The PhD student Filipe Moreira, from the doctoral programme Multimedia in Education, was awarded the Best Pitch for session VII of the Research Summit.

The pitch entitled “Internet of things in Educational contexts:Technologies, potentialities, challenges and paradigm shifts” was honoured for the scientific quality, structure and organization of the presented work.

The pitch presented by Filipe shared insights of the broader research that is been conducted under is PhD studies PAprICa – Enhancing Learning with the Internet of Things.

In the 28th and 29th November University of Aveiro hosted the open forum Research Summit 18 under the theme Social Responsibility of Higher Education Institutions & Research.

Research summit 2018 aim, was to promoteand foster important discussion among the University of Aveiro research community and to enable collaborations to advance the state of the art and empower the research efforts.

In this context DigiMedia Research Centre was widely represented.   In the Round Table  under the theme “Perspective about research, impact and social responsibility of higher education institutions” DigiMedia Research Center was presented    by is scientific coordinator Professor Fernando Ramos. At the Session 5- CENTER – Community-led Networks for Territorial Innovation DigiMedia Researcher Paula Alexandra Silva presented an oral presentation under the scope of “Exploring the potential of digital media in community-led territorial innovation: preliminary findings”. In addition, several DigiMedia PhD students presented their work in the parallel pitch sessions.

Within the scope of the priorities established for the consolidation of the National Scientific and Technological System, high priority was given to the advanced training of human resources in science and technology, seeking to strengthen productive collaborations among higher education institutions, R & D institutions and companies. In this context, the FCT decided to propose the extension, by one edition, of FCT Doctoral Programs approved under the National Competitive Financing of PhD Programs FCT of 2012 and 2013 that, on September 1, 2018, were fully implemented or in the process of being fully implemented.

The Doctoral Programme in Multimedia in Education falls under the above-mentioned conditions with regard to the execution of the approved editions, and will benefit from a funding of 6 PhD fellowships for an additional edition of this program. The funding for these scholarships must begin, mandatorily, during the year 2019.

As part of the annual celebration of the International Day for the Eradication of Poverty, the Aveiro District Centre of EAPN Portugal-European Anti-Poverty Network, the Aveiro Social Network and  NPISA – Center for Homeless Planning and Intervention of Aveiro, will host the presentation of MOOC course “Union of Minorities. Educational tools for the European cultural mosaic “.

Professor Vania Baldi, will attend the presentation in representation of the Department of Communication and Art from the University of Aveiro and DigiMedia – Digital Media and Interaction Research Centre. The presentation will take place on 24^th October, from 2:30 p.m. to 4:30 p.m., in the  D. João Evangelista de Lima Vidal Hall from  IPSS Florinhas do Vouga, in Aveiro.

“Union of minorities. Educational tools for the European cultural mosaic” is a Massive Open Online Course for learning competencies to build inclusive educational paths/projects for learners working with minorities and multicultural groups.

The course “Union of minorities. Educational tools for the European cultural mosaic” is a result of the project “Minorities as opportunity and occasion for chrysalis [MOOC]” (reference number 2016-2-IT03-KA205-009153).  MOOC implementation was possible with the financial support of Erasmus+ Programme of the European Union, in the frame of Key Action 2 “Cooperation for innovation and the exchange of good practices – Strategic Partnerships”, as part of the initiative entitled “The Right to Housing in the Perspective of Homeless Citizens.

The course will be can be access from October the 31^th through the link:[1]

Following his nomination by the Rector of the University of Aveiro as Scientific Coordinator of DigiMedia for the 2018-2021 term, Fernando Ramos designated the researchers that will join him in the Executive Board: Margarida Almeida, Jorge Abreu, Luis Pedro and Pedro Almeida.

Margarida Almeida, also leader of the e-Health and Wellbeing research group, will have delegated responsibilities as Vice-Coordinator for the internal organization and management, including management data production, communication and facilities management. Jorge Abreu, also leader of the Social iTV research group, will have delegated responsibilities as Vice-Coordinator for external relations with a special focus on promoting national and international R&D partnerships.

The DigiMedia’s Social iTV research group was represented at the ACM TVX 2018, which took place from 26 to 28 June in Seoul, South Korea. This international event gathers the academia and the industry for the dissemination of studies and products in the field of online video, interactive television and User Experience (UX). This year’s edition summed more than 140 participants from about 30 countries. The Social iTV team presented two articles and a demo of the UltraTV project, together with Altice Labs: 1) “Viewers’ behaviors at home on TV and other screens: an online survey”; 2) “Content Unification in iTV to Enhance User Experience: The UltraTV Project”; 3) “UltraTV: an iTV content unification prototype”. With the supervision of a member of our team, the PhD student Carolina Almeida from the Doctoral Program Multimedia in Education was also present with the article “Educational Online Video: opportunities and barriers to integrate it in the entertainment consumption routines”.

SHORT DESCRIPTION

It is with great pleasure that we announce to the academic community that Maria Isabel Gomes dos Santos is the winner of the European award “EDF-Oracle  eAccessibility Scholarship”  of  2017-2018.  This event represents an indisputable recognition of the remarkable quality and cleverness of Isabel Santos.

The awarded research work described masterfully by Isabel Santos in her PhD thesis, of the Doctoral Program in Multimedia in Education (DEP/DeCA), entitled “Digital technologies to support the development of the mathematical reasoning of students with autism spectrum disorder” is centered on the creation and validation of a digital prototype for children with autism spectrum disorder promoting the development of their mathematical capabilities. This work was developed by the Thematic Line GEOMETRIX, of the Center for Research & Development in Mathematics and Applications- CIDMA (DMat), emerging as a fruitful collaboration of the research centers CIDMA and DigiMedia (Digital Media and Interaction) of the University of Aveiro.

It was an honor and a great privilege, for us, to have had the opportunity to supervise an academic with such tremendous talent.  We could not be more proud of her. Many congratulations Isabel.

The award ceremony will take place in the European Parliament, most probably, next September.

The supervisors,Ana Breda – Coordinator of the T.L. GEOMETRIX and member of CIDMA;
Ana Margarida Almeida – Coordinator of the Health and Wellbeing group of DigiMedia.

SHORT DESCRIPTION

The result of the second call for proposals opened by AlticeLabs@UA (http://www.alticelabs.com/site/alticelabsua/) was recently released. The project Automatic Video Generation (PI: Prof. Telmo Silva) and the extension of the project Voluntage4Seniors (PI: Prof. Rita Santos) were selected for funding and will be hosted by the AlticeLabs@UA laboratory facilities located at the Department of Communication and Art of the University of Aveiro.

These new projects follow the successful completion of the first two projects funded under the first call opened on 2016. In the VoluntAge4Seniors project, led by Rita Santos, an IPTV application to promote volunteers’ support to elders was studied, prototyped and validated. POTI-Personal Objects as Tangible Interfaces, led by Mário Vairinhos, was another project funded by the lab, that resulted in the development of a programmable cube-shaped device enabling an easy interaction with an IPTV TV set by individuals with special needs.

Established in 2016, AlticeLabs@UA is a joint initiative of Altice Labs and the University of Aveiro aiming at promoting research in groundbreaking topics such as IPTV and digital contents, usability and UX, IoT technologies and applications, and emerging web services.

SHORT DESCRIPTION

DigiMedia members led 11 proposals submitted to the 2017 FCT call for research projects on all scientific domains. After the completion of the evaluation, we are now glad to announce that three out of those 11 proposals (27%) were selected for funding. Other 5 proposals received a positive evaluation and were considered eligible for funding.

The projects approved, addressing topics that are in the frontline of DigiMedia’s research priorities, are:

• SEDUCE 2.0 – Use of Communication and Information in the miOne online community by the senior citizen (PI: Prof. Ana Isabel Veloso);
• LOCUS – PlayfuL Connected Rural Territories – The Internet of Things in the intergenerational creative production of cultural georeferenced contents (PI: Prof. Lídia Oliveira);
• Gamers4Nature – Game creation tools to promote awareness of environmental and biodiversity preservation (PI: Prof. Pedro Beça).

The proposal FlavourGame – Participate and Change, Playing with Textures and Flavours, leaded by Nelzon Zagalo, researcher that recently joined DigiMedia, was also selected for funding. Initially submitted under the scope of another research unit, the project will be integrated and executed under DigiMedia’s scope of activities.

These four new projects represent a total funding of over 1 M€ spanning for 3 years. A total of 14 new research grants (including 4 PhD positions) will be open, fostering new opportunities for PhD students and other researchers.

31 January 2018

Happy (Health Awareness and Prevention Personalized for You) – http://digimedia.web.ua.pt/archives/category/projects – , won the Health category of the Santa Casa Challenge 2017, the digital social innovation contest promoted by the Santa Casa da Misericórdia (link: https://santacasachallenge.com/)

The application was developed by Nuno Ribeiro, a PhD student in Multimedia and Education at the University of Aveiro (UA) and is part of a project funded by the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation.

Under the orientation of Ana Margarida Almeida, a professor at DeCA – UA  and senior researcher of the research center Digimedia, and Filipe Santos Silva, coordinator of the team of the Communication Unit at i3S (Institute of Research and Innovation in Health at the University of Porto), Nuno Ribeiro develop an App that adapts to the profile and context of each user.

Happy is the first Portuguese application to prevent cancer; it monitors the risk of cancer and gives personalized recommendations for the reduction of the risk.

The recommendations are based on several factors such as the information that the user gives about their behavior and the geo-spatial location of the mobile phone.

Convento São Pedro de Alcântara, Lisboa