News
The National Center for Quality Assurance & Accreditation of Educational & Training Institutes, at the Libyan Education Ministry, approved the didactic plan of the Cross-Media Journalism Master Program, in the framework of the Erasmus+ project PAgES – Post-crisis Journalism in Post-crisis Libya. Vania Baldi, member of DigiMedia, takes part in the research team of the project.
The project, co-funded by the Erasmus+ programme of the European Union, is coordinated by IULM University, and it involves the four universities of Tripoli, Sirte, Misurata and Zawia, alongside with the University of Aveiro (Digital Media and Interaction Research Center), University of Granada and UNIMED.
The educational plan of the Master is the result of a 12-month common elaboration, based on both the bottom-up level of needs analysis and the top-down level of examination of international best practices. The collaboration among Libyan and European universities guarantees for an advanced and innovative educational program, while the implementation of Bologna Process rules and 120 ECTS system will offer students an ideal opportunity for accessing the global job market.
The Master will be offered in the four Libyan universities of Tripoli, Sirte, Zawia and Misurata, and it will start in September 2020. Students will also be offered the opportunity of a two-week study visit at Sapienza University in Rome and IULM University, Milan. Information about students’ enrollment will be made available in the next months.
More information on the project can be consulted at: https://pages-project.ly/
The team from the University of Aveiro of the Erasmus+ Mind Safety – Safety Matters II project has just published the ‘Teacher´s Guide on Occupational Safety and Health Education – Exploring’ OSH! What a Bright Idea! ” aimed at national and European Teachers and Trainers (https://www.ua.pt/pt/noticias/11/62548). Ana Margarida Almeida and Luis Pedro are part of the research team of the project and authors of this publication.
This Guide is a tool to support the work of teachers from Basic and Secondary Education and also of trainers in the area of Education for Occupational Safety and Health.
The publication presents suggestions for exploring the educational digital resource ‘OSH! What a bright idea!’ (http://osh.act.gov.pt/), offering varied opportunities for interdisciplinary curricular insertion and including different educational approaches such as interdisciplinarity, project-based learning, active learning, multimodality, the use of technologies and valuing inclusion and accessibility.
The ‘Teacher´s Guide on Occupational Safety and Health Education – Exploring ‘OSH! What a Bright Idea!” (2020) is available for download at http://hdl.handle.net/10773/27546.
The Mind Safety – Safety Matters II project (2018-1-PT01-KA201 – 047416) seeks to improve and innovate in the methods of teaching health and safety topics in the classroom, motivating and preparing young people to work in safe conditions and to be responsible citizens after leaving school.
More about the Mind Safety – Safety Matters II project: http://mindsafety.web.ua.pt/.
CallBob – Construtor de bots de voz para atendimento de chamadas (Voice bots builder for answering calls).
CallBob – Construtor de bots de voz para atendimento de chamadas (Voice bots builder for answering calls) project with ref. POCI-01-0247-FEDER-03850, is the result of a PT2020 – SI&DT application, notice: 01/SI/2018 from the company GoTelecom, configured as a service provision lasting 24 months.
CallBob is a technological R&D project that aims to develop, and technologically validate, a product concept targeted at small to medium businesses. This product intends to aid customer service in small businesses, ranging from hairdressers’ salons to small medical clinics, through a conversational bot interface which can schedule appointments or enlighten any customer doubts, by automatically answering incoming phone calls. Business owners will be able to easily customize their bot, through a friendly an intuitive user interface.
DigiMedia contributes with UX/Usability Design and Evaluation activities, supported by co-design techniques applied with a representative intentional sample of CallBob’s final users. DigiMedia researchers will develop the initial business support communication narratives, aiming for a friendly and intuitive conversation experience for the final user (the business’ clients). An intuitive interaction model will also be designed and evaluated for the bot customization platform, taking into account a final user with medium to low digital literacy.
As an output, CallBob will deliver the dialogue narratives characterized by Intents and Entities (communication intentions and its characteristics) along with 2 papers in scientific journals and/or international conferences.
January 2019 – January 2021
93,043.00 €
93,043.00 €
National – FEDER/Compete 2020/Portugal 2020
POCI-01-0247-FEDER-038501
Advanced Technologies
Óscar Mealha
José Nunes (Co-IR), Maria João Antunes, Juliana Camargo (bolseira)
Available at: []
The 1st Seminar of Students in Digital Technologies and Health/Wellbeing took place on 24th January at the Department of Communication and Art of the University of Aveiro. EhSemi aimed to be a discussion forum for students who are developing research projects related to innovative digital media-based solutions, capable of improving health, wellbeing and people’s quality of life. This seminar is an initiative of the E-health & Wellbeing group of the DigiMedia Research Center and Ana Margarida Almeida, the coordinator of the Research Group, was the Chair of the event.
The keynote speaker for the seminar was Jose Colucci, professor at the Design Institute for Health of the University of Texas / Austin, who also organized the two-days’ workshop on “Design for Health” (22nd and 23rd January). In this workshop the participants had the chance to see how Health represents one of the ultimate boundaries of Design and an excellent opportunity to apply its principles. To do this, they not only gained the understanding and practical experience in the basic methods and mental postures of design through some examples that have already been used to solve some of the most complex health problems, but also moved forward into ideas and prototypes.
Besides the Keynote Talk by Jose Colucci “Atenção primária à saúde: eHealth e humanização da tecnologia”, the programme of the seminar included 18 presentations by students. Several DigiMedia PhD students presented their research work in this seminar:
– Virgínia Chalegre – Avaliação de aplicações para a qualificação e empregabilidade de pessoas com deficiência
– Lersi Duran – Literacia Digital em Depressão junto de Estudantes Universitários: desenho metodológico de avaliação
– Eliza Oliveira – As agressões online e o impacto no desempenho ocupacional dos estudantes: reflexão sob o olhar da terapia ocupacional
– Carla V. Leite – e-Health for Childbirth Literacy in Portugal: An Analysis of Resources from SNS
– Jailma Bulhões – Iterative aspects of designing a gamified storytelling tool to Brazilian students with dyslexia
– Daniel Carvalho – Os Seniores e os serviços iTV: Identificação de Tipologias de interação
Helena Reis (PhD Student) and Margarida Almeida (Supervisor) were distinguished with the Best Poster Award, within the 11thInternational Conference on Videogame Sciences and Arts – Videojogos 2019, that took place at the University of Aveiro, between 27th and 29th November (http://videojogos2019.web.ua.pt/).
Videojogos is an annual conference on videogame sciences and arts, promoted by the Portuguese Society of Video Games Sciences (SPCV). The conference has been promoting the scientific gathering of researchers and professionals in the expanded field of videogames.
The University of Aveiro held the 1st edition of the Conference in 2009 and held it again in 2019, between 27th and 29th November (http://videojogos2019.web.ua.pt/). The event was co-organized by the Department of Communication and Art of the University of Aveiro (DeCA), DigiMedia Research Center and the Portuguese Society of Video Games Sciences (SPCV). Ana Veloso (Conference chair), Nelson Zagalo (Scientific chair), José Nunes (Organizing chair), Óscar Mealha (Co-organizing chair), Pedro Beça (Workshop chair) and Mário Vairinhos (Demo chair) were part of the Organizing Committee.
This year, 10 years after the first conference, SPCV and the co-organizers decided to convert the conference into a full international event, with English as a working language.
The Keynote speakers (of the conference were Ernest Adams (game designer and professor at the University of Uppsala, Sweden) and Diogo Gomes (professor at the Dep. Electronics, Telecommunications and Informatics, University of Aveiro, Portugal).
The Book of abstracts is available in https://ria.ua.pt/handle/10773/27038. And the full Proceedings will be available soon at Springer (https://www.springer.com/gp/book/9783030379827).
The Multiplier Event of the 2018-21 MS-SM project took place on the 20th of November 2019 in the CCCI Auditorium of the University of Aveiro with around 75 participants (teachers, psychologists, stakeholders, etc). This dissemination seminar was recognized as a short-term training action by the Aveiro and Albergaria-a-Velha Schools Association Training Center (CFAECAAV).
The Mind Safety – Safety Matters (MS-SM) projects aim to improve and innovate methods of teaching safety and health issues in the classroom, motivating and preparing young people (12 to 18 years old) to work in safe conditions and to live and learn to be responsible citizens after leaving school. The projects also promote teachers’ active involvement and active participation in their own training, to test, experiment, develop and implement methodologies and tools in schools, enhancing the quality and relevance of the learning process.
The Autoridade para as Condições de Trabalho (ACT) coordinates a consortium of 7 partners: the University of Aveiro, the University of Minho, the University of Girona (Spain), the Safety Science Group of Delft Technologies University (the Netherlands), the Center for Labour and Social Security Training and Research (ÇASGEM, Turkey) and the Youth in Science and Business Foundation (YSBF, Estonia).
Ana Margarida Almeida (Deca/DigiMedia) and Luis Pedro (Deca/DigiMedia) are part of the project’s team. The UA team includes members from the Research Centre on Didactics and Technology in the Education of Trainers (CIDTFF/DEP), the Digital Media and Interaction Research Centre (DigiMedia/DeCA) and the Aveiro Research Centre of Risks and Sustainability in Construction (RISCO/DECivil).
The Erasmus+ HiLives project (Including and Connecting in Higher Education: networking opportunities for independent lives) aims to share knowledge and good practices in (i) including students with Intellectual and Development Disabilities (DID) in Higher Education Institutions and (ii) their transition for an active and independent life, exploring the role digital media can play in this process.
The University of Aveiro coordinates a consortium of eight partners: four Higher Education institutions – University of Aveiro, Portugal; University of Ghent, Belgium; University of Salamanca, Spain; and University of Iceland, Iceland – and four institutions and associations that work directly with young adults with DID and their families – ASSOL, Pais-em-Rede, FORMEM and AvisPT21.
Ana Margarida Almeida (Deca/DigiMedia) and Virgínia Chalegre (PhD student, Deca/DigiMedia) are part of the project’s team. The UA team includes members from the Research Centre on Didactics and Technology in the Education of Trainers (CIDTFF/DEP), the Digital Media and Interaction Research Centre (DigiMedia/DeCA) and the Pedagogical Office.
The Kickoff Meeting (TPM) and the 1st Learning/Teaching/Training Activity (LTTA) will take place from 25 to 29 November 2019.
Integrated in the stand of the University of Aveiro, DigiMedia’s participation included 4 projects of the SocialiTV group:
– Securhome (https://cenie.eu/en/blogs/securhome ) – a service that makes it possible to monitor seniors’ domestic activity through television;
– Smartly (http://www.alticelabs.com/site/alticelabsua/projetos_investigacao/ ) – a service, supported by a mobile and television application for MEO platform, which receives promotional coupons in addition to television advertising;
– VolunterAge4Seniors (http://socialitv.web.ua.pt/index.php/projects/sponsored-projects/voluntage4seniors/) – a service implemented on MEO television platform that allows seniors to ask for support from entities providing volunteer services;
– Videobite (http://socialitv.web.ua.pt/index.php/projects/sponsored-projects/videobite/) – an online platform (Clip.it) that enables the creation of video remixes of news content and the sharing of these videos on social networks.
Thanks to the participation of DigiMedia members and collaborators in this event, it was possible to show the community some of the best projects developed in the past year.
Source: Facebook – UA
The DigiMedia centre in partnership with the INET.md unit are organizing a talk about mixed realities.
The 360º Mixed Realities Audiovisual Initiative will be held on September 27th at 2:30 PM in the Auditorium of the Department of Communication and Art. The first part is free and open to the UA community and will include a talk about 360º video production for imersive 3D spaces by Tiffany Marques, 360º sound recording by Isaac Raimundo and Modulating emotions in acting by Isabela Souto. Next, there will be a technical hands on workshop (by invitation only) that will overview 360º video and sound production, ending with a practical session on body language in the expression of emotions.
This initiative is organized by Mário Vairinhos and Pedro Almeida (DigiMedia researchers) in partnership with Helena Marinho and Nery Borges (INET.md researchers).
Last Saturday, July 20th, DigiMedia organized a meet-up in the walkways over the Ria de Aveiro.
Celebrating the end of a very successful academic year was the moto for the organization of a meet-up of DigiMedia researchers held last Saturday, July 20th. This very informal event included a pleasant tour over the Ria de Aveiro walkways and a shared snack on the relaxing area of the “Passadiços” bar. We wish this first edition of the DigiMedia Summer meet-up has just started a tradition!
DigiMedia’s doctoral students Ana Raquel Cabral and Liliana Gonçalves were awarded with the prize of ‘Best Pitch in Research Summit’ for their doctoral researches in Multimedia in Education and Information and Communication in Digital Platforms respectively.
On July 3rd, the event Research Summit 2019 took place at the University of Aveiro with the purpose of encouraging the exchange of knowledge and the presentation of the best research projects in different areas and research units. Many researchers and other entities of the academic community joined together in order to establish partnerships, celebrate research results and advance the state of the art in different topics. Prof. Ana Margarida Almeida was a keynote speaker and represented DigiMedia in the domain of eHealth with the talk ‘Driving innovation, enabling quality of life, research on eHealth and wellbeing at Digimedia’.
Ana Raquel Cabral and Liliana Gonçalves, both PhD students at DigiMedia, were awarded with the Best Pitch for the doctoral programs in Multimedia in Education (MEdu) and Information and Communication in Digital Platforms (ICPD). Their pitches entitled “Peer learning and its impact on peer teacher students’ academic performance – proposal of a procedure model” (presented by Ana Cabral, supervised by Prof. Carlos Santos) and “Sharing knowledge through digital platforms to socio-territorial well-being: the forest fires’ case” (presented by Liliana Gonçalves, supervised by Prof. Lídia Oliveira) were distinguished by their scientific quality, structure and organization of the presented work.
