VIC : an interactive video system for dynamic visualization in web and Mobile platforms

This paper presents an interactive video system that enables users to change the flow of video playback by interacting with hotspots that were predefined throughout the video streams. These hotspots are synchronized with the underlying video streams and the interactions result in smooth transitions between the preloaded targets. This approach allows the dynamic visualization of content by interacting with the hotspots and producing the consequent changes in the flow of the story. The system includes web-based and mobile video players specifically developed to deal with the interactive features, as well as a configuration tool that allows content managers to choose which pre-produced interaction possibilities will be used for a specific target audience. The interactive video solution presented herein has potential to be used as a powerful communication tool, in commercial, e-learning, accessibility and entertainment contexts

Learner-generated comic (lgc): a production model

Recent advancement of authoring tools has fostered widespread interest towards using comics as a Digital Storytelling medium. This technology integrated learning approach is known as Learner-Generated Comic (LGC) production; where learners' knowledge and ideas on various subjects are synthesized in a form of digital educational comic. Despite the prior evidences for the didactic values of LGC production, most scholars do not emphasise on a quality, theoretically supported, and strategic LGC production methodology that accommodate to interrelated key elements and production methods of LGC. As a result, there is a tendency to view LGC production as challenging and impractical. Essentially, there is a lack of conceptual models and methods that comprehensively tailor the crucial theories, elements, techniques, technological, and systematic processes of LGC production. Within this context, this study attempts to propose LGC production model that serves as systematic approach which includes the fundamental components for learners to produce digital educational comics. Therefore, in order to accomplish the main aim, a number of sub objectives are formed: (1) to determine the core components for LGC production model, (2) to construct a systematic LGC production model based on the identified components, (3) to evaluate the proposed LGC production model, and (4) to assess the LGC products developed by the proposed model users. This study adopts the Design Science Research methodology as the framework of the research process. Activities of LGC production model construction include literature review and comparative study, expert consultation, and user participation. The proposed model is evaluated through user experience testing and expert review. Results from hypothesis testing concludes that the proposed LGC production model is significantly perceived as having quality in serving as a guideline for learners to design and develop digital educational comics. It was also found that the proposed model has been well-accepted by local and international experts. In addition, assessment of LGC products developed from the user experience testing has implicated there are significance differences between LGC products developed by the proposed model users and non-users. In conclusion, adoption of a systematic, scholarly grounded, and authenticated LGC production model can contribute to the planning, implementation, and evaluation of Digital Storytelling session that enhance learning experience through LGC design and development

Políticas de Copyright de Publicações Científicas em Repositórios Institucionais: O Caso do INESC TEC

A progressiva transformação das práticas científicas, impulsionada pelo desenvolvimento das novas Tecnologias de Informação e Comunicação (TIC), têm possibilitado aumentar o acesso à informação, caminhando gradualmente para uma abertura do ciclo de pesquisa. Isto permitirá resolver a longo prazo uma adversidade que se tem colocado aos investigadores, que passa pela existência de barreiras que limitam as condições de acesso, sejam estas geográficas ou financeiras. Apesar da produção científica ser dominada, maioritariamente, por grandes editoras comerciais, estando sujeita às regras por estas impostas, o Movimento do Acesso Aberto cuja primeira declaração pública, a Declaração de Budapeste (BOAI), é de 2002, vem propor alterações significativas que beneficiam os autores e os leitores. Este Movimento vem a ganhar importância em Portugal desde 2003, com a constituição do primeiro repositório institucional a nível nacional. Os repositórios institucionais surgiram como uma ferramenta de divulgação da produção científica de uma instituição, com o intuito de permitir abrir aos resultados da investigação, quer antes da publicação e do próprio processo de arbitragem (preprint), quer depois (postprint), e, consequentemente, aumentar a visibilidade do trabalho desenvolvido por um investigador e a respetiva instituição. O estudo apresentado, que passou por uma análise das políticas de copyright das publicações científicas mais relevantes do INESC TEC, permitiu não só perceber que as editoras adotam cada vez mais políticas que possibilitam o auto-arquivo das publicações em repositórios institucionais, como também que existe todo um trabalho de sensibilização a percorrer, não só para os investigadores, como para a instituição e toda a sociedade. A produção de um conjunto de recomendações, que passam pela implementação de uma política institucional que incentive o auto-arquivo das publicações desenvolvidas no âmbito institucional no repositório, serve como mote para uma maior valorização da produção científica do INESC TEC.The progressive transformation of scientific practices, driven by the development of new Information and Communication Technologies (ICT), which made it possible to increase access to information, gradually moving towards an opening of the research cycle. This opening makes it possible to resolve, in the long term, the adversity that has been placed on researchers, which involves the existence of barriers that limit access conditions, whether geographical or financial. Although large commercial publishers predominantly dominate scientific production and subject it to the rules imposed by them, the Open Access movement whose first public declaration, the Budapest Declaration (BOAI), was in 2002, proposes significant changes that benefit the authors and the readers. This Movement has gained importance in Portugal since 2003, with the constitution of the first institutional repository at the national level. Institutional repositories have emerged as a tool for disseminating the scientific production of an institution to open the results of the research, both before publication and the preprint process and postprint, increase the visibility of work done by an investigator and his or her institution. The present study, which underwent an analysis of the copyright policies of INESC TEC most relevant scientific publications, allowed not only to realize that publishers are increasingly adopting policies that make it possible to self-archive publications in institutional repositories, all the work of raising awareness, not only for researchers but also for the institution and the whole society. The production of a set of recommendations, which go through the implementation of an institutional policy that encourages the self-archiving of the publications developed in the institutional scope in the repository, serves as a motto for a greater appreciation of the scientific production of INESC TEC