Eva de Lera collaborates with the Office of Learning Technologies at the Open University of Catalonia (UOC). She works with UOC’s leadership to help create opportunities and programs that bring innovation to online learning.

Eva has been involved in education for over 20 years in both the US (New York University) and Spain (Open University of Catalonia, UOC, founded in 1994 as the first fully online University).

• She specializes in innovation in educational technology and online learning, particularly in the creation of engaging of online learning experiences, bringing the emotional dimension to learning, enhancing motivation and overall engagement in the students’ digital learning experience.
• She leads the Joy of Learning since 2006 and was responsible for coordinating the yearly summit OpenEdTech in which a group of prestigious education leaders gathered to discuss future needs and trends in higher education.
• Eva is responsible for identifying and creating trends in educational technology and her work was a key driver for initiatives awarded by IMS and featured by Gartner, such as
  • MyCampus, (the first interoperable learning management system, now part of LTI), and
  • MyWay (the first mobility project in which all educational resources could be automatically transformed and accessed in multiple outputs, anytime).
• She also introduced user-centered design (HCI, usability, UX) at UOC in 2001, and created methodologies such as the 10 Emotion Heuristics and the Enjoy Guidelines, to help improve existing design and evaluation methods.

Eva’s creativity and multi-disciplinary profile (which includes marketing communications and visual arts, amongst other) allows her to also serve as a strategic advisor to other companies, people and institutions interested in innovating and identifying out-of-the-box strategies and initiatives, in different sectors (see Lilacom Strategic Consulting). Eva learns through continued experimentation and has founded several initiatives such as:

• Executive Women Online (the first online network for executive women in Barcelona – featured in Newsweek, currently with over 700 members),
• Swaapping.com (a home sharing and hosting social network),
• BarcelonaSingAlong (first of its kind locally),
• Art-a-Ride (to help improve the quality of life of the people in wheelchairs and other mobile aids, through art and creativity),
• and several others.

Eva sits on the Board of Directors of the New Media Consortium (NMC), which is an international community of experts in educational technology and is pursuing her PhD in online learning at the Universitat Rovira i Virgili, for which she has developed a new paradigm in online learning: The Education Layer.

Eva publishes (and presents) her research in scientific journals and publications, internationally.

To contact Eva, please send an email to edelera@uoc.edu 

Ed-Tech Research, Presentations and Publications:

• [publication pending] EDEN 2013: The Education Layer: “Boxed-Out” and Shared e-Learning.
• [publication pending] HCII 2013: Improving the User Experience in Online Learning
• de Lera, Eva, et al. “Designing Innovative Open Spaces for Learning: The Case of the Open University of Catalunya.” Procedia-Social and Behavioral Sciences55 (2012): 1000-1008.
• de Lera, Eva, and Magi Almirall. “Bring in the Joy, bring in the Fun! Inspiring vs Educating Future Learners.” World Conference on Educational Multimedia, Hypermedia and Telecommunications. Vol. 2012. No. 1. 2012.
• Valverde, L., De Lera, E. and Fernandez, C., 2010, Inferencing emotions through the triangulation of pupil size data, facial heuristics and self-assessment techniques, eL&mL International conference on Mobile, Hybrid and Online learning, Netherland Antilles (in press)
• De Lera, E., Fernandez, C. and Almirall, M., 2009. Case study on the integration of the affective dimension in the design of virtual learning environments: evaluating emotions, supporting design and experimenting with new methodologies, in proceedings of HCi in Emotion Workshop, Cambridge, UK, pp. 14-16
• De Lera, Eva, Carles Fernàndez, and Magí Almirall. “Affective Educational Technology: First steps on the introduction of the affective dimension in the core of online design.” World Conference on E-Learning in Corporate, Government, Healthcare, and Higher Education. Vol. 2009. No. 1. 2009.
• De Lera, E., Fernandez, C. and Almirall, M., 2009. Affective Educational Technology: first steps on the introduction of the affective dimension in the core of online design, In T. Bastiaens et al. (Eds.). Proceeding sof World Conference on E-learning in Corporate, Government, Healthcare and Higher Education 2009, Vancouver, Canada. pp. 2111-2119
• Fernandez, C. and De Lera, E., 2009. Emotions, the forgotten key of success in Online Learning, 13th UNESCO-APEID International Conference (in press), Hangzhou, China
• De Lera, E., Fernandez, C. and Almirall, M., 2009. Affective Edtech: Toward designing Affective Educational Technology Environments, 3rd Elearning Excellence in the Middle East  Forum (in press), Dubai
• De Lera, E., Fernandez, C. and Almirall, M., 2008. Affective Edtech: Initial steps for introducing the affective dimension in virtual learning environments. IADIS conference (in press), Algarve, Portugal
• Online Educa Berlin (Berlin, Dec. 2-4) – Presentation – NMC’s Horizon Project Megatrends
• UNESCO-Asia APEID (Hangzhou, China, Nov. 15th thru 17th) – Presentation on the importance for integrating Emotions
• USID 2009 (Barcelona, Spain, Nov. 12th) – Presentation on Integrating Emotions into Interface Design
• Educause 2009 (Denver, CO, Nov 3-6) – Presentation on the need to automatize the creation of multiple device learning contents to provide choice and flexibility to learners
• De Lera, E. And Almirall, M. 2008. ENJOY: Guidelines for Designing Engaging Elearning Environments. In iLearning Forum 2008 Proceedings - European Institute for E-Learning (EIfEL), Paris, page 42, 2008. Also presented at EDEN 2008, New Media Consortium Summer Conference 2008, UPA 2008. (poster-enjoy-guidelines.pdf)
• De Lera, E. and Mor, E. 2007. The joy of learning: redesigning the e-learning experience. In HCI 2007 Workshop: Design, use and experience of e-learning systems. September 2007, Lancaster. Also presented at E-Learn 2008 (http://www.slideshare.net/edelera/the-joy-of-learning-e-learn-2008-presentation/).
• De Lera, E. and Garreta-Domingo, M. Ten Emotion Heuristics: Guidelines for Assessing the User’s Affective Dimension Easily and Cost-Effectively. In Proceedings of the HCI07 Conference on People and Computers XXI, page 40, 2007. Also presented at HCI International, UPA 2007.
• Ten Heuristics to Evaluate the Emotional Dimension in a User Test. Authors: Eva de Lera, Muriel Garreta. HCII 2007 – Human Computer Interaction International.
• I-Transfer: the user’s platform for content conversion. Authors: Eva de Lera, Josep Rivera. ED-MEDIA 2007 – World Conference on Educational Multimedia, Hypermedia and Telecommunications.
• The 10 Emotion Heuristics. Authors: Eva de Lera, Muriel Garreta. UPA 2007, Usability Professionals’ Association.
• Cost-Effectively Measuring the Emotional Dimension of Virtual Campus’ Interfaces. Authors: Eva de Lera, Muriel Garreta. iLearnForum 2007.
• Gaining Insight into e-learning students: the convergence of usability and accessibility. Authors: Eva Gil, Muriel Garreta, Llorenç Sabaté, Eva de Lera, Magí Almirall, Enric Mor. Educause 2006.
• Usability for all: Towards the improvement of the e-learning experience for visually impaired users. Authors: Eva Gil, Muriel Garreta, Llorenç Sabaté, Eva de Lera, Magí Almirall, Enric Mor. ICCHP 2006, International Conference on Computers Helping People with Special Needs.

Book Collaborations:

• Gil Rodríguez, Eva Patrícia.; de Lera, Eva.; Monjo, Antonia. (2005). “Usuarios y sistemas interactivos” (in English: Users and Interactive Systems). BARCELONA ISBN: 71Z55901MEC.
• Hillary: The Biography of Hillary Rodham Clinton, by Nuria Ribó (1993). Co-researcher and investigator.