentina
Universidad de Jaén, Spain
Universidad de Jaén, Spain
Universidad de Murcia, Spain
Universidad de Jaén, Spain
Universidad de Jaén, Spain

Universidad de Valencia, Spain
Thiagarajar College of Engineering, Madurai, India
Universidad de Alicante, Spain
V.M. Glushkov of National Academy Science, Ukraine
Universidad de Alicante, Spain
Universidad Pompeu Fabra, Spain
Universidad Tecnológica Metropolitana, Mexico
Universidad Internacional de la Rioja, Spain
Universidad de Sonora, Mexico
Universidad de Sonora, Mexico
Universidad de Sonora, Mexico
Jordan University of Science and Technology, Jordan
Universidad de Salamanca, Spain
Universidad Internacional de la Rioja, Spain
Universidad Autónoma de Guerrero, Mexico
Vinnitsa National Technical University, Ukraine
Vinnitsa National Technical University, Ukraine
Nazarbayev University, Kazakhstan
Universidad de Murcia, Spain
Universidad de Murcia, Spain


Organization

Mario Hernández
Hernández
Guido Sciavicco

Universidad Autónoma de Guerrero, Mexico
University of Ferrara, Italy

Local Organizing Committee
Andrea Sinche Guzmán
Maritza Aguirre Munizaga
Carlota Delgado Vera
Evelyn Solís Avilés
Laura Ponce Ortega
William Bazán Vera
Ana María Herrera Espinoza
Vanessa Vergara Lozano
Karina Real Avilés
Raquel Gómez
Elke Yerovi Ricaurte
Mariuxi Tejada Castro
Wilson Molina Oleas
María del Pilar Avilés
Jorge Hidalgo Larrea
José Salavarria

Universidad
Universidad
Universidad
Universidad
Universidad
Universidad
Universidad
Universidad
Universidad
Universidad
Universidad

Universidad
Universidad
Universidad
Universidad
Universidad

Agraria
Agraria
Agraria
Agraria
Agraria
Agraria
Agraria
Agraria
Agraria
Agraria
Agraria
Agraria
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Agraria
Agraria

del
del
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Ecuador,
Ecuador,
Ecuador,
Ecuador,
Ecuador,
Ecuador,
Ecuador,
Ecuador,
Ecuador,
Ecuador,
Ecuador,
Ecuador,

Sponsoring Institutions

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Ecuador
Ecuador
Ecuador
Ecuador
Ecuador
Ecuador
Ecuador
Ecuador
Ecuador
Ecuador
Ecuador
Ecuador
Ecuador
Ecuador
Ecuador
Ecuador

IX


X

Organization

/>

Contents

Knowledge Representation and Natural Language Processing
A Knowledge-Based Platform for the Development of Critical

Thinking Abilities . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Carlota Delgado-Vera, Maritza Aguirre-Munizaga, Evelyn Solis-Avíles,
Andrea Sinche, and Néstor Vera-Lucio
Knowledge-Based Model for Curricular Design in Ecuadorian Universities. . . .
Vanessa Vergara, Katty Lagos-Ortiz, Maritza Aguirre-Munizaga,
Maria Aviles, José Medina-Moreira, Jorge Hidalgo,
and Ana Muñoz-García
IXHEALTH: A Multilingual Platform for Advanced Speech Recognition
in Healthcare . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Pedro José Vivancos-Vicente, Juan Salvador Castejón-Garrido,
Mario Andrés Paredes-Valverde, María del Pilar Salas-Zárate,
and Rafael Valencia-García
The Extended Hierarchical Linguistic Model in Fuzzy Cognitive Maps . . . . .
Maikel Leyva-Vázquez, Eduardo Santos-Baquerizo,
Miriam Peña-González, Lorenzo Cevallos-Torres,
and Alfonso Guijarro-Rodríguez
Ontological Model of Knowledge Management for Research and
Innovation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Ana Muñoz-García, Katty Lagos-Ortiz, Vanessa Vergara-Lozano,
José Salavarria-Melo, Karina Real-Aviles, and Néstor Vera-Lucio
Sentiment Analysis and Trend Detection in Twitter . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
María del Pilar Salas-Zárate, José Medina-Moreira,
Paul Javier Álvarez-Sagubay, Katty Lagos-Ortiz,
Mario Andrés Paredes-Valverde, and Rafael Valencia-García

3

14

26

39

51

63

Cloud and Mobile Computing
Usage of Diabetes Self-management Mobile Technology: Options
for Ecuador . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Jose Medina-Moreira, Katty Lagos-Ortiz, Harry Luna-Aveiga,
Ruth Paredes, and Rafael Valencia-García

79


XII

Contents

A Cloud Computing Based Framework for Storage and Processing
of Meteorological Data . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Maritza Aguirre-Munizaga, Raquel Gomez, María Aviles,
Mitchell Vasquez, and G. Cristina Recalde-Coronel
An M-Learning Open-Source Tool Comparation for Easy Creation
of Educational Apps . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Antonio Ortega-García, Antonio Ruiz-Martínez,
and Rafael Valencia-García
Study of Use, Privacy and Dependence on Social Networks by Students
in the Ecuadorian Universities . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Marcos Antonio Espinoza-Mina and Patricia Leonor Suárez-Riofrío

90

102

114

Software Engineering
Analysis of Risk Factors of ERP (Enterprise Resource Planning) Systems
Information Technologies. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
William Bazán, Teresa Samaniego, Abel Alarcón, and Ana Rodríguez
Analyzing HTML5-Based Frameworks for Developing Educational
and Serious Games . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Humberto Marín-Vega, Giner Alor-Hernandez,
Ramón Zatarain-Cabada, and M. Lucía Barrón-Estrada
A Dynamic Recognition Approach of Emotional States for Car Drivers . . . . .
Jose Aguilar, Danilo Chavez, and Jorge Cordero
Towards Supporting International Standard-Based Software Engineering
Approaches Using Semantic Web Technologies: A Systematic
Literature Review . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Ricardo Colomo-Palacios, Luis Omar Colombo-Mendoza,
and Rafael Valencia-García

131

143

155

169

Expert Systems and Soft Computing
Autonomous Cycle of Data Analysis Tasks for Learning Processes . . . . . . . .
Jose Aguilar, Omar Buendia, Karla Moreno, and Diego Mosquera
The Present World of the Expert System and its Competitive Contribution
in Medicine . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
William Bazán, Valeria Bazán, Abel Alarcón, Teresa Samaniego,
Oscar Bermeo, and Ana Rodríguez
A General Framework for Learning Analytic in a Smart Classroom. . . . . . . .
Jose Aguilar, Priscila Valdiviezo, Jorge Cordero, Guido Riofrio,
and Eduardo Encalada

187

203

214


Contents

XIII

Platform for Project Evaluation Based on Soft-Computing Techniques. . . . . .
Gilberto Fernando Castro, Iliana Pérez, Pedro Piñero, Surayne Torres,
Mitchell Vásquez, Jorge Hidalgo, and Néstor Vera-Lucio

226

MiSCi: Autonomic Reflective Middleware for Smart Cities . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Jose Aguilar, Marxjhony Jerez, Maribel Mendonca,
and Manuel Sánchez

241

Designing Assistive Technologies for Children with Disabilities:
A Case Study of a Family Living with a Daughter
with Intellectual Disability . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Janio Jadán-Guerrero, Ileana Altamirano, Hugo Arias,
and Johann Jadán

254

ADL-MOOC: Adaptive Learning Through Big Data Analytics
and Data Mining Algorithms for MOOCs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Juan Miguel Gómez-Berbís and Ángel Lagares-Lemos

269

Author Index . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

281


Knowledge Representation and Natural
Language Processing


A Knowledge-Based Platform

for the Development of Critical
Thinking Abilities
Carlota Delgado-Vera(&), Maritza Aguirre-Munizaga,
Evelyn Solis-Avíles, Andrea Sinche, and Néstor Vera-Lucio
Faculty of Agricultural Sciences, Computer Science Department,
Agrarian University of Ecuador, Av. 25 de Julio y Pio Jaramillo,
P.O. BOX 09-04-100, Guayaquil, Ecuador
{cdelgado,maguirre,esolis,asinche,
nvera}@uagraria.edu.ec

Abstract. Critical thinking is closely related to the main objectives in current
educational reforms worldwide. It permits to develop cognitive skills of interpretation, analysis, evaluation, inference, explanation, and auto-regulation,
which are essential in today’s job market. Critical thinking is being implemented
in different e-learning platforms with outstanding results. This paper presents an
ontology-based platform for the development of critical thinking in universities.
The platform is divided into three main modules: user management, course
management and learning resources repository. A case study in the Agrarian
University of Ecuador is presented and the results obtained by the use of the
developed platform are promising.
Keywords: Critical thinking
resources Á Ontologies

Á

Knowledge-based systems

Á

Learning

1 Introduction
The development of critical thinking [1] is gaining momentum in e-learning systems,
because it is closely related to some of the main objectives of the current educational
reforms, such as the creation of civic and ethical skills. Besides, professionals are
required to have new skills related to the permanent learning and the development of
the scientific thought.
Some studies reveals the importance of critical thinking and investigation skills in
higher education students that permit them to analyse, interpret and evaluate how theory
can be applied to practice [2].
In fact, critical thinking is being implemented in different e-learning environments
[3] with very satisfactory results.
Formation of critical thinking is linked to the creation of capacities for lifelong
learning, research, innovation and creativity [4]. It generates active and scientific
minds, training students in reasoning, the logical thinking, the detection of fallacies, the
intellectual curiosity, and problem solving. There are studies focused on the analysis of
© Springer International Publishing AG 2016
R. Valencia-García et al. (Eds.): CITI 2016, CCIS 658, pp. 3–13, 2016.
DOI: 10.1007/978-3-319-48024-4_1


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C. Delgado-Vera et al.

the efficiency of stimulating the critical thinking in academic subjects such as the work
presented in [5].
On the other hand, knowledge-based technologies provide a consistent and reliable
basis to face the challenges for organization, manipulation and visualization of the data
and knowledge, playing a crucial role as the technological basis of the development of
a large number of information systems [6]. In this context, an ontology defines a set of

representational primitives allowing to model a domain of knowledge or discourse [7].
Nowadays, the use of ontologies in knowledge-based systems has significantly grown,
becoming an important component in enhancing the Web intelligence and in supporting data representation. Indeed, ontologies are being applied to different domains
such as Biomedicine [8], Finance [9], Innovation Management [10], Cloud computing
[11, 12] and recommendation [13, 14], among others.
This paper is structured as follows: Sect. 2 describes some related work. Section 3
introduces the platform presented in this paper, where the architecture design, modules
and interrelationships of the proposed approach are described. The evaluation of the
platform is explained with a case study in Sect. 4. Finally, conclusions and future work
are presented in Sect. 5.

2 Related Work
Critical thinking is an intellectual process that, in a decisively, deliberately and
self-regulated way seeks to reach a reasonable judgment, a process that is characterized
by an honest effort of interpretation, analysis, evaluation. Besides, the judgment can be
explained or justified based on evidence, contextual considerations and criteria.
Thinking critically mainly requires a set of intellectual and personal skills that can
be applied to different domains such as software development [15]. Other works, such
as the one presented in [16], focus on the use of critical thinking for the development of
cognitive abilities through an interactive methodology.
For the purpose of this research the Delphi method [17] was taken as a reference.
This method exposes that critical thinking develops cognitive skills of interpretation,
analysis, evaluation, inference, explanation, and auto-regulation. These skills are
characterized when an intellectual process of high level is manifested.
The fundamental skills of critical thinking in education are absolutely necessary to
obtain the capacity for analysis, evaluation and the reflexive formulation of arguments.
Educators must be aware of the necessity to promote the critic thinking in students
to face effectively the new social and technological changes of the modern world. As it
has been done in previous research [18], it is necessary to design and implement
proposals or cognitive intervention software programs to develop the critical thinking

into different education levels. In Fig. 1 the critical thinking skills are shown and
explained.
• Verbal reasoning and argument analysis skills: They allow to identify and evaluate
the quality of ideas, coherent conclusions of an argument.
• Hypothesis testing: Hypotheses are tentative ideas that represent possible solutions
or explanatory reasons for a fact, situation or problem. They can explain, predict


A Knowledge-Based Platform for the Development

5

Fig. 1. Critical thinking skills

and control events of daily life. Hypothesis approaches promote new arguments that
facilitate the construction of learning either by checking or contrasting processes.
• Probability and uncertainty skills: They determine quantitatively the possibility that
a given event may occur, in addition to analyzing and evaluating different alternatives that are necessary for decision making in a given situation, according to the
advantages and disadvantages of this event.
• Decision making and problem solving skills: They allow to exercise reasoning
abilities in the recognition and definition of a problem from certain data, in the
selection of relevant information. Besides, they permit to contrast different alternative solutions and their results.

3 The Knowledge Based Platform
In this section the knowledge-based methodology and platform developed in this
research is explained. This system is a web-based platform that was developed through
a planned process and according to the curriculum defined by the National Secretary of
Higher Education, Science, Technology and Innovation (SENESCYT1) entity, which
deals with basic processes of thought, understanding, reading, communication, and
verbal reasoning allowing a better development.

Three different roles exist in the platform: the administrator, the teacher and student
role. Different modules were developed for each role. For example the main functionality of the administrator is related to the courses and users (teachers and students)
management. Teachers can develop different processes and teaching resources, such as
units, video tutorials and exercises to encourage critical thinking in the students.
Finally, students can access to the learning resources and assessment. These resources
consist of the design of a website, or the presentation of activities, games and videos,
which enables users to develop skills interacting with the platform.
The development of the web application was based on the philosophical tendency
called constructivism and meaningful learning [19] where the student learns by doing
and building. The platform architecture is shown in Fig. 2.
The platform is basically composed of three modules: user management, course
management and learning resources repository. The user management module permits
1

/>

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C. Delgado-Vera et al.

Fig. 2. System architecture

Fig. 3. Excerpt of the domain ontology

to manage users that will access to the system. The course management module permits
to introduce different learning contents and learning resources for a specific course.
Finally, the learning resource repository stores the learning resources published by
teachers and they can be shared among different courses. More concretely, this
repository is a large repository of exercises that can help in the development of critical
thinking. There are different kinds of exercises: exercises for expanding and contraction

of ideas, basic thinking processes, reading comprehension, verbal reasoning, and
numerical reasoning. This classification is based on the work proposed in [16].
The learning resources repository uses an ontology to semantically represent each
learning resource. This ontology contains information about the different kinds of
resources and some terminology about the content of the resource. Figure 3 shows an
excerpt of the domain ontology and some details of this ontology are shown in Table 1.


A Knowledge-Based Platform for the Development

7

Table 1. Details of the ontology
Ontology
Classes
210
Datatype properties
4
Object properties
16
Subclass_of relationships
234
Max. Depth of Class Tree
5
Min. Depth of Class Tree
2
Avg. Depth of Class Tree
3
Max. Branching Factor of Class Tree
9

Min. Branching Factor of Class Tree
1
Avg. Branching Factor of Class Tree
4

Students can access and interact with the system, by doing the activities and finding
results of the evaluations, including the number of questions answered, and the number
and percentage of hits. In addition, the student can access to a series of videos that are
related to the development of critical thinking skills. In Figs. 4 and 5 two screenshots
of the user interface are shown.
This whole process will help students strengthen their knowledge, abilities, associated attitudes to the styles of convergent and divergent thinking, and logical, critical
and creative reasoning, which are required for acting as critical and responsible learning
managers through continuous personal growth.

Fig. 4. Screenshot of the web application


8

C. Delgado-Vera et al.

Fig. 5. Screenshot of the web application

4 Case Study
To evaluate the proposed methodology a teaching experience was performed in the
introductory course of the Computer Science degree of the Agrarian University of
Ecuador. Thus, different learning resources, such as video tutorials, logical exercises,
reasoning activities and other tests were developed. These resources were related to
introductory concepts in computer science such as binary code, algebra and algorithms.
The course was taught by 4 professors and they suggested different activities to

encourage the students’ critical thinking development.
At the end of the teaching experiment students were asked to answer an opinion
poll in order to show their perceptions, and whether the different practical works had
allowed them to improve their critical thinking. This poll is based on the work presented in [20], and up to 100 students participated during 2015-2016. The opinion poll
consisted of different questions (see Table 2) related to the experience. Our students
evaluated each question by choosing a value between 1 and 5, where 1 means strongly
disagree, 2 disagree, 3 neutral, 4 agree and 5 strongly agree. The students’ evaluation is
shown in Table 3 and Fig. 6.
As it can be seen in Table 3 the average of all questions is over 4, which means that
students agreed with all the issues asked. In particular, the best results were obtained
for questions 4 and 8 with an average of 4.54. On the other hand the worst results were
obtained for questions Q6, Q7, Q12 and 16 with an average of 4.06, 4.04, 4.08 and
4.08, respectively. Finally, it is worth noting that the last three questions (Q18, Q19 and
Q20) - more related to the experiment - obtained a very good mark, showing that
students agree with the usefulness of the proposed framework.


A Knowledge-Based Platform for the Development

9

Table 2. Questions of opinion poll
N
Q1
Q2
Q3
Q4
Q5
Q6
Q7

Q8
Q9
Q10
Q11
Q12
Q13
Q14
Q15
Q16
Q17
Q18
Q19
Q20

Question
Do you think that critical thinking contributes to understanding, giving opinion,
deducing or judging any situation in a correct way?
Do you think that the development of critical thinking helps in the teaching and
learning process?
Do you think that critical thinking helps to improve the students’ learning process and
academic performance?
Do you think that the development of critical thinking abilities is very important at
every educational level?
Do you think that the use of ICTs allows to generate, disseminate and socialize
knowledge?
Do you think that ICTs assure the students’ understanding?
Do you agree that ICTs facilitate the complex instructions explanation?
Do you agree that ICTs permit the development of interactive classes?
Do you think that ICTs estimulates the students’ motivation for learning?
Do you agree that ICTs contributes to universal information, communication and

learning access?
Do you think that ICTs improve people’s quality of life?
Do you think that ICTs allows the use of images for education?
Do you think that the use of ICTs improves the students’ memory?
Do you think that ICTs facilitate learning and contribute to the development of critical
thinking abilities?
Do you think that it is better to do practical exercises using ICT than manually?
Do you think that the use of multimedia tools contributes to critical thinking
development?
Do you think that critical thinking abilities can be obtained through logical excercises?
Do you think that the proposed activities in the system improve the students’ critical
thinking?
Do you think that video tutorials contribute to critical thinking development?
Do you think that the proposed system contributes to the development of critical
thinking abilities?

The mode is also shown in Table 3. All the questions obtained a mode of 4 or 5,
suggesting that the majority of students who answered the survey marked 4 or 5 in each
question, so that they agree and strongly agree, respectively, with the proposed questions.
Other conclusions of the survey are that 94 % of students think that critical thinking
development contributes to improving the responsibility in students. In addition, 88 %
answered that the use of ICTs improves people’s quality of life through the generation,
dissemination and socialization of knowledge. Besides, having universal access to the
information, communication and education increases motivation, and contributes to the
development of critical thinking skills. In fact, 84 % believe that these ICTs tools
ensure the understanding of academic content, as well as the explanation of complex
instructions.


10

C. Delgado-Vera et al.
Table 3. Opinion poll results
Question
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20

5
48
48
48
58

52
22
20
58
52
40
40
26
46
40
48
24
36
48
48
48

4
48
48
46
38
36
62
64
38
36
48
48
56

48
48
50
60
62
50
44
46

3
4
4
6
4
12
16
16
4
12
12
12
18
6
12
2
16
2
2
8
6

2
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0

1
0
0
0
0
0
0

0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0

Average
4.44
4.44
4.42
4.54
4.4
4.06
4.04
4.54
4.4
4.28
4.28
4.08
4.4
4.28

4.46
4.08
4.34
4.46
4.4
4.42

Mode
5
5
5
5
5
4
4
5
5
4
4
4
4
4
4
4
4
4
5
5

Fig. 6. Results

On the other hand, many students prefer to develop reasoning exercises by using
ICTs because the use of images and multimedia features contributes to the development
of critical thinking. Furthermore, video tutorials and logical reasoning exercises
favorably improve the intellectual and academic performance of students improving
these skills themselves.


A Knowledge-Based Platform for the Development

11

5 Conclusion and Future Work
The development of critical thinking skills is gaining momentum in e-learning environments and experts believe that these skills have to be developed in all the educational levels. This paper presents a knowledge-based methodology to promote critical
thinking skills development in all courses in order to educate future critical professionals that are capable to solve problems taking into account the current social
changes. This methodology was implemented on a web-based platform and an evaluation of the platform was done in the introductory course of the computer science
degree of the Agrarian University of Ecuador. The platform allows students to improve
their level of critical thinking, by encouraging them to build their own knowledge
based on different exercises posed in the system.
The case study presented in this work reveal that students believe that systems for
promoting critical thinking in university courses are useful and should be implemented in
other universities and courses. For that, a survey of 10 question was answered by 100
students of the computer science degree of the Agrarian University of Ecuador. The
results show that almost all the students agreed the questions proposed by this case study.
The platform will allow teachers to propose different activities to improve the
students’ cognitive skills. However, the platform only permits to develop closed
questions. As future work, it is planned to introduce some intelligent methodologies to
automatically evaluate open questions like the work presented in [21]. In this work,
semantic web and natural language processing technologies are applied for the automatic evaluation of open questions.
Finally, it is also planned to extend the case study to different courses in the same

degree in order to evaluate the platform with different students at different levels.
A statistical evaluation of the effectiveness of the platform will be also performed. We
will follow the study proposed in [22]. In this paper, a case study of a university-level
course delivered by computer conferencing examined student participation and critical
thinking is presented. It was guided by two purposes: (a) to determine whether the
students were actively participating, building on each other’s contributions, and
thinking critically about the discussion topics; and (b) to determine what factors
affected student participation and critical thinking. The results suggest that the emergence of a dynamic and interactive educational process that facilitates critical thinking
is contingent on several factors: appropriate course design, instructor interventions,
content, and students’ characteristics.
Acknowledgements. We would like to thank to the Agrarian University of Ecuador that supported this project.


12

C. Delgado-Vera et al.

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