ABSTRACT Soil maps provide a method for graphically communicating what is known about the spatial distribution of soil properties in nature. We proposed an optimized pipeline, named dino-soil toolbox, programmed in the R software for mapping quantitative and categorical properties of legacy soil data. The pipeline, composed of four main modules (data preprocessing, covariates selection, exploratory data analysis and modeling), was tested across a study area of 14,537 km 2 located between the departments of Cesar and Magdalena, Colombia. We assessed the feasibility of the toolbox to model three soil properties: pH at two depth intervals (0.00-0.30 and 0.30-1.00 m), soil taxonomy (great group) and taxonomic family by particle-size, according to a set of 25 environmental factors derived from auxiliary layers of climate, land cover and terrain. As a result, we successfully deployed the proposed semi-automatic and sequential pipeline, yielding rapid digital soil mapping (DSM) outputs across the study area. By providing multiple outputs such as tables, charts, maps, and geospatial data in four main modules, the pipeline offers considerable robustness to support outcomes and analysis of a DSM project. Future studies might be interesting to expand on further machine learning frameworks for predictive modeling of soil properties such as ensembles and deep learning models, which have shown a high performance for DSM.

Abstract This article discusses the design and the implementation of a scale that measures the integration of information and communication technologies (ICT) in university educational and the generation of social exclusion derived thereof. Information was gathered through a Likerth scale applied to students at two higher education centers in Mexico and Costa Rica. The main results indicate that students value ICT as significant tools in their education; however, students who do not perform well with these technologies are often excluded. Likewise, according to the empirical evidence generated in the study, we conclude that the scale contains indexes of internal consistency and reliability such that it can be applied in measuring populations at higher educational centers.

Resumen En este artículo se expone el proceso de diseño e implementación de una escala inédita que mide la integración de las Tecnologías de la Información y la Comunicación (TIC) en las prácticas educativas universitarias y la generación de exclusión social derivada de esta integración tecnológica. La recopilación de información se realizó a través de una escala Likerth; el instrumento fue aplicado a estudiantes de dos centros de educación superior ubicados en México y Costa Rica. Los principales resultados señalan que el estudiantado valora las TIC como herramientas significativas en su formación; sin embargo, se excluye a estudiantes que no tienen un fuerte desempeño en estas tecnologías. Asimismo, de acuerdo con las evidencias empíricas generadas en el estudio se afirma que la escala contiene índices de consistencia interna y de confiabilidad apropiados para ser aplicada en la medición de los tópicos que se conforman para poblaciones de nivel educativo superior.