In the scope of the final works of the R&D project Gamers4Nature (DigiMedia Research Center, Department of Communication and Art), the “Gamers4Nature – Meeting on Digital Games and Environmental Awareness” will take place on 4th February 2022, in online format.

The project Gamers4Nature aims to elaborate and implement strategies able to encourage the active participation of young audiences (high school and college students) in the creation of mobile games as a way to promote behaviour change and awareness in relation to the environment.

In this framework, this international meeting aims to disseminate, share and promote discussion around research work, pedagogical experiences and other contexts that relate digital games, environmental awareness and the preservation of biodiversity. Throughout the meeting, several experiences that cross interdisciplinary knowledge areas will be presented, in the format of oral presentations. Keynotes will be conducted by Associação BioLiving, Faculty of Engineering of the University of Porto and Instituto Piaget – ISEIT/Viseu.

The presence of researchers, professors and industry representatives intends to foster the discussion on digital games or gamification strategies as a way to promote awareness and education for sustainability.

The event will take place online and is open to the entire academic community. Participation is free and registrations can be made through this link: https://forms.gle/usgTRCmPBziYAwPG7.

More information about the meeting can be found on the project page.

The University of Aveiro hosts, once again, the Global Game Jam!

The students from the new Master’s Degree “Digital Game Development” are organizing this year’s edition, with the support of the course directors – Mário Vairinhos (DigiMedia member) and Diogo Gomes – which will be held from January 28th to 30th.

Although the main event will be the development of a video game in 48 hours, this year’s edition will also hold a number of workshops and two tournaments. The workshops are related to video games, ranging from art and design to programming, and the tournaments will be about League of Legends and Rocket League.

This year’s edition will be an online event and all workshops and tournaments will be hosted at twitch.tv (https://www.twitch.tv/ggj_2022_ua), so anyone who couldn’t make it out if it were a local event: now’s your chance!

Here’s the link tree with all Social Media:
https://linktr.ee/ggj2022ua

To join this GGJ22, please go into the official website and click “Join this jam site”:
https://globalgamejam.org/2022/jam-sites/ggj-2022-universidade-de-aveiro

To join the tournaments, please fill in these forms:

Rocket League:
https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSdXJ96h9ptAJi-cKyoIY3ei-BycfWHYk-VMDi-xFX8eAthnoA/viewform

League of Legends:
https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSdc1NTBd5zRTDW2a_8CA9m8xNCJSQnWxADe1Ryc3nRB_qmE9g/viewform

Be sure to join their discord server as well:
https://discord.gg/rWDnjgYnuC

Check out the Global Game Jam 2022 social media for daily updates and more info:

Instagram: @ggj_2022_ua

Twitter: @ggj_2022_ua

For any questions, please send an email to:

ggj2022ua@gmail.com

The article “Impact of a Digital Intervention for Literacy in Depression among Portuguese University Students: A Randomized Controlled Trial” by Lersi Durán (DigiMedia PhD Student), Ana Margarida Almeida (DigiMedia member), Ana Cristina Lopes and Margarida Figueiredo-Braga was published in the the Special Issue Digital Transformation in Healthcare of the journal Healthcare 2022, 10(1), 165.

Abstract:

Citation:

Durán, L. D., Almeida, A. M., Lopes, A. C., & Figueiredo-Braga, M. (2022). Impact of a Digital Intervention for Literacy in Depression among Portuguese University Students: A Randomized Controlled Trial. Healthcare, 10(1), 165. MDPI AG. Retrieved from https://doi.org/10.3390/healthcare10010165

More information available HERE

The 2nd students’ seminar on Ehealth and Wellbeing aims to be a forum of discussion for students who develop research leading to innovative digital media solutions to improve people’s health, wellbeing and quality-of-life.

This seminar is an initiative from the E-health & Wellbeing group of DigiMedia and in 2022 it will have the 2nd edition (access the 1st edition website here). The keynote speaker will be Doctor Joana Feijó, Business Development Director of the Health Cluster Portugal (HCP), who will also run a workshop in “Health Technology Transfer models and case studies” in the day before.

Registration is now open in the FORM

SCOPE

The seminar aims to bring together students and researchers who follow user centric approaches in any of the phases of the R&D cycle (understand, design, prototype and validation). This seminar welcomes extended abstracts reporting ongoing or consolidated R&D studies targeting all user populations, including those with specific health conditions. The participants are also invited to attend a workshop on “Health Technology Transfer models and case studies”, which will precede the seminar.

WORKSHOP | HEALTH TECHNOLOGY TRANSFER MODELS AND CASE STUDIES

Technology transfer can take place between universities, businesses and governments, either formally or informally, to share skills, knowledge, technologies, manufacturing methods, and more. This form of knowledge transfer helps ensure that scientific and technological developments are available to a wider range of users who can then help develop or exploit it.

The commercial exploitation can involve the creation of joint ventures, licensing agreements and partnerships to share the risks and rewards. This can also be coupled with the raising of venture capital.

An important part of tech transfer is also the protection of intellectual property (IP) associated with innovations developed at research institutions. This can mean licensing patented intellectual property to outside businesses or the creation of start-up companies to license the IP.

In this workshop discussions will revolve around the Technology Transfer frameworks and good practices that have proven be successful in different innovation ecosystems. It will be applied a Technology Transfer model based on a three step process to different use cases: the registration of patents, copyrights, trademarks & designs; the proof-of-concept and the securing of seed funding.

Doctor Joana Feijó

Business Development Director
Health Cluster Portugal

Joana Feijó holds a degree in Microbiology from the Catholic University, a master’s degree in Basic and Molecular Biology and a PhD in Biomedical Sciences from ICBAS. Near 20 years of her professional career were spent in the private sector working on business strategy, product development and commercialization in the Healthcare industry. From 2015-2018 Joana has been developing a tech start-up on the Tourism area aside with consultancy projects on the Healthcare sector. Joana worked at CRITICAL Group between 2009-2015, where she has passed through different companies: from Critical Health & Oncaring, through Critical Software and Coimbra Genomics. Before joining CRITICAL, Joana has worked 3 years at ALERT Life Sciences Computing, as the Director of Clinical Content and Functional Analysis Dept. During those years, she has worked on the company internationalization to the BR, USA, UK and NL markets. Joana is now part of the Health Cluster Portugal (HCP) Executive team as Business Development Director.

FEES

Elisabete Peixotos’s PhD defense takes place on the 24th January, at 9:30 a.m., in sala de Atos Académicos, with the topic USE OF TRANSMEDIA IN GEOSCIENCES EDUCATION | UTILIZAÇÃO DO TRANSMEDIA NO ENSINO DAS GEOCIÊNCIAS.

Elisabete Peixoto is a student of the PhD programme Multimedia in Education and her supervisors are Luís Pedro (DigiMedia, UA) and Rui Marques Vieira (CIDTFF, UA).

DigiMedia members are invited to participate in this important moment in person.

Abstract:

This investigation aims to develop (conceive, produce, implement and evaluate) a set of transmedia activities to address one of the themes of the subject of Natural Sciences in basic instruction. These activities, in line with the STS (Science-Technology-Society) perspective, aimed to contribute to the diversification of educational resources for the teaching and learning of that subject and the development, in students, of crucial skills, including citizenship.

These activities were divided into three phases, namely “pre-field trip”, “field trip” and “after the field trip”. In addition, these activities were framed in a transmedia narrative related to the use that the Human Being makes of rocks in daily life, whose final goal was to construct an online puzzle on the Campus platform and, in specific cases, the gathering of digital badges.

This study, predominantly qualitative in nature, is based on the educational design research methodology, as it involves the design, implementation and evaluation of a set of activities according to a cyclical and reflective process.

The investigation involved 104 students, 21 in the first cycle of research and 83 in the second cycle of research, who attended, respectively, the 7th and 5th grades.

In the initial phase of the research, the didactic-pedagogical characteristics of the existing educational resources for that subject were analyzed and a questionnaire was applied to the students in order to determine their digital practices.

The “pre-field trip” phase was essentially introductory and aimed to provide information to the students about how the activities in which they were participating would work. The “field trip” phase involved a field trip close to the students’ school, in which they had to complete a set of tasks, specifically making records in photographs and on a record sheet provided for this purpose. This information was shared in the “after the field trip” phase with the other students in a closed group on the Campus platform.

The analysis of the data collected through different instruments suggests that students showed some skills in areas such as “interpersonal relationships”, “scientific, technical and technological knowledge” and “information and communication”, although in this case they can be considered limited.

Thus, the transmedia activities developed provide a contribution to the knowledge about how they can be developed and implemented, namely in basic education.

More information available HERE

The book chapter “The Relevance of Communication Design and the Undeniable Power of Brands” by Daniel Raposo, Fernando Oliveira and Catarina Lélis (DigiMedia member) was published within the International Conference Senses & Sensibility 2019: Developments in Design Research and Practice (Best Papers from 10th Senses and Sensibility 2019: Lost in (G)localization), book series (SSDI, volume 17), pp. 3-10.

Abstract:

Citation:

Raposo, D., Oliveira, F. & Lélis C. (2022). The Relevance of Communication Design and the Undeniable Power of Brands. In E. Duarte & C. Rosa (eds), Developments in Design Research and Practice. Senses 2019. Springer Series in Design and Innovation, vol 17. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-86596-2_1 

More information available HERE

The webinar aimed to explore new science communication languages that can be adopted by scientists, functioning as true “conversation unlockers” with society, an initiative that emerged due to the growing need to communicate with non-specialized audiences.

The webinar took place on the 6th of January 2022. The DigiMedia researchers introduced the Gamers4Nature project and its goals, and shared examples of how the Gamers4Nature approach can be used to promote, among younger audiences, the development of a more active environmental awareness.

Journal of Digital Media & Interaction

ISSN 2184-3120

The Journal of Digital Media & Interaction is an open access, international peer-reviewed research journal, published by DigiMedia, University of Aveiro.

JDMI has been accepted for indexation in the Directory of Open Access Journals (DOAJ).

Journal of Digital Media & Interaction, Vol.4, No.11: Cultural Representations in Digital Games is now available.

Regular edition consisting of a dossier on Cultural Representations in Digital Games.

Editorial

Bernardo Cardoso’s PhD defense takes place on the 14th January, at 3:00 p.m., with the topic Unification in Audiovisual Content Consumption: contributions to the user experience and suggestions for operators | A Unificação no Consumo de Conteúdos Audiovisuais: contributos para a experiência de utilização e sugestões para operadores.

Bernardo Cardoso is a student of the PhD programme in Information and Communication in Digital Platforms and his supervisor is Jorge Ferraz de Abreu (DigiMedia, UA).

DigiMedia members are invited to participate in this important moment in person.

Abstract:

Pay-TV offers have been undergoing a process of homogenization in terms of features and content. However, in recent years, due to major changes in technology and business models, a series of fragmentations are causing an imbalance and important changes in the television ecosystem. Among these changes, catch-up TV, and platforms such as Netflix, Disney+ and YouTube, have emerged as new ways to watch on-demand content, complementing the traditional broadcast TV. Enabled by these platforms, the television concept is also evolving to include new formats and models. Simultaneously, television is no longer restricted to the TV set, being now available on several devices, allowing the viewers to watch the content they want, wherever and whenever they want. However, these changes, although presenting numerous advantages, have also brought a more complex user experience, as they force the viewer to jump between several applications, use different devices and subscribe to multiple services. This presented the opportunity to start a research project aiming to innovate the user experience of the TV viewer, by promoting a content unification approach while introducing new interaction modes and business models. Following a Design Thinking methodology, the project tried to better understand the problems that TV viewers were facing and observe their behaviours and choices. This highlighted a demand for content unification and personalization approaches, enabling an ideation cycle focused on these concepts, which culminated in the elaboration of a prototype that gave tangibility to the selected ideas. This prototype was subjected to an expert evaluation and, given the positive results, granted the green light for the project to proceeded with new prototyping and evaluation phases. Those took place initially in a laboratory setup and, later, in a field trial in a residential environment, for a month. In these evaluations, a triangulation of standardized surveys and various qualitative assessment instruments were employed, and their positive results validated the approach followed by the project. In this way, it became possible to move forward with a transfer, from academia to industry, of the researched unification concepts, thus increasing the level of validation. Finally, the combination of an analysis of the current offers of the biggest American technological platforms, with the knowledge previously obtained on the present research, allowed the elaboration of a set of proposals to improve the user experience of the TV viewers, complemented with a set of suggestions to pay-TV operators, so they can, with these proposals, introduce innovative and differentiated offers to the market.

More information available HERE

The book “Handbook of Research on Digital Communications, Internet of Things, and the Future of Cultural Tourism” edited by Lídia Oliveira (DigiMedia member) was published.

Description:

Table of contents:

Chapter 1
Cultural Tourism and the Tourist Experience in the Digital Era
Eunice Ramos Lopes, Paulo Alexandre Santos, João Tomaz Simões

Chapter 2
Digital Transformation and Tourist Experiences
Yunus Topsakal, Onur Icoz, Orhan Icoz

Chapter 3
Smart Tourism in Destinations: Can It Be the Way Forward?
Fisun Yüksel

Chapter 4
The Future of Digital Tourism Alternatives in Virtual Reality
Zuleyhan Baran, Huseyin Baran

Chapter 5
The Internet of Things and Cultural Heritage
Aybuke Ceyhun Sezgin, Elif Esma Karaman

Chapter 6
Tourist Experience and Digital Transformation
Ahmet Erdem, Ferhat Şeker

Chapter 7
Understanding Big Data and Techniques in Cultural Tourism
Zafer Türkmendağ

Chapter 8
The Use of Virtual Reality and Augmented Reality in Cultural Heritage and Deep-Diving
Destinations
Nihan Garipağaoğlu-Uğur, Orhan Akova

Chapter 9
Intangible Cultural Heritage in the Digitalization Process: The Case of Turkey
İsmail Çalık

Chapter 10
Digital Cultural Heritage
F. Füsun İstanbullu Dinçer, Seda Özdemir Akgül

Chapter 11
A Comprehensive Systematic Literature Review About Smartness in Tourism
Gizem Duran, Selma Meydan Uygur

Chapter 12
Creative Destinations and the Rooster of Barcelos (“Galo de Barcelos”)
Francisco Barbosa Gonçalves, Carlos Costa

Chapter 13
Cultural Tourism: Use of Virtual Visits to Museums
Maria Gorete Dinis, Adelaide Proença, Cláudia Batista, Luís Barradas

Chapter 14
Cultural Tourism, Internet of Things, and Smart Technologies in Museums
Ümit Gaberli

Chapter 15
Digital Communication in Museums and Museological Spaces: Diagnosis of Baixo Alentejo,
Portugal
Victor Figueira, João Arnedo Rolha, Bruno Barbosa Sousa

Chapter 16
Using New Tools to Attract Visitors to Museums and Heritage Sites
Lia Bassa, Melanie Kay Smith, Árpád Ferenc Papp-Váry

Chapter 17
An Exploratory Study on the Role of Websites in Gastronomy Museum Dialogic
Communication
Eray Polat

Chapter 18
Serendipitous Cultural Tourist
Mahmut Baltaci, A. Celil Cakici

Chapter 19
Virtual Reality: The Groundbreaking Smart Technology for the Tourism and Service Industry
Aruditya Jasrotia

Chapter 20
Social Media and Cultural Tourism
Murat Koçyiğit, Büşra Küçükcivil

Chapter 21
Social Media Analytics: Opportunities and Challenges for Cultural Tourism Destinations
Časlav Kalinić, Miroslav D. Vujičić

Chapter 22
Integrating Big Data to Smart Destination Heritage Management
Kubra Ozer, Mehmet Altug Sahin, Gurel Cetin

Chapter 23
Post-Pandemic Re-Positioning in a Cultural Tourism City: From Overtourism to E-Tourism
Monica Coronel, Árpád Ferenc Papp-Váry, Ivett Pinke-Sziva, Zombor Berezvai, Melanie K. Smith

Chapter 24
Innovation in Sustainability of Tourism After the COVID-19 Pandemic
Buket Buluk Eşitti

Chapter 25
Cultural Heritage and Digitalization in City Branding
Oya Yildirim, A. Celil Çakici

Citation:

Oliveira, L. (Ed.) (2022).Handbook of Research on Digital Communications, Internet of Things, and the Future of Cultural Tourism. Pensilvânia, EUA: IGI Global.https://doi.org/10.1145/3486011.3486508

More information available HERE