Information technologies: challenges and contradictions

Se por um lado as soluções de software gratuito e o uso intensivo das tecnologias de informação em rede, têm favorecido a popularização e a globalização das TI, por outro lado,alguns autores tendem a reduzir a importância estratégica das TI. A depreciação da importância estratégica das TI aumenta quando se julga que o software livre, gratuito e de código aberto pode resolver a generalidade das necessidades dos sistemas de informação. Como forma de reflectir sobre esta problemática, neste artigo apresentamos uma taxonomia dos recursos económicos e identificam-se as propriedades mais relevantes dos serviços e dos bens digitais. De seguida, identificamos os padrões dos países desenvolvidos, na distribuição do produto nacional bruto para a dupla dicotomia de produto-serviço e material-digital, e apresentamos uma ciência emergente e unificadora, a Ciência dos Serviços.Free software solutions and intensive use of information technologies in networks, on the one hand, have spread IT over the world, on the other hand, some authors tend to reduce the strategic importance of IT. The depreciation of the strategic importance of IT increases when people think that the free software and open source can solve most of the needs of information systems. As a way to reflect upon this issue, this paper presents a taxonomy of economic resources and identify the properties most relevant services and digital goods. Next, we identify the standards of developed countries, the distribution of gross national product for the double dichotomy of product-and service-digital material, and present an emerging science and unifying – the Services Science.peerreviewe

Implementação de ferramentas específicas ao Modelo Pedagógico da UAb na Plataforma Moodle

Encontro realizado em Lisboa na Fundação Calouste Gulbenkian e em Coruche no Observatório do Sobreiro e da CortiçaMostra-se como foi testada e adaptada a plataforma de e-learning Moodle na Universidade Aberta, de forma a por um lado suportar um elevado fluxo de estudantes, e por outro lado a implementar o Modelo Pedagógico da universidade aberta. A plataforma não ficou um sistema isolado, foi desenvolvida uma integração com o portal académico, outro sistema essencial ao funcionamento da universidade, facilitando o trabalho de docentes e funcionários que teriam de outra forma uma sobrecarga de tarefas que poderia comprometer o sucesso do modelo pedagógico. A comunidade Moodle não ficou sem contribuições nossas. Dois blocos de utilidade geral foram desenvolvidos em software aberto e disponibilizados no site oficial do Moodle. Explica-se primeiramente de que forma implementámos no Moodle o nosso Modelo Pedagógico, de forma simples e eficiente, resultando em mais de uma centena de docentes o tenha aplicado sem problemas. Segue-se a apresentação de um estudo de performance que fizemos à plataforma de forma a assegurar que esta tinha capacidade de resposta para o número de estudantes e nível de utilização que necessitamos. Como resultado, poucas foram as alturas em que docentes e estudantes deram pela plataforma, tendo estado em baixo apenas 2 vezes em todo o ano. Passamos de seguida a descrever a integração entre o Moodle e o Portal Académico, em que minimizamos as complicações e não necessitámos de alterar qualquer uma das aplicações. Esta integração não compromete qualquer das aplicações em futuros upgrades. Terminamos a apresentação com a descrição das duas ferramentas desenvolvidas em software aberto para a comunidade Moodle, uma de carácter mais visivel, informando "on-the-fly" o nível de utilização da plataforma, e outra de interesse para administradores, de forma a serem detectadas possíveis situações anómalas, antes que dêm problemas

A study on Moodle's performance

Learning Management Systems (LMS) are essential tools to the modern teaching institutions. Moodle is an open source LMS, widely used by open and distance teaching universities, as well as support to face to face courses. There are almost 40,000 registered Moodle sites, all over the world. Moodle can be installed in a wide range of environments: operating systems (Linux, Windows), supporting databases (MySQL, PostgreSQL, ...), and hardware. This paper addresses the issue of Moodle’s performance within different environments, and under different loads. What is worth changing and what isn’t to improve performance? When load increases, what should be changed in order to obtain the largest performance gain? To answer these questions, it is important to subject the application, in a test environment, to the real conditions of use. In order to do it, we use historical data on the use of Moodle in Universidade Aberta. Several Moodle instances will be subject to different load levels and the resulting performance will be measured. It is difficult to estimate instantaneous load, even in a working site, where users’ habits are known. The number of users is an easier question to address and may be estimated by the number of teachers and students that will be using the LMS. So, in order to estimate future load, we present a conversion method according to the present level of use in this university

Exportação da lições Mogdle para pacotes SCORM

Este artigo incide sobre questões gerais relacionadas com a exportação de uma lição criada na plataforma Moodle para um pacote do modelo de referência SCORM (Sharable Content Object Reference Model), centrando a discussão sobre as características e especificações técnicas dos elementos intervenientes. Como exemplo de uma aplicação prática é utilizado o programa de exportação criado no trabalho da disciplina Projecto Final da Licenciatura em Informática da Universidade Aberta.This article focus on general questions related with the exportation of a lesson created in platform Moodle for a package of the model of reference SCORM (Sharable Content Object Reference Model), centering the quarrel on the characteristics and technical specifications of the intervening elements. As example of a practical application, the exportation program created in a work for the discipline Final Project in Computer Science – Universidade Aberta - will be used.peerreviewe

Enhancement and extension of the printed book: an online gamification model to complement educational textbooks

Conferência realizada em Bari, Itália, de 3-5 de novembro de 2021.Despite the significant increase in the use of digital devices, and the access to e-books by younger ages, the printed book still remains very important. Nowadays, although many communication processes and information exchanges have a digital support, the importance of using printed paper is acknowledged in many contexts. Both the paper and the digital media have unique advantages: digital media integrate with audiovisual and interactive resources, and the paper book supports interactions such as tactile and kinesthetic feedback given to both hands. In recent years there have been several commercial products designated as "augmented books", using augmented reality technologies to provide the reader with more layers of information, thereby fostering the use of the book in new ways. So, in this concept paper we describe part of the research and outcomes of project CHIC – C3, aimed at designing and developing a platform for managing the production of digital content connected with printed books. Furthermore, we propose a model for the gamification of digital content based on the printed book, mainly aimed at educational purposes. A proof of concept for the model was built in the form of a companion platform, supported by the Moodle LMS, fully integrated with the main CHIC website. Readers are able to access the platform, engage in several content related games, and interact with other readers.info:eu-repo/semantics/acceptedVersio

Latent Dirichlet Allocation (LDA)

Supplemental information by the authors of the article "Problems and prospects of hybrid learning in Higher Education"N/

iMOOC : building a platform from existing software components

iMOOC is a new pedagogical model for massive open online courses (Teixeira & Mota, 2013), that evolved from UAb’s online model (Pereira et al., 2008), based on its four pillars of student-centered learning, interaction, flexibility and digital inclusion. It is also a software platform, that supports this model, and that was developed at UAb in close articulation with the pedagogical model. In this paper we describe the guidelines that oriented such development, and argue in favor of the use (or re-use) of well-established and robust software components for this purpose, as opposed to building platforms from scratch. The emergence of MOOCs as open courses, where participants have free access to the course, created new challenges in a closed, formatted LMS landscape. This led to the development of whole new environments that addressed those requirements (edX, Coursera). The iMOOC approach, however, was to build a platform from existing open source software components using an integration of Moodle (https://moodle.org/), which was previously adapted to UAb’s pedagogical model (Rocio & Coelho, 2009), and Elgg (http://elgg.org/), combining the advantages of both formal and informal learning modes, and addressing the pedagogical requirements in a cost-effective way. The integration was achieved using the IMS specification for LTI (learning tools interoperability) (Severance, 2010). As a result, the iMOOC platform has been successfully used both in stand-alone projects, and also in the european ECO project, where the effort to turn it project-compliant was relatively simple, due to the adoption of well-established protocols

Online gamification devices as extensions of the educational printed book

In recent years there have been several commercial products designated as "augmented books". These use gamification and augmented reality technologies to provide the reader with more layers of information, thereby fostering the use of the book in new ways. So, in this article we describe part of the research and outcomes of the Portuguese project CHIC – C3, aimed at designing and developing a platform for managing the production of digital content connected with printed books. Furthermore, we developed a model for the gamification of digital content based on the printed book, mainly aimed at educational purposes. A proof of concept for the model was built in the form of a companion platform, supported by the Moodle LMS, fully integrated with the main CHIC website. Readers were able to access the platform, engage in several content related games, and interact with other readers.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Building a chatbot for student support

A educação a distância online tem recebido muita atenção ultimamente, devido à pandemia de Covid-19. No entanto, a maioria dos alunos desconhece as suas abordagens pedagógicas, a necessidade de estudo autónomo, os modos de avaliação e também os serviços administrativos, que funcionam principalmente online. Neste contexto, os alunos geralmente precisam de um suporte inicial que algumas instituições fornecem na forma de um curso / módulo de bootcamp. Como a maioria das dúvidas dos novos alunos são as mesmas, neste artigo propomos apresentar um chatbot automatizado que responda diretamente às dúvidas comuns que os alunos têm quando começam a frequentar uma universidade online. O bot foi fornecido aos alunos no módulo bootcamp, complementando a função do monitor do módulo (humano). Após avaliar o feedback dos alunos, obtemos resultados encorajadores, que apontam para a conveniência de usar um chatbot automatizado para responder diretamente às perguntas mais frequentes e para fornecer suporte inicial.Online distance education has received a lot of attention lately, due to the Covid-19 pandemic. However, most students are not familiar with its pedagogical approaches, need for autonomous studying, modes of assessment, and also administrative services, that mostly function online. In this context, students generally need an initial support that some institutions provide in the form of a bootcamp course/module. As most of the doubts of the new students are the same, in this paper we propose to introduce an automated chatbot that directly answers those common questions that students have when they start to attend an online university. The bot was provided to students in the bootcamp module, complementing the role of the (human) module monitor. After assessing student feedback, we obtain encouraging results, that point to the convenience of using an automated chatbot for directly answering frequently asked questions and to provide initial support.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

A course template for undergraduate courses

We present in this paper a template for Moodle courses according to Universidade Aberta’s pedagogical model. The template for first cycle (undergraduate) courses enables teachers with little technical knowledge to deliver their online courses according to a pre-defined format. UAb's pedagogical model defines several features that can be directly implemented in a VLE, particularly in Moodle: course plan, learning card, assessment decision, and assignments, with proper configurations. This gave origin to a template that saves work and avoids technical problems caused by misconfigurations. Procedural guidelines were written to help teachers in their handling of the mechanisms implemented in the template. We found that the use of the template allowed teachers to concentrate on their pedagogical activity rather than on technical details. Some teachers that already had given online courses felt an improvement in their interaction with the VLE, since they didn't have to build things from scratch, especially those resources that weren't directly connected to their teaching activities, and were common to the University's model. An institution that is changing rapidly from paper-based distance learning to online learning must provide resources and mechanisms so that teachers and students may accomodate to the new model. Change, particularly the re-organization of the institution and the training of staff takes time, so any pre-configured package such as the proposed template is welcome