Papers by Gonçalo Paiva Dias
University of Ss. Cyril & Methodius in Skopje; Vilnius University; University of Aveiro; European Training Center Copenhagen, 2019
Proceedings of the 3rd International Conference on Higher Education Advances, 2017
At the celebration of its 30th anniversary, Erasmus is recognised as the most successful exchange... more 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...
PRIZREN SOCIAL SCIENCE JOURNAL, 2021
Learning Management System (LMS) is a type of an e-learning system is one of the main infrastruct... more Learning Management System (LMS) is a type of an e-learning system is one of the main infrastructural requirements that improves access to higher education for persons with disabilities. The primary aim of the research study[1] was to explore perceptions of students with disabilities regarding the use and accessibility of learning management systems and benefits and/or barriers in e-learning. Students mainly have negative experiences while attempting to enter university web-sites/libraries/LMSs because of the inadequate adaptation to the specific needs of students with disabilities. In countries that do not have a developed LMS, the prevalent mean of communication with professors is via e-mail, in those where there is a LMS, there is not a fully accessibility of entire content and services for students with special needs. This research defined the need for creation of an accessible LMS or adjusted already existing LMS with accessibility solutions such as: a text-to-speech engine for...
Proceedings of the 16th International Conference on Theory and Practice of Electronic Governance
The main objectives of this article are to understand the extent to which the COVID-19 pandemic a... more The main objectives of this article are to understand the extent to which the COVID-19 pandemic affected the streaming of city council meetings on social media networks and whether, having this effect existed, it has persisted over time. A complementary objective is to find if there are particular characteristics of municipalities that favor the streaming of city council meetings on social media networks. To the best of the author's knowledge, this is the first study to address these objectives. To achieve them, data were collected and analyzed from all 308 Portuguese municipalities. These included the registration of 4905 streams published on Facebook and YouTube, corresponding to 2639 city council meetings from 74 municipalities, held between January 1, 2019, and December 31, 2022. The main findings are: the number of Portuguese municipalities that streamed their city councils in each month more than doubled during the acute phase of the pandemic; this effect started to fade immediately after the easing of the pandemic; and it started to grow again immediately after the September 2022 municipal elections. The main theoretical implication is that disruptive events such as sanitarian crises and local elections can trigger the adoption of innovative forms of the use of social media networks by municipalities, namely those related to transparency, such as streaming city councils. The study also contributes to confirm population size, voter turnout, and margin of victory as relevant determinants of online transparency at the local level.
Proceedings of the 8th International Conference on Web Information Systems and Technologies, 2012
CHAPAS is a model for the provision of life event e-government services where no direct communica... more CHAPAS is a model for the provision of life event e-government services where no direct communication between service providers exists. The citizen, assisted by a personal tool (Chappie), is responsible to gather all the information required by the service he wants to apply to, possibly from services of other providers. In this paper we discuss how life event e-government services are provided in CHAPAS, from the point of view of the interactions of Chappie with services. The immediate advantage of this approach is that services do not need to directly interact with each other to provide complex life event services, thereby citizens having full control of the flow of their personal information.
Proceedings of the 7th International Conference on Web Information Systems and Technologies, 2011
The online provision of public services to citizens, e-government, is here to stay. Its advantage... more The online provision of public services to citizens, e-government, is here to stay. Its advantages are huge, both for the government and for the citizens. Life-event service is a sound concept in which services are designed to cater with citizen real needs instead of government departments needs. But this type of services requires interoperability between government departments. Among other things, interoperability implies the exchange of information between government departments which traditionally has been implemented by direct communication. This direct communication raises privacy concerns on citizens since their personal information is potentially exchanged without their knowledge and control. In this paper we propose an egovernment model where the citizen controls the exchange of his personal information between government departments.
One important dimension of Higher education curriculum design pertains to the inclusion of intern... more One important dimension of Higher education curriculum design pertains to the inclusion of internships in study programmes. These have been generally conceptualized as learning experiences capable of bridging theoretical knowledge and hands-on experiences. The underlying pedagogical relevance is based on the premise that internships create the possibility of contextualized learning, fostering both professional growth and students' self-esteem and proactivity (Little, 2006). Interns are provided with the opportunity of early networking, as they enrol in practical activities and professionally interact with other people, besides their academic teachers and their graduate colleagues (Alpert, Heaney, & Kuhn, 2009; Weible, 2009).
Iberian Journal of Information Systems and Technologies, 2012
Resumo: As arquiteturas de interoperabilidade permitem a criação de workflows transversais na adm... more Resumo: As arquiteturas de interoperabilidade permitem a criação de workflows transversais na administração pública e a integração de serviços na perspetiva dos cidadãos e empresas. Neste artigo apresentamos um modelo de segurança que visa as questões levantadas por arquiteturas de interoperabilidade baseadas em agentes autónomos que suportam a composição dinâmica de workflows. O modelo baseia-se numa infraestrutura de chave pública e num conjunto de estruturas de dados baseadas em normas bem conhecidas (X.509 V3 e WSDL). Este modelo de segurança suporta a identificação, autenticação, acreditação e autorização e garante que os resultados produzidos pelos agentes apenas são entregues aos seus destinatários, mesmo que estes destinatários não sejam conhecidos na altura da produção do resultado.
Distributed Computing and Artificial Intelligence, 2013
The provision of valuable e-government services depends upon the capacity to integrate the disper... more The provision of valuable e-government services depends upon the capacity to integrate the disperse provision of services by the public administration and thus upon the availability of interoperability platforms. These platforms are commonly built according to the principles of service oriented architectures, which raise the question of how to dynamically orchestrate services while preserving information security. Recently, it was presented an e-government interoperability model that preserves privacy during the dynamic orchestration of services. In this paper we present a prototype that implements that model using software agents. The model and the prototype are briefly described; an illustrative use case is presented; and the advantages of using software agents to implement the model are discussed.
15th International Conference on Theory and Practice of Electronic Governance
This paper addresses the subject of citizens' participation through social networks pages of loca... more This paper addresses the subject of citizens' participation through social networks pages of local governments. Specifically, it aims at identifying if there is an association between content types published by local governments and the levels of participation they generate, and if there is a common set of characteristics among local governments that privilege publishing those types of contents. To support the study, all posts published in Facebook by 84 Portuguese local governments during November 2021 were registered and analyzed, making up a total of 6,897 posts that received 25,761 comments and 432,031 likes. Data was analyzed resorting to an indirect indicator of reactive participation based on the ratio between the number of comments and the number of likes generated by each content type. T-Tests were then used to assess which types of municipalities privilege publishing such contents. The main findings are that content categories related to typical local government competencies (such as Municipal works, Housing, and Mobility, traffic, and parking) and related to the political activity at the local level (such as Mayor, City Hall, City Council, and Participation initiatives) are more likely to encourage the participation of citizens than other types of content; and that municipalities located in more developed regions and with voter turnouts below the average are more likely to publish these types of contents.
2018 13th Iberian Conference on Information Systems and Technologies (CISTI), 2018
In this paper it is presented a bibliometric analysis on smart cities research in Portugal and Sp... more In this paper it is presented a bibliometric analysis on smart cities research in Portugal and Spain performed using the Scopus® database as a source. Number of articles, citations to those articles, types of sources, most productive and impacting authors and institutions, most cited articles and more relevant subject areas are analyzed and discussed. It is concluded that there is a significant gap between Portugal and Spain in terms of the impact of the research produced, partially explained with the subjects addressed and type of publications used. The results presented here can be of use to researchers and policy makers in the field of Smart Cities' research mainly as a basis for benchmarking.
In a context of scarcity of financial resources and rise of graduate unemployment, Higher Educati... more In a context of scarcity of financial resources and rise of graduate unemployment, Higher Education Institutions (HEIs) have been urged to contribute to the employability of their graduates. In fact, these institutions are increasingly concerned with the professional insertion of their graduates in the labour market and with the design of institutional mechanisms that facilitate students’ transition from higher education to work. This has been achieved, inter alia, through the creation of study programmes with internships, or several other forms of cooperative education between HEIs and employing institutions. Benefits of internships are extensively reported in the majority of studies dealing with the professional integration of graduates. However, these studies tend to be largely based on the perceptions of the main stakeholders involved – students, HEIs, and employing institutions – rather than on actual postgraduation career outcomes. This paper aims to assess the importance of i...
Sustainability, 2019
Curricular internships are increasingly seen as an effective strategy capable of contributing to ... more Curricular internships are increasingly seen as an effective strategy capable of contributing to the objectives and targets of the sustainable development paradigm, both in its social, economic and institutional dimensions. This positive outlook is ingrained within the large bulk of existing research, which has been focused on the discussion of positive outputs, such as the enhancement of graduates′ competences (employability) and their work integration (employment). An important, albeit relatively unexplored, feature of the sustainable institutional politics of curricular internship management pertains to the assessment of its associated liabilities and tensions. This article seeks to address this challenge, by analyzing two interrelated dimensions. First, it seeks to understand the internship processes ranging from the planning to the implementation stages. Second, it elicits the associated negative aspects (the ‘lunar side’) of internships, allowing for an assessment of the featu...
2016 11th Iberian Conference on Information Systems and Technologies (CISTI), 2016
This study focuses on the adoption and use of electronic Reverse Auctions (eRA) for public procur... more This study focuses on the adoption and use of electronic Reverse Auctions (eRA) for public procurement in Portugal, between 2013 and 2014. With this objective, we collected and analysed 8646 contract notices of public works, supplies and services for open and restricted procedures. Conclusions were drawn regarding its distribution in terms of Contracting Authorities, their organization and etymology, contracts' objects, types of purchase, type of procedure used, prices, and supporting technology. The study demonstrates that an eRA took place in 0.7% of the procedures, consistent and in line with the results advanced by the European authorities.
Os cidadaos, empresas ou servicos publicos - os clientes - que procuram informacoes no contexto d... more Os cidadaos, empresas ou servicos publicos - os clientes - que procuram informacoes no contexto do Governo Eletronico visam obter respostas objetivas as suas questoes. Para isso e necessario que os sistemas de pesquisa consigam manipular a informacao de modo a que seja disponibilizada de uma forma eficaz e adequada as necessidades de cada cliente. Uma vez que grande parte dos documentos do governo estao escritos em formatos nao estruturados e em linguagem natural, e necessario desenvolver metodos para obter e estruturar este tipo de informacao. A alternativa seria indexar pelo seu texto a grande quantidade de documentos existente, uma solucao desadequada no contexto do Governo Eletronico, uma vez que assim seriam retornados frequentemente muitos resultados a cada pesquisa.Este artigo apresenta um primeiro prototipo de uma aplicacao que gera informacao semântica a partir de textos escritos em Portugues. A informacao semântica gerada corresponde a um dominio de conhecimento definido p...
In order to evaluate the development of websites of the 308 Portuguese municipalities in this wor... more In order to evaluate the development of websites of the 308 Portuguese municipalities in this work it was performed an analysis using regression models and clustering techniques. That analysis allowed recognizing a group of socioeconomic variables that are significant to characterize homogenous groups of municipalities in what concerns e-government maturity.
This article presents a preliminary evaluation of e-government maturity for 37 district municipal... more This article presents a preliminary evaluation of e-government maturity for 37 district municipalities of the Lima Metropolitan Area, in Peru. A three-dimensional maturity model (with dimensions e-information, e-services; and e-participation) previously used in other studies was applied. Empirical data was obtained using Website content analysis. Descriptive statistics and clustering technics were used to analyze results. The results support the conclusions that the Lima municipalities tend to privilege simpler developments in detriment of more complex ones; that, consequently, the e-information dimension is more developed than the e-service dimension which, in turn, is more developed that the e-participation dimension; and that different profiles of municipalities coexist in what concerns the balance between the three different dimensions of the maturity model. These findings are consistent with other studies that used the same method in a different geography. The results also indi...
Resumo: Neste artigo propomos uma plataforma genérica para a integração de serviços na administra... more Resumo: Neste artigo propomos uma plataforma genérica para a integração de serviços na administração pública. Trata-se de uma plataforma simples, versátil e segura, que se baseia em tecnologias normalizadas e facilmente disponíveis, como sejam o XML (Extensible Markup Language), o HTTP (Hypertext Transfer Protocol), o SSL (Secure Sockets Layer) e o PKI. (Public Key Infrastructure). A plataforma facilita a integração na administração pública tanto por via da coordenação de serviços no front-office como por via da integração de processos no back-office; suporta o desenvolvimento de balcões únicos de acesso, reais ou virtuais; e permite a prestação concorrente de serviços, a organização por acontecimentos da vida, a existência de prestadores concorrentes e a integração de diferentes canais de atendimento.
In this article we present a survey of the websites of 239 Portuguese municipalities. General cha... more In this article we present a survey of the websites of 239 Portuguese municipalities. General characteristics of the web sites, available information and online delivery of services were observed. The study was conducted between February and May, 2010. Considering the results, we conclude that, despite the investments made in the past decade, local e-government in Portugal still exhibits medium level development in what relates information dissemination and remains substantially underdeveloped concerning online service delivery. We argue that a cultural breakthrough is needed in order to take full advantage of new technologies in government-to-citizen interactions at the local level in Portugal.
14th International Conference on Theory and Practice of Electronic Governance
The study presented in this article addresses the adoption and use of mobile applications by loca... more The study presented in this article addresses the adoption and use of mobile applications by local governments in Portugal. The relevance of the study relates to the growing importance of mobile applications for e-government provision at the local level in the scope of the advent of smart sustainable cities and communities.
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Papers by Gonçalo Paiva Dias