The DigiMedia researcher Rita Santos is part of the team of the new PEX FCT project called Parenting Anxious Adolescents: An ACT approach to what works, which is coordinated by Paula Vagos, from the Department of Education and Psychology of the University of Aveiro.

About this project:

Anxiety-related symptoms have been increasingly experienced by adolescents as early as 15 years old and associate with long-lasting impairment. Those symptoms have consistently been linked to rearing practices that may sustain (e.g., behavioral control) or help to cope with (e.g., autonomy granting) adolescent anxiety. In turn, those parental acts may reflect the parents’ psychological inflexibility or flexibility. Such psychological processes are at the core of Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT), both as a conceptual and intervention approach. Still, previous works have either failed to provide empirical evidence on conceptualizing parental (un)workable acts in relation to ACT processes or in using ACT to promote workable and meaningful acts within parent-adolescent dyads who are coping with adolescent anxiety. The current research project intends to address those gaps by working with parent-adolescent dyads to understand which parental acts seem to be associated with how adolescent cope with anxiety (Study 1) and to develop and explore the usability and helpfulness of the ACT2ParenTeens web-based intervention (Study 2). 

Hélder Caixinha, a DigiMedia Researcher, was invited to participate in the project SHORES, coordinated by Helena Marinho (professor of the Department of Communication and Art) and financed by the Creative Europe Program.

Through musical creation, the project aims to raise communities’ awareness about the negative impact of the contamination on lakes, rivers and oceans, in their area of ​​interaction with the land and human beings.

More information about this project and its partnerships here.

METELS – Measuring Engagement in Technology-Enhanced Learning Scenarios, coordinated by Mónica Aresta (DigiMedia), is one of the 7 projects funded in the field of Media and Communication, within the framework of Exploratory Projects in all scientific domains 2023.

On 22 November 2024, the FCT announced the final results of the call for Exploratory Projects in all scientific domains 2023, which will support 403 exploratory research projects (PEX) lasting 18 months.

METELS – Measuring Engagement in Technology-Enhanced Learning Scenarios, coordinated by researcher Mónica Aresta (DigiMedia, DECA, UA), was the second of the 7 projects recommended for funding in the area of Media and Communication, in which 30 applications were evaluated.

The METELS project aims to propose a framework and a scale that can be used – without neglecting appropriate design/technical implementation standards and taking into account digital ethics and digital wellbeing – when exploring user engagement in TEL scenarios from the perspective of digital ethics, positive computing and reflective design. Building on the principles of positive computing and reflective design and their intersection with different approaches to UE, the project will also seek to understand the extent to which features of deceptive patterns (also known as dark patterns) can be integrated into the design of TEL solutions, taking into account positive computing, ethics and reflective design.

The research team includes researchers Carlos Santos and Luís Pedro (DigiMedia) and Marisa Lousada (CINTESIS.UA@RISE).

The project consultants are Nuno Otero, Lecturer at the School of Mathematical and Computer Sciences at the University of Greenwich; Mónica Divitini, Professor at the Department of Information and Computer Science at NTNU in Trondheim, Norway; Cláudia Figueiredo, Researcher at the Department of Social, Political and Territorial Sciences at the University of Aveiro; and Isabel Machado, Professor at IPAM Porto.

The METELS project is funded by the Foundation for Science and Technology (FCT) under the reference 2023.14504.PEX. Additionally, the project plans to recruit a recent PhD recipient for a postdoctoral fellowship to support the main activities to be carried out.

The University of Aveiro (UA) will participate in the project “VRChem: Innovative Integration of Virtual Reality in Chemical Engineering Education”, from 2024 to 2027, which is financed by the Polish National Agency of the Erasmus+ Program, within the scope of Action 2 of the Cooperation Partnerships, and coordinated by the Faculty of Chemical Engineering and Technology of the Krakow Technological University, in Poland.

The VRChem project aims to respond to the needs of contemporary education, by stimulating innovative learning and teaching practices, as well as supporting the digital and sustainable transformation of higher education. In this context, Virtual Reality (VR) technology has a significant potential as a tool that students and members of the academic community can use to simulate equipment and processes.

Mário Vairinhos e Rui Raposo, DigiMedia Researchers, and Vera Silva (from the Department of Chemistry and Associated Lab LAQV) are the UA team, part of an international consortium of 5 universities:

• Krakow Technological University (Poland) – Coordination;

• Technological University de Lodz (Poland);

• University of Aveiro (Portugal);

• Polytechnic of Milan (Italy);

• University of Cadiz (Spain).

The UA team, at Digimedia’s XR laboratory, in partnership with the VOXEL Research Lab at the Technical University of Lodz, will be responsible for the creation of the functionalities of the VR platform that will be made available, on an open basis, so anyone can freely explore the materials.

Find out more about this project here.

The wrap meeting of Erasmus+ Project Agewell, Service Design for Wellness and Healthy Ageing, took place at Hanze University of Applied Sciences, in Groningen, The Nederlands on 19 and 20 September 2024.

The team took the chance to define future avenues of joint work once the project is completed. Digimedia members are Catarina Lelis and Rita Oliveira.