Margarida M Pinheiro

Digital transformation in higher education (HE) institutions is a process that has been gradually implemented by decision-makers and educators for more than a decade, witnessing an exponential growth over the last two years. The University of Aveiro (UA), in Portugal, has been putting considerable effort in preparing staff, faculty, and students for this disruptive approach to education. This case study aims to share UA's experience in areas related to digital transformation at pedagogical, technical, managerial, and societal levels by providing data on digital capabilities, technological support, and institutional strategies. The research also intends to present findings on the balance between HEI-envisioned digital learning environments and their operationalization. The adoption of a qualitative approach through interviews to seven top decision-makers will provide relevant insights regarding UA's digital transformation model, namely by sharing the perceptions HE representa...

O objetivo do presente artigo é o de examinar como as caraterísticas dos académicos portugueses (relativamente ao género, à categoria profissional, ao tipo de contrato e vínculo contratual, aos graus académicos e às instituições que os concederam, à idade, à investigação científica produzida e à experiência profissional) se ajustam aos novos critérios de acreditação em vigor. Um estudo quantitativo sobre os dados obtidos no primeiro e, à data, único, censo nacional de acreditação de cursos, envolvendo 972 académicos em 14 instituições diferentes, foi realizado. O perfil que emerge dos académicos mostra que há áreas significativas a melhorar para se dar cumprimento aos critérios de acreditação da qualidade em curso. Este estudo apresenta também a vantagem de se poder constituir como referência capaz de ser utilizada (em termos comparativos) em estudos futuros.

This article analyses which factors seem to influence the research production of economics academics in Portuguese universities. The availability of the empirical data from the one-off national Portuguese census on degrees’ accreditation collected via the curricular files that all university academics had to submit to the national accreditation body (comprising an extensive list of detailed information regarding each academic in every public university) allowed for the opportunity of the study. The methodological procedures involve the analysis of the relationships between variables, an additive ordinal logistic model, a hierarchical cluster analysis and optimal scaling techniques. The results provide detailed information on the factors that influence research output production by academics and the relationship to factors shaping the academic career. This work has, at least, two main advantages: to describe the research performance of the academics by the time the new career statutes replaced the previous ones within a context of enhancing quality and productivity; and to be part of a scholarly reference that can be used (in a comparative perspective) for future studies.

This study aims to contribute to the growing literature on teachers' mobility by exploring perceptions and motivations to join these activities, in particular through the collection of evidence on the impact a first and only exchange experience has had on the participants. The research adopts a qualitative methodology in the form of phenomenological interviews with 6 teachers that engaged on only one mobility initiative. The interviewees shared their personal impressions on mobility, including reasons, facilitators, and outcomes of the experience. Bureaucratic, financial and residual professional impact, are among the most cited inhibitors for repeating the initiative. However, most of the participants expect to be become involved again on mobility assignments someday, especially teachers that identified greater impact from this first experience. The analysis provides interesting clues for international offices, Erasmus coordinators and university top managers, who devote consid...

Motivados pela revisão da literatura em torno das questões da qualidade, da investigação, do reconhecimento académico e da atividade docente, o objetivo deste estudo é o de identificar causas e consequências do desempenho da investigação em gestão que é feita nas universidades portuguesas. A análise empírica tem por base as fichas curriculares dos docentes submetidas, obrigatoriamente, à Agência Nacional de Avaliação e Acreditação do Ensino Superior. Os dados dizem respeito ao, à data, único censo nacional de acreditação de cursos. Regressão logística, análise de clusters e optimal scalingsão os métodos utilizados no tratamento empírico da informação. O estudo parece confirmar o que já era apontado por alguns autores de que quem faz investigação tende a conseguir uma maior promoção académica, quer porque atinge categorias profissionais mais elevadas, quer porque obtém graus académicos mais avançados ou vínculos contratuais mais estáveis. Contrariamente, a carga horária não se aprese...

O presente trabalho pretende contribuir para a discussão sobre as implicações da implementação de metodologias ativas na fundamentação do conhecimento nas Instituições de Ensino Superior (IES). Em referência à natureza do tema, começamos por colocar no centro da discussão a problemática dos novos paradigmas da função do ensino superior relacionados com o modelo concetual proposto por Bolonha e as boas práticas que o mesmo tem a capacidade de induzir. Uma ideia de ensino que enalteça metodologias ativas de aprendizagem a partir dos diferentes estilos de ensinar (dos docentes) e dos diversos estilos de aprendizagem (dos estudantes) parece justificar a necessidade de reflexão sobre questões pedagógicas ao nível do ensino superior. Este conjunto de preocupações induziu-nos a explorar de que forma ambientes ativos decorrentes do uso de: (1) elementos de tratamento personalizado, (2) elementos organizativos, (3) elementos de concentração, (4) elementos de participação e (5) elementos de s...

O presente trabalho pretende contribuir para a discussão sobre a forma como a implementação de metodologias ativas e colaborativas associadas às Tecnologias de Comunicação (TC), produzem implicações na construção do conhecimento nas instituições de ensino superior. Especificamente, pretendemos explorar de que forma: (1) ambientes colaborativos decorrentes do uso de TC levam os estudantes a um envolvimento ativo no processo de aprendizagem, (2) as ferramentas colaborativas ao nível do trabalho de grupo influenciam a regulação das aprendizagens pelos próprios estudantes e (3) a utilização de elementos próximos dos que são percebidos pelos estudantes como fazendo parte da sua atividade profissional futura, os leva a diferentes posturas de aprendizagem. Partindo de um ambiente específico que faz uso de várias aplicações colaborativas, a recolha de dados foi realizada com base em questionários. O estudo foi repetido em dois anos consecutivos, seguindo estudantes que frequentaram uma mesm...

At the celebration of its 30th anniversary, Erasmus is recognised as the most successful exchange program ever implemented. The prospects of attaining a common European consciousness challenged the program's ability to blend together knowledge, attitudes and skills in a winning combination. It is no longer sufficient to communicate and integrate: mobility should actively foster skills to support students's professional career at national and international levels. Although literature on mobility is vast and interesting, studies on the impact of the mobility experience in the students' future employability profile rarely provide first-hand data on their expectations in this regard. This exploratory research comprises a qualitative focus group approach with Erasmus students during their exchange period in a Portuguese university and collected some insightful data on how students consider their mobility in terms of new learning outcomes, the professional value of the experie...

The purpose of this paper is to examine how the characteristics of academics in Portugal (regarding sex, professional category, contract type and tenure, degrees awarded and institutions that awarded each of them, age, research and professional experience) fit with the new teaching accreditation standards currently in use. An empirical quantitative study supported by data collected from the first and only national census of Portuguese course accreditation, comprising 972 academics in 14 institutions, was conducted. The profile that emerges of academic staff shows that there are significant areas for improvement to meet the quality of the accreditation standards. Also, our work has the advantage to be part of a scholarly reference that can be used (in a comparative perspective) for upcoming studies. Resumo: O objetivo do presente artigo é o de examinar como as caraterísticas dos académicos portugueses (relativamente ao género, à categoria profissional, ao tipo de contrato e vínculo c...

Teachers’ mobility is one of the facets of Higher Education Institutions internationalization, and despite its importance in implementing the program's purposes it is still disregarded by researchers, with most mobility studies focusing on students. This research concentrates on highly active mobility teachers and aims to delve into their experiences, namely by identifying facilitators and goals for this repeated internationalization and by analyzing the outcomes of these initiatives in their personal lives, professional activity, home and host students, and for their Universities as a whole. This study adopts a qualitative exploratory approach. Having as sample universe the teachers of one Portuguese University that in a 7-year period (2009-2016) engaged in mobility experiences under the Erasmus program (N = 107), 8 were identified as having the highest number of initiatives and were invited to participate in this study. From these mobility champions, 5 accepted, resulting in 5 phenomenological interviews. Data was collected in January 2017. The participants shared an integrated view of the Erasmus mobility, being essential for its success the additional opportunities of joint research and the strengthening of international relationships and networks. Prior relations with teachers from the host University and ongoing research projects stood out among the facilitators. The opportunity to observe and get to know other cultural settings was also mentioned as one determinant stimulus. Still, the outcomes in terms of teaching methodologies and best practices as well an effective impact in home students seemed residual. Moreover, the ability to encourage other teachers to join the program was very limited, often confined to close colleagues and research partners. Despite its exploratory nature, this study demonstrates the relevance of further research on mobility champions to assess the success and possible pitfalls of repeated mobility experiences in terms of extended institutional outcomes and well as individual gratification of the teachers involved. Based on the results, we suggest the consideration of a wider set of outcomes in the appraisal of mobility initiatives, as well as the widespread of champions’ insights on the topic in order to motivate inexperienced teachers to embrace internationalization. Hopefully this paper is able to inspire not only research but also teaching mobility initiatives.publishe

The purpose of this paper is to examine how the characteristics of academics in Portugal (regarding sex, professional category, contract type and tenure, degrees awarded and institutions that awarded each of them, age, research and professional experience) fit with the new teaching accreditation standards currently in use. An empirical quantitative study supported by data collected from the first and only national census of Portuguese course accreditation, comprising 972 academics in 14 institutions, was conducted. The profile that emerges of academic staff shows that there are significant areas for improvement to meet the quality of the accreditation standards. Also, our work has the advantage to be part of a scholarly reference that can be used (in a comparative perspective) for upcoming studies.

O Ensino Superior esta perante a pressao de um exercicio de flexibilidade ao nivel das praticas pedagogicas utilizadas pelos seus docentes. No âmbito dos mestrados, a producao de investigacao cientifica e um elemento incontornavel no percurso academico dos estudantes. No presente estudo, experiencia acumulada entre a teoria e a pratica em sala de aula, levou-nos a partilhar, em substância, praticas de algumas das questoes que consideramos importantes na conducao dos estudantes pelos caminhos da investigacao cientifica: dificuldades dos estudantes ao nivel da sua integracao no curso, dificuldades na escolha do tema necessario a concretizacao de uma dissertacao, relatorio de estagio ou trabalho de projeto, e dificuldades na preparacao e escrita de um trabalho academico.

The general goal of this paper is to contribute for the theoretical discussion on how active and collaborative experiences in Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) classrooms play a role on the construction of knowledge in higher education institutions. Based on the pointed outlines, we intend to explore how: (1) collaborative environments that occur from the usage of Information and Communication Technologies get students actively involved in the learning process, (2) collaborative tools at the level of group work influence learning regulation by students themselves and (3) the handling of professional elements as perceived by students, can lead them to different learning attitudes. This research describes a specific environment that makes use of collaborative tools, like wikis and forums within an elearning platform and of specific CRM (Customer Relationship Management) software. Data was collected through questionnaires available on the elearning platform Moodle. Descr...

Trying to ensure that every student who enters the work market bears a set of personal attri butions acknowledged as essential, higher education institu tions (HEIs) have been being confronted with the ne ed to activate new ways to produce and disclosure knowledge, compatible wit h the transition form an educational to a work envi ronment. This research analyses the effects on the development of the stud ents' personal competences of the PBL methodologies in a simulation environment for the business reality. Setting off f rom a case study of a vocational HEI, we resorted t o the interview technique with teachers and employers and the questionnaire t echnique with the students and graduates. Students, graduates and teachers support that the PBL methodologies contribute for t he further development of personal competences, mainly at the level of resource use (management, planning and work methodology) and at the level of knowledge construction (c ritical analysis, grounds for deci...

The subject of digital literacy (DL) is critical to encourage the development of indispensable skills for full participation in the information society where we live. At the same time, the concept of digital divide (DD) embraces a multidimensional character justifying the reformulation of the name to digital inclusion (DI) that integrates factors such as social economic development, education, gender, or physical characteristics. The notion of DL works together with the notion of digital citizenship (DC): a DC is one who has the ability to participate in society by means of online communication, of finding information, or of using goods and services. The present study analyzes the digital access and literacy in schools in 21 OECD countries, positioning Portugal in the global context. To accomplish this objective, the study uses the results on familiarity with ICT and digital skills based on the PISA 2009 to 2015 computer-based assessment.

No sentido de melhorar o desempenho dos graduados no mercado de trabalho, foi desenvolvido, segundo uma metodologia tipo PBL, um curso de Simulação Empresarial num curso de contabilidade. O foco deste trabalho centra-se na análise de qual o poder dos ambientes de aprendizagem inspirados em metodologias PBL nas motivações dos estudantes, e no entendimento de até que ponto a motivação influencia o seu desempenho. A investigação sugere que a presença de problemas profissionais reais envolvendo diferentes áreas de trabalho, a natureza inovadora da metodologia e as características pragmáticas da mesma, se constituem como elementos motivadores para os estudantes. Paralelamente, os mecanismos de feedback do trabalho realizado em conjunto com a oportunidade de reformulação dos erros cometidos assumem particular importância no entusiasmo e estímulo do estudante. O efeito que a crescente motivação tem sobre as aprendizagens e, em última análise, sobre os resultados dos alunos, é um paradigma ...

This research aims to explore the importance of tourism activities for student mobility, considering the decision process, the experience of the students while on mobility, and their loyalty to the host region, including their cooperation in promoting local attractions among relatives and friends. We present qualitative results obtained from focus groups with Erasmus students from diverse countries inside and outside Europe, who spent at least one semester in the University of Aveiro, Portugal. The discussions explored students' perceptions, experiences and practices before and during the mobility. Our results include evidence on how traveling opportunities are an inherent part of Erasmus students' mobility. Overall, their tourist activities are shown as strong enhancers of the learning process while on mobility, despite competing with limited resources of time and money. Traveling is also an opportunity to spend time with family and friends, namely with other mobility students at the same host university, fostering integration and a higher degree of satisfaction with the mobility experience. In turn, the extended exposure to a different language and culture transform mobility students into ideal ambassadors of the host country, contributing significantly to the promotion of their mobility destinations.