Reviews and Perspectives on Smart and Sustainable Metropolitan and Regional Cities

The notion of smart and sustainable cities offers an integrated and holistic approach to urbanism by aiming to achieve the long-term goals of urban sustainability and resilience. In essence, a smart and sustainable city is an urban locality that functions as a robust system of systems with sustainable practices to generate desired outcomes and futures for all humans and non-humans. This book contributes to improving research and practice in smart and sustainable metropolitan as well as regional cities and urbanism by bringing together literature reviews and scholarly perspective pieces, forming an open access knowledge warehouse. It contains contributions that offer insights into research and practice in smart and sustainable metropolitan and regional cities by producing in-depth conceptual debates and perspectives, insights from the literature and best practice, and thoroughly identified research themes and development trends. This book serves as a repository of relevant information, material, and knowledge to support research, policymaking, practice, and the transferability of experiences to address challenges in establishing smart and sustainable metropolitan as well as regional cities and urbanism in the era of climate change, biodiversity collapse, natural disasters, pandemics, and socioeconomic inequalities

XI CIDU. La transformación digital de la universidad Congreso Iberoamericano de Docencia Universitaria

Nesta comunicação apresenta-se uma experiência de gamificação realizada numa turma online, numa Universidade Virtual. Foram utilizados como elementos de jogo pontos, badges, leadboard, avatares e desafios. Do ponto de vista do desenho da unidade curricular, foi proposto um desafio global, sob a forma de roleplaying, que percorreu todo o semestre. Para este desafio global contribuíram três outros desafios, nos quais os estudantes deveriam dinamizar discussões, sendo atribuídos pontos e badges em função da sua prestação. No que se refere à metodologia, tratou-se de uma investigação exploratória, com carácter qualitativo. Como técnicas de recolha de dados, privilegiou-se a observação, realizada durante toda a unidade curricular, complementada por um questionário aos estudantes no final do semestre. Constatou-se que a estratégia adotada incentivou a participação ativa dos estudantes, tendo estes gostado da experiência. Verificaram-se, contudo, algumas limitações, pelo facto de os estudantes desta amostra serem adultos trabalhadores a frequentar uma licenciatura online, com outros compromissos profissionais e familiares. Com efeito, verificou-se que vários deles mencionaram ter dificuldade na gestão do tempo, limitando a possibilidade de adesão a um percurso exigente em termos de participação ativa.In this paper, we present a gamification experiment that took place in an online class at a virtual university. The game elements were points, badges, leaderboard, avatars and challenges. Taking into account the curricular unit design, a global challenge was proposed, in the form of roleplaying, and took place along the whole semester. Three other challenges contributed to this global challenge: the students had to dynamize debates, and received points and badges, according to their performance. In terms of methodology, it consisted in an exploratory research of a qualitative character. Observation, complemented by a questionnaire made available to the students at the end of the semester, were the chosen techniques for data collection. It was observed that the adopted strategy motivated the students’ active participation, who really enjoyed the experience. However, some limitations were also observed, once these students, attending an online First Cycle Degree, are adults who have professional and family responsibilities and commitments. Actually, several of them mentioned that the difficulty in organizing their time did limit the possibility of participating in the challenge, which was indeed demanding in terms of active participation.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio