Luís Borges Gouveia

Governmeter: monitoring government performance. a web based application proposal

Governmeter is an innovative Web application that provides the opportunity for citizens to follow and monitor the national and local government in an easy and convenient way. The Governmeter allows monitoring in relation to three aspects: key statistical indicators, government objectives, and government measures. This paper presents the main functionalities of this application, which we believe will contribute to a higher engagement of the general community and its citizens in the political deliberation.

Model of digital mediation for direct public participation in electoral periods: how important are the media?

This paper presents a proposal of digital mediation for direct public participation during electoral periods. The proposal is based on a conceptual model and proof of concept - a Web application. It is intended to narrow the communication gap between citizens and candidates, make campaigns more open and encourage citizens to become involved and participate in electoral debates. This paper also includes results from five experiments in electoral campaigns held in Portugal between 2009 and 2011. Among the main results, it should be highlighted the role of the Media as a driving force for initiatives of public participation during electoral periods, the importance of advertisement and awareness to events involving public participation, and the influence of events of short duration and live coverage in the number of participants and in the stakeholders active participation. Although the strong potential of e-participation tools to reverse citizen distancing from electoral debates is recognized, it is nevertheless argued that the main focus should be on participation and the people and not so much on technology.

A worked proposal on eparticipation for state wide elections

Web 2.0 and, more recently, Social Media, created new forms of social behavior and political engagement. This paper presents a proposal for digital mediation for direct public participation during electoral periods. Mediation is implemented by a web application based on social media principles, iLeger, specifically designed to gather voters and candidates in a shared deliberative space. Interaction and collaboration between these key stakeholders is supported through questions, answers, suggestions, comments, votes and live debates. With this proposal it is intended to contribute to narrow the communication gap between voters and candidates, make campaigns more open and encourage citizens to become involved and participate in electoral debates. This paper includes results of a case study about the Portuguese Parliamentary Elections held in 2011 and conclusions derived from the use of iLeger.

iLeger: a web based application for participative elections

iLeger is a Web Application that seeks to concentrate, in a single place, the stakeholders in a political election allowing multi-directional and structured communication between them. Using a citizen and candidate centered approach; iLeger supports collaborative interaction with the purpose of fostering communication, deliberation and participation. This paper aims at presenting the main functionalities of this Web application, as well as the results from a case study about the Portuguese Presidential Elections held in 2011.

Visualisation and Direct Manipulation: Issues for Human Systems Development

In recent years the fast growing adoption of the Internet as a tool to link companies for business purposes has appeared to be one of the major forces able to shape competition and the whole economy in 21st century. More specifically, the agreements between buying firms and supplying firms seem to head towards new scenarios, with possible consequences with regard to the time span of the relationship and the amount of information exchanged between business partners. This paper aims to present some research issues concerned with the adoption of interorganizational information systems and with the innovative relations allowed by the Internet as enabling infrastructure, and to point out the main theoretical hypothesis about buyer-suppliers relationships which emerge from the literature in the field. As a result, a definite set of statements will be provided. Furthermore, by considering the case of two of the leading food retailing companies in Britain, some web-based information systems will be discussed, in order to understand in which terms the speculative findings of the literature apply in the given cases.Na sociedade actual, o conhecimento existente nas empresas e uma forte arma competitiva quando gerido adequadamente. Os factores determinantes da sobrevivencia de uma grande parte das organizacoes reflectem-se na forma como a organizacao aprende e responde a mudanca atraves da partilha, distribuicao e criacao de conhecimento organizacional. O termo que vem sendo usado para referir a criacao, partilha e distribuicao de conhecimento e “gestao de conhecimento”.Neste artigo sao apresentados os resultados de um estudo exploratorio que pretende caracterizar o estado da gestao de conhecimento em Portugal. Pretendeu-se medir a sensibilidade das organizacoes para a necessidade e vantagens da gestao de conhecimento, bem como identificar projectos desenvolvidos ou em curso, ferramentas utilizadas e o conhecimento manuseado.O artigo comeca com uma breve contextualizacao historica e descricao da situacao actual. Em seguida introduz as principais alteracoes que o desenvolvimento tecnologico vem trazer as cadeias de valor das organizacoes. A abordagem seguinte, relativa a aprendizagem de Sistemas de Informacao (SI), debate a insuficiencia do factor tecnologico para estas mudancas, se nao houver, por parte das organizacoes, um esforco sistematico de tirar o maximo partido desse factor, apostando na valorizacao dos seus profissionais e, em particular, na aprendizagem dos SI na perspectiva da criacao de novo conhecimento organizacional nesta area. Ainda antes da apresentacao do modelo, e feita uma descricao mais exaustiva dos principais conceitos desta area do conhecimento organizacional. Finalmente e apresentado o modelo que propomos para ser utilizado na caracterizacao da aprendizagem dos SI.O objectivo desta comunicacao consiste em fazer uma abordagem generica aos sistemas de informacao e a tecnologia de suporte no âmbito da gestao das organizacoes ligadas a Cadeia de Valor do Turismo e Hotelaria. Pretende-se ainda reflectir sobre as conclusoes de um estudo efectuado pelos autores a utilizacao de Sistemas do tipo ERP (Enterprise Resource Planning) nas unidades hoteleirasNos ultimos anos, congregaram-se alguns factores, pressionando os decisores da Saude para mudancas de fundo nas suas politicas: a dificuldade do controlo orcamental, o aumento do grau de exigencia dos utentes, o envelhecimento da populacao e a necessidade de comparacao e disseminacao de boas praticas. Estas mudancas de fundo implicam a existencia de sistemas de Qualidade, que nao podem existir sem recolha e tratamento de grandes volumes de dados. Os Sistemas de Suporte a Decisao tem sido, com sucesso, aplicados noutros dominios para resolver este problema. O autor propoe o uso de sistemas ja implementados em Portugal como base de trabalho para a criacao de uma Base de Dados Nacional de Indicadores.

The importance of the learner's characteristics in distance learning environments: A case study

The huge changes concerning the workplace that we are facing, as well the challenges placed by the Information Society and by the globalisation trends, demand new perspectives for education, continuous education and lifelong learning. New methods demand new organisation alternatives that, in turn, require new educational policies and put pressure in current assumptions of education itself. Distance Education is a challenge by itself. It places new demands both to the learner, but also to the facilitator. A set of seven dimensions for a distance learning environment were identified, which positively impacts the setting of learning experiences: (1) access tools; (2) technology experience; (3) habits and study skills; (4) human factors and life style; (5) goals and guidelines; (6) learning preferences; (7) personal characteristics [1]. This paper defends that the learners, when asked about their characteristics, taking into account different issues of their familiar, personal and professional life, available technology resources, technology skills, as well as motivation and learning preferences, provide an information set that, if turn available to facilitators, allow to both players (learners and facilitators) the mechanisms that ease the adoption of learning strategies, that enhance the possibility of a well succeed learning experience. To accomplish the research goals, an empiric study was conducted in the context of a Distance Education (DE) institution, taking a sample of 214 learners, with diverse characteristics. The data analysis allows the confirmation of the position validity and proves that it is possible to know in advance the distance learners more important characteristics and of the surrounding environment as means to access potential success and rate failure. Based on such knowledge it is possible to establish a classification of those characteristics, suggesting strategies and counseling to support decisions and thus to improve the distance learning success.

Model of Digital Mediation to Support Communication between Teachers Unions and the Education Community

In the context of Portuguese teachers unions, the adoption of information and communication technologies is nowadays a reality. However, in our opinion, their internet portals still lack interaction, participation, and collaboration, as they are mostly concentrated on unidirectional information dissemination between union representatives and other education stakeholders. This paper aims at presenting a proposal of digital mediation based on a conceptual model and the corresponding proof of concept - a Web application - to support communication between teachers unions and other stakeholders. We strongly believe that this proposal can enrich web portals of teachers unions with innovative features and, as a result, contribute to strengthen the relationship between unions and the education community and to foster participation among all stakeholders in the education process. This paper also addresses an initiative carried out by the teachers union of the Centre region of Portugal, where the proposed platform was used to create sporadic participation events supporting bidirectional asynchronous communication.

A GERAÇÃO DIGITAL NO NOVO MUNDO EMPRESARIAL

The objective of this study was to use mentalmaps to analyze the design of higher education students ontheir understanding of technology. The courses wereworked: Computer Science, Technology Systems for InternetTechnology in Computer Networks and Technology Analysisand Systems Development, in particular, was working thirdyearstudents of the Course of Computer Science andstudents of the early years of technological courses. Just asscience, technology is evolving more and more, bothevolving categories irreversible, we must haveunderstandably o of its strengths and weaknesses in society,so we have to think and understand the movement CTS.Index Terms ⎯ mental maps, uniformity and education.

Comparing Google Groups Use by Evaluating Flow Experience and Generated Messages in Laptop and Desktop Higher Education Students

The main purpose of this study is to establish whether the user is feeling the flow experience and what type of messages are sent by the participants when using Google Groups through users that have laptops or desktops. In the context of this study, information has been gathered through a survey, applying the five dimensions of the flow state. At the end of the study, after analyzing the gathered information, it was possible to conclude that students have experimented with the flow experience and that it had a positive effect on their learning experiences, but the students that used the laptops were more engaged in the flow experience than the students that used desktops. For messages, the data was retrieved from Google Groups. Relatively, from the type of messages of users with laptop, we can conclude that these users sent more messages classified as Very Good, Good, Positive and also messages classified as not significant, than the users with desktop.

E-consultation as a Tool for Participation in Teachers’ Unions

In the 2000s, the Internet became the preferred mean for the citizens to communicate. The YouTube, Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, i.e., the social networks in general appeared together with the Web 2.0, which allows an extraordinary interaction between citizens and the democratic institutions. The trade unions constantly fight governments’ decisions, especially in periods of crisis like the one that the world, Europe and, in particular, Portugal are facing. In this regard, the use of e-participation platforms is expected to strengthen the relationship between trade unions and the education community. This paper reports the research about the planning and driving of a series of experiments of online public consultation, launched by teachers’ trade unions. These experiments are compared with those of other countries, such as Australia, United Kingdom and United States of America. A quantitative analysis of the results regarding hits, subscriptions, and response rates is presented, and it is compared with the 90-9-1 rule, the ASCU model and data from government agencies. The experiments performed used the Liberopinion, an online platform that supports bidirectional asynchronous communication. A better understanding of the benefits of these collaborative environments is expected by promoting quality of interaction between actors.