Student performance analysis under different moodle course designs

This work extends a recent comparative study covering four different courses lectured at the Polytechnic of Porto - School of Engineering, in respect to the usage of a particular Learning Management System, i.e. Moodle, and its impact on students' results. A fifth course, which includes a number of resources especially supporting laboratory classes, is now added to the analysis. This particular course includes a number of remote experiments, made available through VISIR (Virtual Instrument Systems in Reality) and directly accessible through links included in the Moodle course page. We have analyzed the students' behavior in following these links and in effectively running experiments in VISIR (and also using other lab related resources, in Moodle). This data have been correlated with students' classifications in the lab component and in the exam, each one weighting 50% of their final marks. We aimed to compare students' performance in a richly Moodle-supported environment (with lab component) and in a poorly Moodle-supported environment (with only theoretical component). This question followed from conclusions drawn in the above referred comparative study, where it was shown that even though a positive correlation factor existed between the number of Moodle accesses and the final exam grade obtained by each student, its explanation behind was not straightforward, as the quality of the resources was preponderant over its quantity.

Structuring and moodleing a course: case studies at the polytechnic of Porto - School of engineering

This work presents a comparative study covering four different courses lectured at the Polytechnic of Porto - School of Engineering, in respect to the usage of a particular Learning Management System, i.e. Moodle, and its impact on students' results. Even though positive correlation factors exist, e.g. between the number of Moodle accesses versus the final exam grade obtained by each student, the explanation behind it may not be straightforward. Mapping this particular factor to course numbers reveals that the quality of the resources might be preponderant and not only their quantity. This paper also addresses teachers who used this platform as a complement to their courses (b-learning) and identifies some particular issues they should be aware in order to potentiate students' engagement and learning.

Modelling an e-learning environment for learning programming languages

It is widely accepted that solving programming exercises is fundamental to learn how to program. Nevertheless, solving exercises is only effective if students receive an assessment on their work. An exercise solved wrong will consolidate a false belief, and without feedback many students will not be able to overcome their difficulties. However, creating, managing and accessing a large number of exercises, covering all the points in the curricula of a programming course, in classes with large number of students, can be a daunting task without the appropriated tools working in unison. This involves a diversity of tools, from the environments where programs are coded, to automatic program evaluators providing feedback on the attempts of students, passing through the authoring, management and sequencing of programming exercises as learning objects. We believe that the integration of these tools will have a great impact in acquiring programming skills. Our research objective is to manage and coordinate a network of eLearning systems where students can solve computer programming exercises. Networks of this kind include systems such as learning management systems (LMS), evaluation engines (EE), learning objects repositories (LOR) and exercise resolution environments (ERE). Our strategy to achieve the interoperability among these tools is based on a shared definition of programming exercise as a Learning Object (LO).

Multidimensional scaling visualization of earthquake phenomena

Earthquakes are associated with negative events, such as large number of casualties, destruction of buildings and infrastructures, or emergence of tsunamis. In this paper, we apply the Multidimensional Scaling (MDS) analysis to earthquake data. MDS is a set of techniques that produce spatial or geometric representations of complex objects, such that, objects perceived to be similar/distinct in some sense are placed nearby/distant on the MDS maps. The interpretation of the charts is based on the resulting clusters since MDS produces a different locus for each similarity measure. In this study, over three million seismic occurrences, covering the period from January 1, 1904 up to March 14, 2012 are analyzed. The events, characterized by their magnitude and spatiotemporal distributions, are divided into groups, either according to the Flinn–Engdahl seismic regions of Earth or using a rectangular grid based in latitude and longitude coordinates. Space-time and Space-frequency correlation indices are proposed to quantify the similarities among events. MDS has the advantage of avoiding sensitivity to the non-uniform spatial distribution of seismic data, resulting from poorly instrumented areas, and is well suited for accessing dynamics of complex systems. MDS maps are proven as an intuitive and useful visual representation of the complex relationships that are present among seismic events, which may not be perceived on traditional geographic maps. Therefore, MDS constitutes a valid alternative to classic visualization tools, for understanding the global behavior of earthquakes.

Unified overhead-aware schedulability analysis for slot-based task-splitting

Hard real- time multiprocessor scheduling has seen, in recent years, the flourishing of semi-partitioned scheduling algorithms. This category of scheduling schemes combines elements of partitioned and global scheduling for the purposes of achieving efficient utilization of the system’s processing resources with strong schedulability guarantees and with low dispatching overheads. The sub-class of slot-based “task-splitting” scheduling algorithms, in particular, offers very good trade-offs between schedulability guarantees (in the form of high utilization bounds) and the number of preemptions/migrations involved. However, so far there did not exist unified scheduling theory for such algorithms; each one was formulated in its own accompanying analysis. This article changes this fragmented landscape by formulating a more unified schedulability theory covering the two state-of-the-art slot-based semi-partitioned algorithms, S-EKG and NPS-F (both fixed job-priority based). This new theory is based on exact schedulability tests, thus also overcoming many sources of pessimism in existing analysis. In turn, since schedulability testing guides the task assignment under the schemes in consideration, we also formulate an improved task assignment procedure. As the other main contribution of this article, and as a response to the fact that many unrealistic assumptions, present in the original theory, tend to undermine the theoretical potential of such scheduling schemes, we identified and modelled into the new analysis all overheads incurred by the algorithms in consideration. The outcome is a new overhead-aware schedulability analysis that permits increased efficiency and reliability. The merits of this new theory are evaluated by an extensive set of experiments.

Eficiência Energética no Hospital Pedro Hispano

Os crescentes custos ligados ao consumo elétrico, não apenas de cariz financeiro mas também ambiental, despertam cada vez mais para a importância da definição de estratégias de melhor utilização de recursos e eficiência energética. Esta importância tem sido reforçada pela definição de decretos-lei que vêm colocar metas e limites relativamente às despesas energéticas. Estes diplomas são também acompanhados por programas de incentivo para um setor ligado à eficiência energética. Em Portugal as medidas ligadas ao setor tem vindo a ser redirecionadas para o consumo final de energia, com a definição de metas para as instalações de maior consumo. As instalações hospitalares são grandes centros de consumo energético devido não só ao elevado número de utentes que recebem mas também pelos diversos tipos de equipamentos elétricos usados para a prestação dos serviços médicos. Como consequência disso, os investimentos e os custos operacionais são elevados, o que reforça a necessidade de gerir os gastos e consumos energéticos com a procura constante de melhoria na recolha de informação sobre todo o sistema e na adequação de intervenções com vista a uma maior eficiência energética. O Hospital Pedro Hispano vem desde algum tempo a investir no sentido de conhecer mais e melhor toda a instalação bem como os consumos energéticos a ela associados. Algumas medidas foram tomadas nesse sentido nomeadamente a instalação de analisadores de energia, de modo a obter um retrato mais fiel e fidedigno dos principais vetores de consumo. Neste momento a gestão técnica do hospital tem em análise uma grande parte da instalação recolhendo dados do consumo elétrico real do hospital. Nesta dissertação procurou-se fazer uma análise e enquadramento dos programas e metas ligados ao setor energético com ênfase nos diplomas que visão e abrangem as instalações hospitalares. Dos vários programas de incentivo à adoção de políticas de maior eficiência energética é dado especial destaque ao programa ECO.AP que visa a celebração de contratos para implementação de medidas de poupança energética ao setor público. Em colaboração com o HPH, iniciaram-se os trabalhos pelo estudo e identificação das principais fases e ferramentas utilizadas na gestão energética do edifício tendo como objetivo a reavaliação dos vetores energéticos já identificados no HPH e a criação e contabilização de novos grupos de consumo. Através de várias medições do consumo elétrico, num total superior a 650 horas de funcionamento, foi possível a criação do mapa de desagregação de consumos para o ano de 2013. A desagregação realizada conta com 3 novos vetores energéticos e com a reavaliação do peso relativo de mais 5 grupos de consumo. Das medições efetuadas destaca-se a reavaliação do consumo da central de bombagem onde a parcela considerada até à data estava 3 vezes acima do valor real medido. Com base na desagregação feita foram apontadas e estudadas medidas de implementação com o objetivo de reduzir os consumos energético em todo o hospital, destacando-se a solução apresentada para a central de bombagem. Esta medida traria um grande impacto em toda a fatura energética, não só pela sua viabilidade, mas também porque atuaria num grande centro de consumo onde até ao momento nenhuma ação do género foi implementada.