In an event that aims to recognize the work developed by the teams of the different projects involved in this second edition, the final students@DigiMedia #02 event will take place on July 13 at 15h00, in the CCCI auditorium (DeCA, UA).

The event is integrated in the UA Research Summit, and it’s open to all the academic community. The program will be as follows:

15h00: Opening

Vice-rector for research and Vice-rector for Teaching

DeCA’s direction

DigiMedia Coordination

students@DigiMedia Coordination

15:15: Edition #02 – projects’ presentation

17h00: Preview of students@DigiMedia#03

17h30: Posters presentation and final meeting

students@DigiMedia is an initiative designed with the purpose of fostering students’ participation in scientific research activities.

In this second edition, this event will present the 17 ongoing projects, involving 46 students from all study cycles (CTC area) and 15 DigiMedia researchers.

The session is open to all Academic community!

Helena Reis’s PhD defense takes place on the 4th July, at 2:30 p.m., in Auditório José Grácio, Departamento de Engenharia Mecânica, Universidade de Aveiro, with the topic Avaliação de Jogos Educativos: Proposta de uma Aplicação Digital.

Helena Reis is a student of the PhD programme in Multimedia in Education and her supervisor is Ana Margarida Almeida (DigiMedia, UA).

DigiMedia members are invited to participate in this important moment.

Abstract:

The introduction of games in the classroom is recognized as a strategy that enhances learning and the motivation of the students. School is pointed out as a context of great potential for the implementation of Game-Based Learning strategies. However, the challenges that are presented to educators during the process of choosing a game can lead to premature abandonment of the implementation of the activity. This thesis aimed at to understand, starting from the interactive development of a design of a gamified mobile application, how one can encourage and support the teacher in the application of Game-Based Learning activities. The application, called Games4Class, has as its main purpose to catalog and evaluate educational games. An exploratory study was developed, based on the socio-critical paradigm, and framed in a qualitative investigation, with some quantified parameters. From the point of view of alignment with research objectives, the methodological design was strongly influenced by educational design research approaches; already observing the methodological procedure chosen, we opted for the Case Study. For the study, two cases (two games) were used – Unlove and Carmen Sandiego. The process began with the testing of the evaluation questionnaire of the two educational resources following the implementation of game sessions with professional education students (Study I). The Games Unlove and Carmen Sandiego were evaluated according to three indicators – (i) motivation, (ii) player experience, with the measurement of pragmatic quality and hedonic quality and (iii) learning acquired by the game. From the sessions, the opinion of the teachers involved regarding the use of games in the classroom was also considered. Once these data were collected, a group of eight specialists was created allowing the proposal of the functional requirements of the application, according to the Communicative Design Paradigm (Study II). The requirements were articulated in a design proposal whose mockups explore the cataloguing and evaluation of the two games and enhance communication between user-teachers. To encourage and involve teachers in the use of the application, some gamification elements such as points, digital medals, social interaction, benefits, and challenges were considered in their genesis. The positioning of the gamified proposal, understood as a process of integration of game mechanisms in a non-game context to promote motivation and user participation, was measured through the Octalysis framework. After prototyping, the validation of the proposal was conducted through a usability test, involving, in addition to the group of experts, a national publisher (Study III). At this stage, improvement proposals for the next version of the application were listed. At the same time, the participants in the study, the teachers of the game sessions and the group of experts, positioned themselves in the face of the development of the proposal and the use of Game-Based Learning and enunciated its benefits (Study IV). For the collection of data and to obtain feedback from the participants, individual and focus group semi-structured questionnaires and interviews were applied, and several electronic records gathered. In addition, the usability tests were recorded on video and later transcribed and analyzed. The content analysis technique allowed the encoding of text segments in the various categories and making interpretations. Some conclusions are highlighted. At first, through Study I, it was possible to map and characterize the games Unlove and Carmen Sandiego, the latter being the most scored in the three indicators studied. We conclude that learning was not as effective as that perceived by teachers. Additionally, the design process, initiated in Study II, enabled participatory design by surveying functional requirements. From Study III, it was possible to verify that the design of the application was user-friendly and easily accepted by users. Analyzing the prototype of the Games4Class application in the light of the Octalysis framework, there is a greater relevance of the core Social Influence, contributing to a more intrinsic motivation of the user. The exploration of game-based learning activities and application prototyping elucidated the perceptions of teachers and experts about the positive influence of games on the motivation, behavior, concentration, memorization and learning of students and about the benefits of developing the Games4Class application (Study IV).

Women in tech and feminism are the key topics of the DigiMedia Collection new book. The  book launch of Technofeminism: multi and transdisciplinary contemporary views on women in technology, edited by Renata Frade and Mário Vairinhos, DigiMedia researchers, is taking place on Wednesday, May 17th at 4:00 pm, at the CCCI Auditorium of the Departament of Communicatio and Art, University of Aveiro. The event will include a seminar with a round table on the key topics of the book and a coffee break at the end where the book can be explored in different formats. 

The book intends to be a theoretical reference in technofeminism debates and a guide for women, from adolescence onwards, interested in joining or making a professional transition to STEAM careers, entrepreneurship, improving knowledge about feminism in fields of patriarchy greater domain, from a plural and diverse perspective. One of the main book highlights is the participation as author of Dr. Judy Wajcman, recognized worldwide for 30 years for her research on technological feminism and gender studies. The researcher is a British Academy fellow, professor at the Anthony Giddens of Sociology at the London School of Economics. The book is in line with the United Nations General Assembly (UN) Sustainable Development Goals.

Technofeminism: multi and transdisciplinary contemporary views on women in technology authors are: “Feminism and Technology: an interview with Dr. Judy Wajcman by Renata Frade”; “Allegro ma non tropo: how educational traps might be predicted” (Ana Silveira Moura); “Spaces in deconstruction: an experience report on transgender employability in the area of computing/technology” (Biamichelle Miranda, in Memorian); DigitalSELFPresenceLab: embodying new technologies for the restoration of presence” (Carolina Berger); “Gender discrimination in AI models: origins and mitigation paths” (Dora Kaufman); “Convergent feminism, games, digital transition and equity” (Patrícia Gouveia, Luciana Lima); “Cultural Diversity as a design precedent: A (Feminist) Angle for HCI/d Expansion” (Sai Shruthi Chivukula); “How to be a Woman in Science: an interview with Ana Viseu by Renata Frade about Feminism, Gender and Technoscience perspectives”. The preface was written by Dr. Ana Veloso, University of Aveiro Department of Communication and Art Director. 

ABOUT THE EDITORS:

RENATA FRADE

Renata Frade develops a women in tech doctoral research at the University of Aveiro/DigiMedia (Portugal). This research is funded by the Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia (FCT). Her motivation for studies in the technological field was more emphasized 11 years ago, when she became a technology entrepreneur in Brazil. Fifteen years ago, she got to know transmedia theory and was a student of its main theorist, Dr. Henry Jenkins, at M.I.T. (Massachussets Institute of Technology, USA). During 2015 and 2017 she was an activist, speaker and volunteer for the international NGO of women in technology, founded in San Francisco (USA), Girls in Tech Brazil. She´s been invited to be a keynote speaker at technological symposiums, such as Gartner´s (the largest technology research company in the world), feminist events and events for society (such as the Porto Feminist Festival). She´s been writing technology articles for press media such as MobileTime and Digitalk, Mídia Ninja. She is the author of 13 fiction and non-fiction books by Brazilian and international publishers such as Unesp, Rocco, Springer, Patuá, Ria Editorial (Portugal), Livros LabCom.IFP (Univ. da Beira Interior, Portugal). She took UX courses at the California Institute of Arts and USP. She was a Science, Health and Entertainment reporter at InfoGlobo journals. She graduated in Social Communication from PUC-Rio (where she took courses in computing at the Rio DataCentro laboratories), Master in Literature from UERJ. She is an Institute of Advanced Studies Artificial Intelligence researcher at USP.

MÁRIO VAIRINHOS

Professor at the Department of Communication and Arts of the University of Aveiro since 2001, researcher in the area of Interaction Design and Human-Computer Interaction, with particular interest in tangible Media and Mixed Reality. At the same time develops Digital Art work and Museography projects in interaction design. He was co-founder and editor of Mimesis Contemporary Art journal. Graduated in 1996 in Economics from the Faculty of Economics, University of Coimbra, in 2001 obtained the Master degree in Digital Arts at the School of Arts of Porto, Portuguese Catholic University. He holds a PhD in Communication Sciences and Technologies from the University of Aveiro and University of Porto.

 DIGIMEDIA COLLECTION AND UA EDITORA:

The DigiMedia Collection is a UA Press book collection managed by DigiMedia and focused on the publication of works in the scientific area of Digital Media.

Its goal is to contribute to the deepening of the different theoretical and methodological challenges of this area of knowledge. The DigiMedia Collection publishes books in digital format in four languages: Portuguese, English, Spanish and French.

Further information: 

https://digimedia.web.ua.pt/digimedia-collection

https://www.facebook.com/digimediaUA

https://twitter.com/DigiMediaCentre

 PRESS CONTACTS:

lovelacersoftheworld@gmail.com

https://www.instagram.com/lovelacers/

The Cumulus Network is an important network for the areas of design and media and the Department of Communication and Art/UA is a member of this network. Catarina Lelis, Liliana Costa and Patrícia Oliveira, DigiMedia researchers, participated in the Cumulus Antwerp 2023 International Conference, under the topic Connectivity and Creativity in times of Conflict.

Catarina Lelis was responsible for a workshop entitled Orienting design students in anticipating the impact of their projects and in contributing to the SDGs, which was attended by 25 people.

Liliana Costa presented the project PLAYMUTATION with a presentation entitled Designing for viral infection awareness through PLAYMUTATION in te session ‘Design & digitisation’ .

The two DigiMedia researchers participated in the meetings of three working groups:

• Cumulus working group Women in Design
• Cumulus working group AADTE (Art and Design Teacher Education and Pedagogy)
• Cumulus working group P-R-E Design with IxDA
• Cumulus working group

The participation in the keynote talks, in woorkshops and in several other sessions are worth highlighting:

• Antwerp as a superdiverse majority-minority city: the importance of diverse-sensitive design (keynote talk)

• Natural Intelligence (NI) – Towards Nature Positive Design (keynote talk)

• Creative leadership in innovation in a technology company, how to stay relevant in a faster moving world? (keynote talk)

• The reinventions of craft: A historical view on the usefulness of craftsmanship (keynote talk)

• Design methodology | & digital on urban scale
• Design for and with extended reality
• Care(ful) spaces
• Design Competency Resource (workshop)
• Computational power (workshop)

Patrícia Oliveira presented the project FlavourGame with a Poster entitled “FlavourGame: Interaction design in hybrid games” in the Online Poster Session on Hopin platform moderated by Sven Verheyen.

Other links:

Programme of the conference: https://www.conftool.org/cumulusantwerp2023/sessions.php

News from Playmutation-CUMULUS https://playmutation.web.ua.pt/?p=1975

The ALFAMED network (Red Iberoamericana de Literacia Mediática) has received the 1st Global Media and Information Literacy from UNESCO MIL. At this point, DigiMedia/UA is already part of the network and the contact point in DigiMedia is Jennifer Bueno Rocha (jmbuenor@ua.pt). Other members of DigiMedia can make part of the network.

Under the theme “Pensar o Jornalismo com os Jornalistas. A digitalização dos media”, the University of Aveiro (UA) hosted a meeting on April 14 organized by the Comissão Carteira Profissional de Jornalista (CCPJ), with the support of the Academy of Aveiro, the Aveiro Media Competence Center and Rádio Terranova.

During the session, the issues that currently arise around the “Journalism we have and what Journalism we want” were discussed, as well as the dialogue, reflection and sharing of ideas around current journalism. The role of journalists in contributing to the construction of bases with the purpose of suggesting changes in terms of legislation, behavior and commitment to journalistic activity was also a topic.

Besides the presentation from the Comissão Carteira Profissional de Jornalista (CCPJ), there was a Round Table on the topic on the media turning digital with several guest speakers:

. Dr. João Morais Palmeiro, Director  of Aveiro Media Competence Center

. Prof. Nelson Zagalo, Coordinator of DigiMedia – Digital Media and Interaction Research Centre of the University of Aveiro,

. Dr. Licínia Girão, Member of Comissão Carteira Profissional de Jornalista (CCPJ),

. Moderation: Carlos Teixeira, Rádio Terranova

Carla V. Leite, DigiMedia PhD Student, was invited to co-write, with a Researcher in Nursing Sciences, an article for a blog that Researchers/Professors in Health edit/publish, to reach the population in Finland.

The article is about “Citizen engagement in research: Co-creating health”, and it is already published in the following link:

http://terveyttatieteesta.blogspot.com/2023/04/citizen-engagement-in-research-co.html

Filipe T. Moreira, DigiMedia’s researcher, was invited to give open classes about Portuguese Animated Cinema at the Université Côte d’Azur (France).

The classes had as main objectives:

• To make known the History of Animation Cinema in Portugal;
• To promote the Portuguese animation films (and authors) to the French public;
• And to promote different film festivals that take place in Portugal.

Last January, Portuguese Animated Film celebrated its 100^th anniversary. As a curiosity, the first Portuguese animated film was “O Pesadelo de António Maria”, a short film of little more than two minutes that caricatured António Maria da Silva, minister of the First Republic, directed by Joaquim Guerreiro. This short film was lost in time. However, already in the 21^st century it has been possible to recreate the film with the discovery of 150 original drawings.

Virgínia Chalegre’s PhD defense takes place on the 28th April, at 2:00 p.m., in Auditório José Grácio, Departamento de Engenharia Mecânica, Universidade de Aveiro, with the topic Proposta de Solução Digital para a Promoção da Empregabilidade de Pessoas com Deficiência.

Virgínia Chalegre is a student of the PhD programme in Information and Communication in Digital Platforms (ICPD) and her supervisor is Ana Margarida Almeida (DigiMedia, UA).

DigiMedia members are invited to participate in this important moment.

Resumo:

Esta tese foi desenvolvida no âmbito do Programa Doutoral em Informação e Comunicação em Plataformas Digitais e está enquadrada pelo projeto Erasmus +: Hilives – Including and Connecting in Higher Education: networking opportunities for independent lives. Ela está relacionada ao eixo de dois grandes problemas da atualidade: falta de oportunidades de qualificação e de emprego para as pessoas com deficiência e falta de ferramentas digitais acessíveis, que apoiem o processo de inclusão dessas pessoas.

Este trabalho teve como propósito identificar que características as soluções digitais devem ter para promover a empregabilidade de pessoas com deficiência, por meio de um processo de correspondência entre as competências e as definições das oportunidades disponíveis no mercado de trabalho, com destaque às habilidades das pessoas, para que o foco do processo de recrutamento e seleção das empresas não seja a deficiência.

A partir do referencial teórico, do benchmarking das soluções existentes e do levantamento das necessidades dos envolvidos, foi desenvolvido um protótipo, com estratégias metodológicas inspiradas na abordagem Design Thinking e Design Based Research, sob a perspectiva das diretrizes de acessibilidade, heurísticas de usabilidade e cultura participativa, que assegure a conexão entre os candidatos e as empresas.

Após o período de desenvolvimento e avaliações com as empresas, instituições de ensino superior e pessoas com deficiência foi evidenciada a importância da implementação das diretrizes de acessibilidade e de funcionalidades, que promovam uma aproximação entre os usuários no universo digital e sugiram percursos de aprendizagem, para que as pessoas possam aprofundar as suas qualificações e serem inseridas no mercado de trabalho como qualquer outro profissional.

More information available HERE

Joaquim Santos’s PhD defense takes place on the 2nd May, at 9:30 a.m., in Sala de Atos Académicos, Edifício Central e da Reitoria from the University of Aveiro, with the topic Interfaces Tangíveis Semiautónomos e Seguros: Modelo e Protótipo Para Uso Doméstico por Crianças com Perturbações dos Sons da Fala.

Joaquim Santos is a student of the PhD programme in Information and Communication in Digital Platforms (ICPD) and his supervisor is Mário Vairinhos (DigiMedia, UA).

DigiMedia members are invited to participate in this important moment.

Resumo:

Esta Tese tem como principal objetivo a apresentação de um novo quadro de conhecimento acerca do potencial dos Media Tangíveis para uma intervenção semi-autónoma, em ambiente doméstico, para crianças com Perturbações dos Sons da Fala.
Com base nas metodologias e ferramentas atuais de intervenção terapêutica em crianças, e impulsionada pelas regras criadas como resposta à pandemia em curso, como regras de distanciamento social e confinamento, esta Tese pretende dar uma resposta interdisciplinar à necessidade de continuidade das sessões de pós-intervenção em Terapia da Fala no lar. Uma resposta que seja envolvente, que promova a interação social e que forneça dados ao Terapeuta da Fala, permitindo que ele acompanhe o progresso à distância, através de relatórios, podendo redefinir desafios ou alterar quaisquer configurações que considere necessárias.
Esta Tese pretende integrar conhecimentos de Informática e Ciências Sociais na implementação de uma ferramenta capaz de monitorizar a intervenção em Perturbações dos Sons da Fala, em ambiente doméstico. O objetivo será fornecer uma ferramenta de Internet of Things, segura e que integre um interface tangível por forma a permitir uma interação perfeita para todas as partes interessadas, promovendo uma narrativa eficaz.
Para atingir esse objetivo, foi desenvolvido um modelo teórico e conceptual que promove a utilização da tecnologia tangível no ambiente doméstico. Foi definido o problema e o conhecimento teórico necessário para garantir a criação de uma linguagem comum, bem como a definição dos utilizadores-alvo e faixa etária, o processo de interação e a definição da estratégia de pesquisa e co-design. O estudo teórico forneceu a base para o trabalho empírico, que utiliza uma abordagem metodológica de Design-Based Research. Os tipos de dados, os instrumentos e métodos de recolha dos mesmos e como eles serão utilizados, são descritos. Neste contexto, realizaram-se os processos iniciais de recolha de dados, através de entrevistas e focus groups, no sentido de se determinar quais os requisitos do sistema que conduziram a uma fase de prototipagem, baseada numa abordagem de co-design. O protótipo final foi testado por uma terapeuta da fala, durante uma sessão de intervenção em casa de uma criança com perturbações dos sons da fala, onde foram recolhidos dados através de
grelhas de observação, questionários e uma atividade de debriefing, que resultou na criação de uma design framework.
O protótipo final forneceu orientações indicativas da viabilidade dos Media Tangíveis para intervenção semi-autónoma, em ambiente doméstico.

More information available HERE