Spatial operators for collaborative map handling

MSC Dissertation in Computer Engineering

Collaborative geographic visualization

Dissertação apresentada na Faculdade de Ciências e Tecnologia da Universidade Nova de Lisboa para a obtenção do grau de Mestre em Engenharia do Ambiente, perfil Gestão e Sistemas Ambientais

Collaborative environment to support a professional community

Dissertação apresentada na Faculdade de Ciências e Tecnologia da Universidade Nova de Lisboa para obtenção do grau de Mestre em Engenharia Electrotécnica e de Computadores

Collaborative web applications

Trabalho apresentado no âmbito do Mestrado em Engenharia Informática, como requisito parcial para obtenção do grau de Mestre em Engenharia Informática

Methodology for collaborative enterprise reference ontology building

Dissertation presented at Faculdade de Ciências e Tecnologia of Universidade Nova de Lisboa to obtain the Master degree in Electrical Engineering and Computer Science

Models and tools for value systems analysis in collaborative environments

Dissertation to obtain the degree of Doctor in Electrical and Computer Engineering, specialization of Collaborative Networks

Synthesis about a collaborative project on “Technology Assessment of Autonomous System

The project started in 2009 with the support of DAAD in Germany and CRUP in Portugal under the “Collaborative German-Portuguese University Actions” programme. One central goal is the further development of a theory of technology assessment applied to robotics and autonomous systems in general that reflects in its methodology the changing conditions of knowledge production in modern societies and the emergence of new robotic technologies and of associated disruptive changes. Relevant topics here are handling broadened future horizons and new clusters of science and technology (medicine, engineering, interfaces, industrial automation, micro-devices, security and safety), as well as new governance structures in policy decision making concerning research and development (R

Drivers of participation in collaborative consumption ventures

A Work Project, presented as part of the requirements for the Award of a Masters Degree in Management from the NOVA – School of Business and Economics

New Opportunities for Development Journalism: Enlarging the Public Sphere with ICTs

The present study examines new opportunities offered by the introduction of information and communication technologies (ICTs) to enhance the development journalism practice, in order to enlarge the public sphere and empower ordinary people to participate more actively in public debate on issues affecting their development. The analysis of the achievements and challenges faced by 32 radio stations under the UNESCO project “Empowering Local Radios with ICTs” offers an overview of the introduction of ICTs in different contexts, within and among seven countries in Sub- Saharan Africa. Even though the lack of ICTs access and knowledge is still a concern in the developing world, especially in rural areas, these new tools can be adapted to each context and foster a more pluralistic and participative media in order to address people’s needs and promote social change.

Real-time collaborative editing of OutSystems DSL models

Real-time collaborative editing systems are common nowadays, and their advantages are widely recognized. Examples of such systems include Google Docs, ShareLaTeX, among others. This thesis aims to adopt this paradigm in a software development environment. The OutSystems visual language lends itself very appropriate to this kind of collaboration, since the visual code enables a natural flow of knowledge between developers regarding the developed code. Furthermore, communication and coordination are simplified. This proposal explores the field of collaboration on a very structured and rigid model, where collaboration is made through the copy-modify-merge paradigm, in which a developer gets its own private copy from the shared repository, modifies it in isolation and later uploads his changes to be merged with modifications concurrently produced by other developers. To this end, we designed and implemented an extension to the OutSystems Platform, in order to enable real-time collaborative editing. The solution guarantees consistency among the artefacts distributed across several developers working on the same project. We believe that it is possible to achieve a much more intense collaboration over the same models with a low negative impact on the individual productivity of each developer.

Exploring Literary Landscapes: From Texts to Spatiotemporal Analysis through Collaborative Work and GIS

This article argues that the study of literary representations of landscapes can be aided and enriched by the application of digital geographic technologies. As an example, the article focuses on the methods and preliminary findings of LITESCAPE.PT—Atlas of Literary Landscapes of Mainland Portugal, an on-going project that aims to study literary representations of mainland Portugal and to explore their connections with social and environmental realities both in the past and in the present. LITESCAPE.PT integrates traditional reading practices and ‘distant reading’ approaches, along with collaborative work, relational databases, and geographic information systems (GIS) in order to classify and analyse excerpts from 350 works of Portuguese literature according to a set of ecological, socioeconomic, temporal and cultural themes. As we argue herein this combination of qualitative and quantitative methods—itself a response to the difficulty of obtaining external funding—can lead to (a) increased productivity, (b) the pursuit of new research goals, and (c) the creation of new knowledge about natural and cultural history. As proof of concept, the article presents two initial outcomes of the LITESCAPE.PT project: a case study documenting the evolving literary geography of Lisbon and a case study exploring the representation of wolves in Portuguese literature.

Cultural journalism in a digital environment : new models, practices and possibilities

Both culture coverage and digital journalism are contemporary phenomena that have undergone several transformations within a short period of time. Whenever the media enters a period of uncertainty such as the present one, there is an attempt to innovate in order to seek sustainability, skip the crisis or find a new public. This indicates that there are new trends to be understood and explored, i.e., how are media innovating in a digital environment? Not only does the professional debate about the future of journalism justify the need to explore the issue, but so do the academic approaches to cultural journalism. However, none of the studies so far have considered innovation as a motto or driver and tried to explain how the media are covering culture, achieving sustainability and engaging with the readers in a digital environment. This research examines how European media which specialize in culture or have an important cultural section are innovating in a digital environment. Specifically, we see how these innovation strategies are being taken in relation to the approach to culture and dominant cultural areas, editorial models, the use of digital tools for telling stories, overall brand positioning and extensions, engagement with the public and business models. We conducted a mixed methods study combining case studies of four media projects, which integrates qualitative web features and content analysis, with quantitative web content analysis. Two major general-interest journalistic brands which started as physical newspapers – The Guardian (London, UK) and Público (Lisbon, Portugal) – a magazine specialized in international affairs, culture and design – Monocle (London, UK) – and a native digital media project that was launched by a cultural organization – Notodo, by La Fábrica – were the four case studies chosen. Findings suggest, on one hand, that we are witnessing a paradigm shift in culture coverage in a digital environment, challenging traditional boundaries related to cultural themes and scope, angles, genres, content format and delivery, engagement and business models. Innovation in the four case studies lies especially along the product dimensions (format and content), brand positioning and process (business model and ways to engage with users). On the other hand, there are still perennial values that are crucial to innovation and sustainability, such as commitment to journalism, consistency (to the reader, to brand extensions and to the advertiser), intelligent differentiation and the capability of knowing what innovation means and how it can be applied, since this thesis also confirms that one formula doesn´t suit all. Changing minds, exceeding cultural inertia and optimizing the memory of the websites, looking at them as living, organic bodies, which continuously interact with the readers in many different ways, and not as a closed collection of articles, are still the main challenges for some media.

Community indentification in peer-t-peer collaborative consumption services

Even though collaborative consumption (CC) is gaining economic importance, research in CC is still in its infancy. Consumers’ reasons for participating have already been investigated but little research on consequences of participation has been conducted. This article examines whether interactions between customers in peer-to-peer CC services influence the willingness to coproduce service outcomes. Drawing on social exchange theory, it is proposed that this effect is mediated by consumers’ identification with the brand community. Furthermore, continuance intention in CC is introduced as a second stage moderator. In a cross-sectional study, customers of peer-to-peer accommodation sharing are surveyed. While customer-to-customer interactions were found to have a positive effect on brand community identification, brand community identification did not positively affect co-production intention. Surprisingly, the effect of brand community identification on co-production intention was negative. Moreover, continuance intention of customers did not moderate this relationship. Bearing in mind current challenges for researchers and companies, theoretical and managerial implications are discussed.