September 17, 2025

Erasmus+ ABRAXAS Project Summer School at the University of Aveiro

The Department of Communication and Art at the University of Aveiro hosted the first summer school of the Erasmus+ ABRAXAS project, an event focused on sharing knowledge and results under the theme “VR for Designers”. This initiative, organized by DigiMedia members Rui Raposo and Mário Vairinhos, aimed to test and validate the teaching materials and virtual reality applications developed within the project.

Students, faculty, and researchers from the University of Aveiro, Lodz University of Technology, the University of Vigo, and the Miguel Hernández University of Elche participated in this week-long summer school, from September 8th to 12th.

This event provided a dynamic and practical learning environment, where participants had the opportunity to interact with the new content and applications, participating in exercises and workshops. In addition to the practical sessions, the agenda included seminars by the PhD students in Information and Communication on Digital Platforms, Pedro Reisinho, Silvino Almeida, Rúben Carvalho, and Maria de Jesus Ferreira and a seminar by Bernardo Marques (DETI).

During the week, participants also had time to enjoy the city of Aveiro, socialize, create new friendships, and discuss possible future collaborations. They highlighted the inspiring atmosphere and valuable exchange of experiences, and the organizers believe the experience contributed to the improvement of the ABRAXAS project’s content.

For more information about the project, please visit the website.

Photos by Krzysztof Pagacz.

September 16, 2025

The challenges of cultural mapping in street art featured at the Urban Creativity Conference 2025

Rita Gomes, a researcher at Digimedia and a PhD candidate in the New Media doctoral program at the University of Aveiro, participated as a speaker at the 12th edition of the Urban Creativity conference. The event took place at the Faculty of Fine Arts of the University of Lisbon, from July 3rd to 5th, 2025.

Her participation aimed to present key findings from a part of her doctoral research, while simultaneously strengthening ties with the academic community and fostering dialogue on the preservation of intangible cultural heritage in urban art.

The researcher presented the article entitled “Cultural Mapping in Street Art: A Systematic Literature Review,” in which she sought to offer a comprehensive overview of current cultural mapping practices, exploring the benefits, possibilities, and experiences resulting from the application of this methodology to urban art. The research highlighted the application of cultural mapping to various urban resources and artistic expressions, such as graffiti, public art, and photography, emphasizing the potential of this approach in documenting community interaction with urban space and enhancing the sense of place.

For Rita Gomes, the conference was an “excellent opportunity to meet other researchers who share the same passions as me, with whom I had the chance to validate the findings of my study, which underscore the urgent need for greater representation of graffiti and street art in academic research.”

Rita Gomes adds: “Cultural mapping is a powerful tool to give visibility to this art form and to safeguard cultural heritage before it’s too late — and it is crucial that the academic community, including Digimedia as an institution that contributes to the study of digital media, comes together to bridge this gap.”

The Urban Creativity 2025 conference, which adopted a fully hybrid model, is internationally recognized as a crucial forum for discussing and exploring topics related to urban creativity, design, public art, and the impact of artistic interventions in cities.

Photo by Urban Creativity.

July 18, 2025

PhD students at Sopcom Young Researchers Meeting 2025

Maria Júlia Vieira and Catarina Feio, PhD students in New Media and members of DigiMedia Research Center, attended the 7th Sopcom Young Researchers Meeting, held on July 9, 2025, at the Fernando Pessoa University in Porto.

During the event, Maria Júlia presented a poster entitled “Harassment and Toxic Culture in Video Game Live Streaming: Challenges and Proposals for a More Inclusive Environment”. Her presentation was featured in the poster session, which showcased innovative research into communication, digital culture and inclusion.

Catarina Feio presented the communication: “Youth, News and Social Media – the News Consumption Practices of Young People in Portugal”, part of her PhD research. The talk was part of the session on “Audiences and News”.

The meeting brought together young researchers from all over the country, encouraging the exchange of knowledge and debate on emerging communication issues, with sessions dedicated to visual culture, digital literacies, journalism and society.

The participation of Maria Júlia and Catarina Feio highlights the commitment of DigiMedia and the PhD Program in New Media in promoting research with social impact and relevance.

July 11, 2025

PhD student stands out at AI and Games Summer School in Malmö

Malmö University in Sweden hosted the 7th edition of the AI and Games Summer School. Among the participants was Cláudia Vale Oliveira, a student in the New Media PhD Program and a researcher at DigiMedia, who participated in this edition marked by innovation, creativity, and critical reflection on the role of artificial intelligence (AI) in gaming.

During five days, engineers, programmers, researchers, and game designers from both academia and industry shared knowledge and discussed the latest trends and influences in the use of AI in game development. The researcher from the University of Aveiro (UA), in addition to perspectives on player experience and interaction with agents through natural language processing, particularly highlighted the role of generative AI in the creative process and the ethical issues and challenges that artificial intelligence raises in game development. Issues such as authorship, boundaries, and ethical responsibility reinforce the importance of training professionals who are aware and critical of the possibilities and risks of AI integrated into interactive design. She also emphasized that it was “an incredible and inspiring week,” an experience she found “both engaging and challenging.”

In the final days of the event, participants were challenged to participate in the Game Jam. In this context the researcher Cláudia Oliveira and her team developed the Baloonce prototype, a collaborative game that aims to create balance, combating the sedentary lifestyle and burnout associated with professions like gaming developers, designers, and researchers, exploring the importance of moving and coordinating the body in a world where the mind and digital world are pushed to their limits. The project stood out among the participating teams, being selected as the best project of the Game Jam, a recognition that highlights the talent and capabilities of those involved. The project will soon be shared on Github.

This event was guided by leading figures in the field, such as Georgios N. Yannakakis, Julian Togelius, co-authors of the book Artificial Intelligence and Games, and Antonios Liapis. It was made possible thanks to the support of King, the UA, and DigiMedia, which provided the doctoral student with the opportunity to participate in this international summer school.

For the UA community, this participation represents not only an opportunity to enrich the student’s curriculum, but also a contribution to the development of new lines of research in the fields of new media, immersive games, experience design, and the ethics of artificial intelligence.

July 10, 2025

PhD Student Bárbara Cleto at ACM Interaction Design and Children Conference

Bárbara Cleto, a PhD student in Multimedia in Education, and a DigiMedia researcher, participated in the 24th annual ACM Interaction Design and Children Conference (IDC), which took place between 23rd and 26th June 2025, at Reykjavík University, in Iceland.
As part of the doctoral consortium presentations, Bárbara presented the article ‘Planning a study on the co-creation and personalization of Immersive Web Environments by teachers and students’, which is available here.
The main goal of this research is to investigate the impact of co-creation and personalization on students’ metacognition in immersive web environments (IWE). This work is supervised by Professor Mário Vairinhos and Professor Carlos Santos.

July 9, 2025

Final Event Students@DigiMedia #4

The 4th edition of Students@DigiMedia, organized by the DigiMedia, takes place next week as part of the UA Research Summit.

Students@DigiMedia is an initiative that promotes the participation of undergraduate, master’s, and doctoral students in scientific research activities.

The first edition of Students@DigiMedia took place in the 2021/22 academic year, with 31 students participating in 13 projects proposed by 24 DigiMedia researchers. The second edition featured 20 projects involving 51 students, and the third edition had 42 students participating in 18 projects.

This year, aiming to foster collaboration between the UA Research Units (RU), students@DigiMedia was opened to proposals from researchers from all RUs, regardless of their scientific field. This year’s edition features 15 projects developed by students from various fields, such as Multimedia, CTC, Psychology, Social Sciences, Design, Computer Science, Languages, Pedagogy, and Health, across all levels (undergraduate, master’s, and doctoral).

The presentation of the results of the projects from edition #04 will take place on July 17, 2025, at 3:00 pm, in the CCCI Auditorium, in the Departmente of Communication and Art, followed by a social meeting outside the building.
DigiMedia invites the academic community to attend this year’s event.

Free registration is required here.

More information about the event and this year’s projects can be found here.

July 7, 2025

students@DigiMedia#04 – Get to know project n.7

Project n. 7 – Design dos Booklets do Observatório dos Media Digitais / Design of the Digital Media Observatory Booklets

About the project

This project aims to support the graphic design and information management of the Booklets published by the Observatory.

What do you expect from participating in the initiative?

“Enjoy the opportunity to contribute to the construction and dissemination of knowledge”.

Participants

This project is coordinated by Lídia Oliveira (DigiMedia researcher), with the participation of:

Oksana Tymoshchuk (DigiMedia researcher)
Mónica Silva (Digimedia researcher)
Rita Branco (ID+researcher)
Catarina Feio (PhD student) Lara Lourenço (Master in Audio-visual Communication for New Media)
Mariana Pais (Multimedia and Communication Technologies)

More information about students@DigiMedia here.

More information about this edition here.

July 2, 2025

Ana Patrícia Oliveira presents research and chairs sessions at HCII 2025

Ana Patrícia Oliveira, a Doctoral Researcher at DigiMedia, actively participated in the Human-Computer Interaction International Conference 2025 (HCII2025), where she presented the poster “Hybrid Serious Game for Cancer Prevention through the Promotion of Healthy Living Habits.” The work is now available as a chapter in the Springer CCIS series (Volume 2522) and can be accessed at the following link: https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-3-031-94150-4_34.

The presented study explores the development of a hybrid serious game that integrates digital and physical components with participatory design methods, aiming to promote healthy lifestyle habits among Portuguese students aged 10 to 12. It contributes to the fields of health communication, behaviour change, and game-based learning, addressing the limitations of conventional top-down health education approaches.

In addition to presenting her research, Ana Patrícia Oliveira also served as Session Chair in thematic sessions focused on Human-Computer Interaction (HCI), games, and health.

June 30, 2025

students@DigiMedia#04 – Get to know project n.13

Project n. 13 – Inteligência Artificial Responsável: ética, transparência e impactos sociais / Responsible AI: ethics, transparency and social impacts

About the project

AI’s rapid advancement presents ethical challenges related to bias, privacy, job displacement, and security, particularly as AI systems become increasingly integral to healthcare, finance, and public safety.
This project, conducted at DigitalOBS with Students@Digimedia, evaluates the alignment of ChatGPT, Gemini, and Copilot with ethical principles and social responsibility.

The study was conducted in four main phases: i) Review of international ethical guidelines; ii) Analysis of platforms’ standards implementation; iii) 12-question ethical assessment of each platform; iv) Evaluation using Chatbot Framework examining coherence, utility, complexity, ethics, and credibility.
While these platforms demonstrate progress in implementing ethical guidelines, compliance levels vary. Gaps remain in handling sensitive topics, such as electoral guidance, highlighting the need for stronger regulations. Platforms must strike a balance between addressing weaknesses and maintaining strengths to serve society effectively.

Participants

This project is coordinated by Oksana Tymoshchuk (DigiMedia researcher), with the participation of:

Lídia Oliveira (DigiMedia researcher) José Nunes (DigiMedia researcher) Mónica Silva (DigiMedia researcher) Beatriz Ponte (Biology)
Sofia Cruz (Multimedia and Communication Technologies)
Soraia Oliveira (Multimedia and Communication Technologies)

More information about students@DigiMedia here.

More information about this edition here.

June 27, 2025

DigiMedia Researcher presents paper at ICSBT 2025 and is shortlisted for the Best Paper Award

Ana Patrícia Oliveira, a Doctorate Researcher at DigiMedia, presented the scientific paper entitled Exploring Interoperability in Blockchain Games: A Systematic Review on June 11, 2025, at the International Conference on Smart Business Technologies (ICSBT 2025), held in Bilbao and online. ICSBT 2025 is an ACM in-cooperation conference, supported by the ACM SIGMIS group.

The paper, part of the thematic track “Smart Business Technologies”, offers a systematic overview of the current state of interoperability in blockchain-based games, providing a critical analysis of emerging technological, economic, and design approaches in this field. The research was conducted within the scope of the project “Decentralize Portugal with Blockchain”, funded by the Portuguese Recovery and Resilience Plan – PRR (NextGenerationEU), under the reference 02/C05-i01.01/2022.PC644918095-00000033. The paper was co-authored by Nelson Zagalo and Liliana Costa, who are also members of the research team involved in the project.

The work stood out among the scientific contributions presented and was included in the shortlist of candidates for the ICSBT 2025 Best Paper Award, based on marks provided by the peer reviewers.

In addition to presenting the paper, Ana Patrícia Oliveira also served as Chair of the Poster Presentations session, reinforcing her active involvement in the conference.

More information:

Presentation Details

Poster Session

News

Erasmus+ ABRAXAS Project Summer School at the University of Aveiro

The challenges of cultural mapping in street art featured at the Urban Creativity Conference 2025

PhD students at Sopcom Young Researchers Meeting 2025

PhD student stands out at AI and Games Summer School in Malmö

PhD Student Bárbara Cleto at ACM Interaction Design and Children Conference

Final Event Students@DigiMedia #4

students@DigiMedia#04 – Get to know project n.7

Ana Patrícia Oliveira presents research and chairs sessions at HCII 2025

students@DigiMedia#04 – Get to know project n.13

DigiMedia Researcher presents paper at ICSBT 2025 and is shortlisted for the Best Paper Award

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