e-Learning and social inclusion within the framework of the Spanish university system

Abstract

One of the problems in today's information society, and which has a tendency to be accentuated, is the so-called digital divide, a concept that is very closely related to the concepts of social exclusion and digital exclusion. To combat this problem, it is not enough to create new systems to access the aforementioned information society, something which large-scale projects (few and insufficient projects) within the Spanish context seem to have done. We must also add to this creation of new systems the creation of new digital tools, new capacities in the terms of economist Amartya Sen, with important social and political implications. This is the very thing that some projects, coming from universities, seem to pursue, such as "The Shere Rom House", an initiative that covers an aspect of such importance as is motivation; "e-Educa", a European project that aims to develop a new form of e-learning, or "e-Learning for e-Inclusion", a project that aims to create a digital library of strategies and methodologies to fight social and digital exclusion and so help to reduce the so-called digital divide.