Dr Cristobal Cobo

Profile

Cristobal Cobo collaborates at the Oxford Internet Institute on the Network of Excellence in Internet Science (FP7), focus on strengthening scientific and technological excellence by developing an integrated and interdisciplinary scientific understanding of Internet. He also coordinates the OportUnidad project (an Open Educational Resources initiative supported by ALFA III). Previously he worked on the ‘K-Network‘ project, focused on creating networks of innovation in the Atlantic Area to boost strategies for building a 21st Century Knowledge Society. He also collaborated on the Socio-Economic Services for European Research Project to study social and economic implication of the Internet (FP7).

In 2009 he was a Visiting Fellow at the Centre on Skills, Knowledge and Organisational Performance, University of Oxford, supported by the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC) and the Social Science Research Council (SSRC). From 2005 to 2010 he was Professor and Director of Communication and New Technologies and editor of the educational platform of the Latin American Faculty of Social Sciences (FLACSO, Mexican Campus). In 2007 he participated as Academic coordinator in Mexico of the program 'From Information to Innovative Knowledge: Tools and Skills for Adaptive Leadership' at the University of Minnesota and FLACSO-Mexico. He has also been professor of the Autonomous National University of Mexico (2006) and the Technological Institute of Superior Studies of Monterrey (2005).

With John Moravec he is co-author the book "Invisible Learning: Toward a new ecology of education" (2010); In 2009 he published ‘Information Architecture, usability and Internet‘ (2009) and with Hugo Pardo he wrote ‘Planet Web 2.0, fast food media or collective intelligence’. He has worked on academic projects with organizations such as the Open University (UK), the University of Oxford, the University of Minnesota, the University of Toronto, the Open University of Catalonia, the Mexican Ministry of Public Education, Burson-Marsteller (Chile) and the Ministries of Education of Chile, Ecuador, Perú and Argentina, the Telefonica Foundation (Argentina and Mexico) and the European Commission (Program ALFA III).

Dr Cobo currently serves on the board of the New Media Consortium (NMC Horizon Project). He has served as external Evaluator for National Science Foundation and MIT Press (US), and as consultant for International Labour Organization (UN), and the International Development Research Centre (Canada). Invited Expert for RAND EU in future trends on technology and education commissioned by the Bureau of European Policy Advisors (BEPA). Dr Cobo currently serves on the board of the Global Open Educational Resources (OER) Graduate Network and in the ‘Open Education 2030’ board (coordinated by the Institute for Prospective Technological Studies part of the Joint Research Center of the European commission). He also has collaborated in the design and development of academic online platforms like Internet Science (European Commission's Seventh Framework Programme), Mexican National Council on Science and Technology (CONACYT), the Latin American Faculty of Social Sciences-Mexico's Open Knowledge Repository and Collaboratory, Invisible Learning (Education Futures) and Planet Web 2.0 (FLACSO).

Research interests

knowledge transfer, self-learning, digital awareness, skills for innovation, informal learning, knowledge workers, collective intelligence, future of work, human-computer interaction

Positions held at the OII

• Research Fellow, August 2010 -

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Research

Current projects

• OportUnidad: Developing a Common Higher Education Area between Latin America and Europe While Fostering Open Educational Practices Through a Bottom-up Approach

  January 2012 - June 2014

  OportUnidad is an action-research project co-funded by the European Commission under the EuropeAid ALFA III programme with the aim of promoting the adoption of Open Educational Practices in Latin America.

• EINS: Network of Excellence in Internet Science

  December 2011 - May 2015

  EINS aims to strengthen scientific and technological excellence by developing an integrated and interdisciplinary scientific understanding of Internet networks and their co-evolution with society.

Past projects

• SESERV Consortium: Socio-Economic Services for European Research Projects

  September 2010 - September 2012

  The SESERV consortium aims to maximize research impact by raising awareness of socio-economic trends in the areas of incentives, accounting, Digital Europe, and risk management, and by addressing possible policy priorities within the research community.

• KNETWORKS: Dissemination and Networks of Knowledge in the Atlantic Area

  July 2010 - July 2012

  KNETWORKS aims to create a strong knowledge sharing and dissemination network in the Atlantic area to promote the exchange of good practices and implementation strategies for building and exploiting a 21st century knowledge and information society.

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Publications

• Articles
• Books
• Chapters
• Conference papers
• Reports
• Theses
• Working papers

Articles

• Cristobal Cobo (forthcoming) Exploration of Open Educational Resources in non-English speaking communities. International Review of Research in Open and Distance Learning, Vol 15
• Cristobal Cobo, (2013) Mechanisms to identify and study the demand for innovation skills in world-renowned organizations, On the Horizon, Vol. 21 Iss: 2, pp.96 – 106
• Cobo, C. (2012) Skills for innovation: Envisioning an education that prepares for changing world. Curriculum Journal 1-19.
• Cobo, C. (2012) Networks for Citizen Consultation and Citizen Sourcing of Expertise. Journal of Contemporary Social Science 7 (3).
• Cobo Romaní, C. (2010) Nuevos alfabetismos, viejos problemas: el nuevo mundo del trabajo y las asignaturas pendientes de la educación. Razón y Palabra 73.
• Cobo Romaní, C. (2010) Cultura Digital y Nuevos Perfiles Profesionales: desafíos regionales. @tic. revista d'innovació educativa 5: 1-7.
• Cobo Romaní, C. (2009) El concepto de tecnologías de la información. Benchmarking sobre las definiciones de las TIC en la sociedad del conocimiento. Zer 14 (27) 295-318. Universidad del País Vasco.
• Cobo Romaní, C. (2009) Conocimiento, creatividad y software Libre: una oportunidad para la educación en la sociedad actual. UOC papers: revista sobre la sociedad del conocimiento 8.
• Cobo Romaní, C. (2007) Modelo Abierto de aprendizaje. Innovación Educativa 7 (41).
• Cobo Romaní, C. (2006) Learning 2.0. Global Leapfrog Education 1 (1).
• Cobo Romaní, C. (2006) Las multitudes inteligentes de la era digital. Revista Digital Universitaria 7 (6).
• Cobo Romaní, C. (2003) Modelo Reactroactivo, de la comunicación a la interacción sistémica. Reflexiones Académicas 16.

Books

• Cobo Romaní, C. and Moravec, J. (2011) Aprendizaje Invisible: Una nueva ecología de la educación [Invisible Learning: Towards a new ecology of learning]. Barcelona: University of Barcelona.
• Cobo Romaní, C. (2009) Nuevas Arquitecturas de la Información, usabilidad e Internet: Estrategias, instrumentos y metodologías para optimizar la interacción entre las personas y las tecnologías digitales. VDM Verlag. ISBN 978-3-639-18934-6.
• Cobo Romaní, C. and Pardo Kuklinski, H. (2007) Planeta Web 2.0. Inteligencia colectiva o medios fast food. Grup de Recerca d'Interaccions Digitals, Universitat de Vic. Flacso México. Barcelona / México DF. ISBN 978-84-934995-8-7.

Chapters

• Oostveen, A.M., Hjorth, I., Pickering, B., Boniface, M., Meyer, E.T., Cobo, C. and Schroeder, R. (2012) Cross-Disciplinary Lessons for the Future Internet. In F.Álvarez et al. (eds) Future Internet - From Technological Promises to Reality. FIA book 2012. Springer, Lecture Notes in Computer Science (LNCS) 7281, pp. 42-54.
• Cobo, C. (2012) REA en plataformas académicas y no académicas: análisis de materiales en portugués, castellano e inglés. In: Okada, A. (Ed.) Open Educational Resources and Social Networks: Co-Learning and Professional Development. London: Open University, Scholio Educational Research and Publishing.
• Cobo Romaní, C. (2009) Aprendizaje de código abierto. In: P. Balaguer (Ed.) OLPC, PLAN CEIBAL y el futuro de la educación. Prentice Hall-Pearson Education: Montevideo. ISBN 978-9974-7899-5-1.
• Cobo Romaní, C. (2009) Aprendizaje Colaborativo, Nuevos Modelos para Usos Educativos. In: L.M. Garay (Ed.) Tecnologías de la información y comunicación: Horizontes interdisciplinarios y temas de investigación. Universidad Pedagógica Nacional, pp.55-74. ISBN: 978-607-413-036-2.
• Cobo Romaní, C. (2009) ¿Qué son las TIC? Instrumentos y coordenadas para navegar en la sociedad del conocimiento. In: C. García and R. Gómez (Eds) Comunicación e interdisciplina. Asociación Mexicana de Investigadores de la Comunicación (AMIC) y la Universidad Autónoma de Nuevo León (UANL). Monterrey. ISBN 978-607-433-138-7.

Conference papers

• Pardo, H., Cobo, C. and Scolari, C. (2011) Death of the University? Knowledge Production and Disemination in the desitermediation Era. In: Matteo Ciastellardi, Cristina Miranda de Almeida, Carlos A. Scolari (eds) McLuhan Galaxy Conference 'Understanding Media, Today', Barcelona, 23-25 May 2011. Collection Sehen, Universidad Oberta de Catalunya: Spain. ISBN: 978-84-9388021-7
• Cobo Romaní, C. (2010) 21st century literacies and OECD. Journalism Research & Education (JRE) Section, International Association for Media and Communication Research (IAMCR).
• Cobo Romaní, C. (2010) The European and the International Framework of E-competencies. In: Casalet, M. (ed.) El papel de las ciencias sociales en la construcción de la sociedad del conocimiento. FLASCO, Mexico.
• Cobo Romaní, C. (2009) 21 century literacies and OECD. IV Congress of Cybersociety: Analog crisis, digital future. Organised by the Observatorio para la CiberSociedad (Cybersociety Obervatory).
• Cobo Romaní, C. (2006) Social Networking y Web Social. Asociación Mexicana de Investigadores de la Comunicación y Universidad Latina De América en Memorias del XVIII Encuentro AMIC: "Las claves necesarias de una Comunicación para el Desarrollo en México".
• Cobo Romaní, C. (2004) Human Computer Interaction. First Online Conference of the Observatorio para la CiberSociedad (Cybersociety Obervatory), 9-22 September 2004.

Reports

• Inamorato, A., Cobo, C., and Costa, C. (Eds) (2012) Open Educational Resources: Cases from Latin America and Europe in Higher Education. Rio do Janeiro: Universidade Federal Fluminenese Publishing.
• Boniface, M., Pickering, B., Meyer, E., Cobo, C. and Oostveen, A. (2011) Initial SESERV Survey Results, Challenge 1 Projects: Socio-Economic Priorities. Report for the SESERV project.
• Cobo. C. (2011) Invisible learning: learning in 3D, 360° and 24/7. Debates on Education. Jaume Bofill Foundation and the Universitat Oberta de Catalunya. B. 16237-201.
• Oostveen, A., Meyer, E., Cobo, C., Hjorth, I., Reisdorf, B., Papoutsi, C., Power, L., Abdel-Sattar, N., Hale, S. and Waldburger, M. (2011) First Year Report on Scientific Workshop. SESERV Deliverable D1.2, Socio-Economic Services for European Research Projects FP7-2010-ICT-258138-CSA.
• Boniface, M., Pickering, B., Meyer, E., Cobo, C., Oostveen, A., Stiller, B. and Waldburger, M. (2011) First Report on Social Future Internet Coordination Activities. SESERV Deliverable D3.1, Socio-Economic Services for European Research Projects FP7-2010-ICT-258138-CSA.
• Cobo Romaní, C. (2010) ¿Y si las tecnologías no fueran la respuesta? In: A.Piscitelli, I.Adaime and I.Binder (Eds) El proyecto Facebook y la posuniversidad: sistemas operativos sociales y entornos abiertos de aprendizaje. Programa Debate y Conocimiento. Fundación Telefónica de España y Ed. Ariel.
• Cobo Romaní, C. (2010) Bitácoras del conocimiento: inteligencias en línea. In: S. Martínez and E. Solano (eds) Blogs Bloggers Blogósfera: una revisión multidiscipliaria. Universidad Iberoamericana.
• Cobo Romaní, C. (2010) Aprendizaje Invisible: el valor agregado del aprendizaje no evidente. Ministerio de Educación de Argentina y Wikimedia (Wikipedia) Argentina.
• Cobo Romaní, C. and Remes, L. (2008) Programa Enciclomedia, Informe Final de la Evaluación de Consistencia y Resultados 2007. Final Report of the Enciclomedia Programme, Mexican Public Education Secretariat.

Theses

• Cobo Romaní, C. (2005) Organización de la Información y su impacto en la usabilidad de las tecnologías interactivas. Doctoral Thesis. Universidad Autónoma de Barcelona, Barcelona.
• Cobo Romaní, C. (2003) Gestión de las comunicaciones ciudadanas en los centros de interacción multicanal: estudio de caso: Ayuntamiento de Barcelona. Facultat de Ciències de la Comunicació. Universidad Autónoma de Barcelona, Barcelona.
• Cobo Romaní, C. (1999) Universidad, Acción Comunicativa y Sociedad Civil: Modelo de Comunicación para el Desarrollo. Masters Thesis. Universidad Diego Portales, Santiago de Chile.

Working papers

• Cobo Romaní, C. (2009) Strategies to promote the development of e-competences in the next generation of professionals: European and International trends. SKOPE Issues Paper Series, Monograph No. 13. ESRC Centre on Skills, Knowledge and Organisational Performance (SKOPE). ISSN 1466-1535.
• Cobo Romaní, C. and Pardo, H. (2008) Un Speaker Corner En Pdf. In: VV.AA. Los Piratas son los Padres: Historias en los albores de la era digital. eXgae & Conservas. EXGAE. Barcelona.
• Cobo Romaní, C. (2007) El conocimiento open source. La apertura estratégica como arquitectura para la gestión del conocimiento. Communication Portal, Institut de la Comunicació (InCom-UAB), Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona.
• Cobo Romaní, C. (2003) Modelo Retroactivo. De la comunicación a la interacción sistémica. Comunicación & Medios.

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Webcasts

• 

  Presentation on "Invisible Learning"

  Recorded on: 29 November 2012 Duration: 00:52:02

  Cristobal Cobo presents on his book Invisible Learning at the Chilean Ministry of Education (ExpoEnlaces 2012, Santiago).

• 

  Presentation on "Invisible Learning"

  Recorded on: 9 October 2012 Duration: 01:10:00

  Cristobal Cobo presents on his book Invisible Learning on a panel convened at the Jaume Bofill Foundation, Barcelona.

• 

  Radical Openness in Education

  Recorded on: 4 October 2012 Duration: 00:47:05

  Cristobal Cobo presents on open educational practices and the future of education at the IB Regional Conference (Madrid 2012).

• 

  New rules in education: how can we learn from our students?

  Recorded on: 2 June 2012 Duration: 00:53:12

  Cristobal Cobo presents on a panel at the Centre for Innovation in Basque Vocational Training (TKNIKA).

• 

  Conditions required to implement Open Educational Resource practices in Latin American Higher Education

  Recorded on: 30 April 2012 Duration: 00:23:28

  Cristobal Cobo discusses the rationale behind the OportUnidad action, a project aiming to promote the adoption of Open Educational Practices in Latin America (video hosted at: Open Courseware Consortium).

• 

  OportUnidad - Open Educational Practices

  Recorded on: 30 April 2012 Duration: 00:24:21

  Cristobal Cobo discusses the rationale behind the OportUnidad action, a project aiming to promote the adoption of Open Educational Practices in Latin America (video hosted at: Open Courseware Consortium).

• 

  We now have technology: what do we do about education?

  Recorded on: 19 October 2011 Duration: 00:42:32

  Cristobal Cobo presents at the Mexican Society of Computing in Education (SOMECE), Chiapas, Mexico.

• 

  Interview on "Invisible Learning"

  Recorded on: 8 July 2011 Duration: 00:08:06

  Cristobal Cobo discusses his book Invisible Learning at the Telefonica Foundation, Buenos Aires.

• 

  Invisible Learning

  Recorded on: 25 June 2011 Duration: 00:16:46

  Cristobal Cobo presents on invisible learning at TEDx (Palaza Cibeles, Madrid).

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News

• Unterricht mit Werbepausen: Schulmisere in Mexiko

  10 February 2012 Le Monde Diplomatique

  Cristobal Cobo discusses what happens when new technologies are integrated into the classroom but are misused or underused by educators.

• Experto de la Universidad de Oxford asegura que "la tecnología no debe estar en las aulas"

  4 July 2011 Europa Press

  Cristóbal Cobo speaks on learning inside and outside the classroom: "The problem is that we have the technology, but no consensus on how to use it."

• La escuela debe valorar lo aprendido dentro y fuera de las aulas

  4 July 2011 El Mundo

  Cristóbal Cobo speaks on learning inside and outside the classroom: "The problem is that we have the technology, but no consensus on how to use it."

• La educación formal no es suficiente; hay que reconocer la importancia del aprendizaje invisible

  23 May 2011 La Crónica de Hoy

  Cristóbal Cobo speaks on learning inside and outside the classroom: "The problem is that we have the technology, but no consensus on how to use it."

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Blog

• Future Internet Assembly: ‘from the lab into the real world’

  Cristobal Cobo on 8 May 2013 11:32AM

  ‘From the lab into the real world’ [A User-Centered Approach] from Cristobal Cobo Romaní According to Wikipedia User-centered design is a ‘multi-stage problem solving process that not only requires designers to analyse and foresee how users are [...]

• Internet Science and the shift in academic knowledge landscape

  Cristobal Cobo on 15 Apr 2013 23:40PM

  Last week was the first International Conference of Internet Science, hosted at Royal Flemish Academy of Belgium for Science and the Arts, Brussels. The event was truly  international and remarkably cross-disciplinary. Here a Twitter summary of the tweets [...]

• #Knetworks: Educational Innovations Beyond Technology

  Cristobal Cobo on 25 Mar 2013 13:43PM

  Last week was the closing meeting of the research project KNetworks.The event that took place at the Instituto Superior Técnico (Lisbon). The meeting was a good opportunity to present some of the main outcomes and lessons learned of [...]

• High-tech companies looking to hire people with soft skills for innovation

  Cristobal Cobo on 19 Mar 2013 16:12PM

  Emerald Group Publishing and its journal On the Horizon just released our article: “Mechanisms to identify and study the demand for innovation skills in world-renowned organizations” [Excerpt] “Since extensive studies have been carried [...]

• If MOOCs are the Answer, What Is the Question?

  Cristobal Cobo on 26 Feb 2013 19:45PM

  Coming Trends in Education // Tendencias Educativas Digitales from Cristobal Cobo Romaní Above the slides of a talk I gave today. The topic was ‘future trends on education‘, rather than technologies the idea was to focus on other time-tested [...]

• Time to rethink education?

  Cristobal Cobo on 19 Dec 2012 13:41PM

  I was thrilled by the invitation of IB. I was invited to speaks at the 2012 International Baccalaureate conference for the Africa, Europe and Middle East region, held in Madrid. It was simply a privilege to have the possibility to stand in … [...]

• Open Educational Practices in European and Latin American Higher Education institutions

  Cristobal Cobo on 11 Dec 2012 11:03AM

  Compendium of European and Latin American case studies and interviews on open educational resources and practices. from Cristobal Cobo Romaní   The term Open Educational Resources (OER) was coined in 2002 in discussions at the Forum on the Impact of [...]

• Winners of Platforms for Networked Innovation Competition

  Cristobal Cobo on 21 Nov 2012 14:17PM

  Skeltrack 1.4: Jitter smoothing from Joaquim Rocha on Vimeo.This video shows the Skeltrack Kinect one of the winner of Platforms for Networked Innovation Competition.   Networks of Regional Innovation: The case of the Atlantic Region Policy Forum, [...]

• New report: Strategies for Network Innovation

  Cristobal Cobo on 20 Nov 2012 18:30PM

  Open publication – Free publishing – More europe We are delighted to present the new report “Strategies for Networked Innovation”, a working paper for the Knetworks Project Oxford Internet Institute, University of Oxford. This [...]

• Radical openness in education [presentation]

  Cristobal Cobo on 10 Sep 2012 12:22PM

  Radical openness in education on Prezi We live in an exciting time. Digital technologies are becoming increasingly ubiquitous changing the centres and peripheries of knowledge production and consumption. Today it is essential to identify new learning [...]

• KNetworks Competition: Networks of Regional Innovation

  Cristobal Cobo on 28 Aug 2012 16:11PM

  At the Oxford Internet Institute we are pleased to announce a competition for the most innovative web-based platform enabling regional networks of innovation for public, private or research organizations. The platforms should foster innovation in the [...]

• The impact of the Internet on Human Rights

  EINS Project on 24 Aug 2012 10:49AM

  by FFunction. Learn about infographics software.   Infographic that emphasize the human rights that are enabled by the internet and those that are at risk of being violated even more with the internet.     Human RightsData Protection and Privacy; EU [...]

• 1st EINS Summer School Presentations

  EINS Project on 16 Aug 2012 15:22PM

    Today we published some of the resources and presentations given at the Summer School in Oxford. Please click the image to see or download them. We also recommend to see the wiki Summer School Reading Lists. cyber securityLegally compliant information [...]

• Traditional face-to-face higher education will become a privilege of a few

  Cristobal Cobo on 13 Aug 2012 13:59PM

  In the coming weeks I’ll meet a number of researchers who are working in ICT, learning and innovation from the University of Granada. In preparation, I’m compiling some resources and documentation that I hope will be useful for them. Here some [...]

• Open Access Education and ‘south-south’ cooperation

  Cristobal Cobo on 1 Aug 2012 10:35AM

    Recently there has been increasing interest in the benefits obtained from free knowledge provided through open access initiatives. In the last decade a number of relevant initiatives have been created to promote open access practices in education [...]

• From Kodak Culture to networked image

  Cristobal Cobo on 29 Jul 2012 20:04PM

  [See Dr. Edgar Gomez Cruz's album] Enclosed you will find the prologue of the new book: “From Kodak Culture to networked image. An ethnography of digital photography” (original title in Spanish: “De la Cultura Kodak a la imagen en red”), [...]

• Coursera will offer a free course about Internet History, Technology, and Security

  EINS Project on 25 Jul 2012 11:04AM

  About Coursera Coursera is a social entrepreneurship company that partners with the top universities in the world to offer courses online for anyone to take, for free. Coursera envision a future where the top universities are educating not only thousands [...]

• Scholarly publication in (slow) transition to open access

  Cristobal Cobo on 24 Jul 2012 11:42AM

    [Further Reading/Information: EU Commission announced new measures to open up science in Europe and UK open-access policy was announced.] Data from citation indexes can be analyzed to determine the popularity and impact of specific articles, authors, [...]

• Study on Digital Social Innovation and CAPS

  EINS Project on 10 Jul 2012 10:09AM

    We have recently published a call for Tenders for an open and challenging 500,000 euro Study on "Social Innovation in Digital Agenda". The deadline for submitting proposals is 10th August 2012.   I am also glad to announce that the ICT [...]

• Special issue Borderless society: the “new” work and education (call for papers)

  Cristobal Cobo on 21 May 2012 20:44PM

  In a world driven by exponential accelerating technological and social change, globalization, and a push for more creative and context-driven innovations, how can we ensure the success of ourselves as individuals,communities, and the planet? This special [...]