Predictors of student success: a study of Portuguese Higher Education graduates

Work Projected presented in the context of a Directed Research Internship at the Directorate-General of Statistics of the Portuguese Ministry of Education, and as part of the requirements for the Award of a Masters Degree in Economics from the NOVA - School of Business and Economics

An overview of the higher level classification of Pucciniomycotina based on combined analyses of nuclear large and small subunit rDNA sequences

Mycologia, Vol. 98, nº6

The impact of online brand community on electronic word-of-mouth communications

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

How ecotourism works at the community-level : the case of whale-watching in the Azores

Whale-watching is one of the fastest growing tourism industries worldwide, often viewed as a sustainable, non-consumptive strategy for the benefits of cetacean conservation and the coastal communities, alternative to and incompatible with whaling. Yet, there is paucity of research on how things actually work out at the community-level. Drawing on the research literature and my own ethnographic fieldwork, this article bridges a knowledge gap in this field while examining an Azorean context where tourism has brought a re-commodification of the whale for the community (observing wildlife as opposed to harpooning it) in the last 20 years. The analysis is focused on four main community-level implications: governance of common maritime resources, and tourism's contribution to economic sustainability, cultural identity and social relations. It is shown that whale-watching, as any other form of community-based ecotourism, is not a panacea that always promotes biodiversity conservation and economic and sociocultural sustainability for the host communities. Moreover, expanding on the theorisation of emerging institutional fields by Lawrence and Phillips, the political, historical, economic and sociocultural context of the community involved is a key factor for understanding local agency and the local specific features of new fields.

The development of a knowledge-based society - Challenges for e-learning and adult students in higher education

This chapter appears in Encyclopaedia of Distance Learning 2nd Edition edit by Rogers, P.; Berg, Gary; Boettecher, Judith V.; Howard, Caroline; Justice, Lorraine; Schenk, Karen D.. Copyright 2009, IGI Global, www.igi-global.com. Posted by permission of the publisher. URL: http://www.igi-global.com/reference/ details.asp?ID=9703&v=tableOfContents

Learning in higher education: strategies to overcome challenges faced by adult students – lessons drawn from two case studies in Portugal

This paper appears in International Journal of Information and Communication Technology Education edited by Lawrence A. Tomei (Ed.) Copyright 2007, IGI Global, www.igi-global.com. Posted by permission of the publisher. URL:http://www.idea-group.com/journals/details.asp?id=4287.

Education in Brazil: A big challenge?

Brazil is an emerging country where community school is being promoted in order to respond to the still significant gap between the poor and the rich population. This paper attempts to analyze one community school. Although other social programs whose scopes are also to enhance education have been implemented, such as the "Bolsa Familia", the impact of community schools need attention as well. Indeed, community schools must be studied due to the relevant positive attributes they can provide. Moreover, by improving the quality of education, studies show an enhancement of a higher-skilled nation and a better qualified labour force for the future. To clearly demonstrate the impacts of these communities, the treatment effect will be measured by using a matching estimator.