Carlos J. Costa

Computer programming and novice programmers

Computer Programming is one of the skills very useful and can be a very rewarding career. However teaching and learning of computer programming is referred as one of the disciplines that face great challenges. Drop out, unmotivated and high levels retention of students in the first year are problems that is imperative to solve. Strategies implemented by educators to overcome this problem have been used. Some of them are based on technology. Educators introduce in the learning process tools to support and facilitate the learning of computer programming.n This work identifies the main computer programming topics teach and learn in the first year of the computer education and the main difficulties felt by the novice programmers. The main contribution of this work is the identification of computer programming topics with a low and high level comprehension.

Games and Business: Human Factors in Gamified Applications

The user participation in the software development process is a key to improve the efficiency of business process, and more than likely, improve the user experience. This research aims to examine the users’ perceptions and expectations in the development of gamified applications. We outlined different categories of banking software to represent two types of software game analogies (soccer versus blackjack, respectively). Through user discussion, groups and a survey questionnaire with open questions. Content and thematic analyses, with Leximancer were used to analyse the text and to identify the key drivers of the gamified software. The findings from the textual analysis revealed themes (game, design, innovation, information, engagement, purchase, and analogy) that represents the gamification key drivers for software development in business. This is significant to understand the user’s perception about gamification to attract, retain, and user’s engagement.

Information aggregation in an entrepreneurship portal

This study can be applied in multiple contexts. The main focus is to demonstrate the ability to gather information from multiple sources, using open source platforms and technologies for publishing information. In this paper, we purpose a conceptual model to an entrepreneurship portal based on a search engine paradigm. Here it is purposed model derived from the literature and validated using open source technology. In this study we propose an open source platform That aggregates information from Various sources, organizing the information needed. On this platform the main task is to gather information from Several sources, using publishing technologies. Described in this paper it multiple scenarios Applied to an entrepreneurship portal.

Brainstorming reconsidered in computer-mediated communication and group support system context

Research presented in this paper has two major purposes. The first objective is analyzing the effects of the combination rule and merging ideas in the productivity of the groups. The objective is to analyze the effects of memory stimulation and anonymity in group performance. According to the results, significant effect of interaction were not observed. But the external memory factor (memory stimuli) revealed direct effects on quantity.