Browsing by Issue Date, starting with "2010-03"
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- Multidimensional value of enterprise architecturesPublication . Rodrigues, Luis Silva; Amaral, LuisThe increasing complexity of organizations and the environment around them are increasingly demanding for a better and deeper knowledge about how to organize and use IT in order to fulfil the organizations mission, strategies and goals. In the past two decades, in order to obtain a description of the current IT and business state and/or to establish the desired future state, a significant number of organizations began to build Enterprise Architectures. Despite the efforts done, the resources spent and the benefits expected practitioners and researchers recognize that it is still difficult for organizations to assess and measure the Enterprise Architecture value, given the process complexity and the nature of some value factors. In this paper a multidimensional value approach is presented, that considers four value dimensions in Enterprise Architectures value analysis: strategic value, operational value, user value and economic/financial value.
- Physiotherapy student´s perceptions of the problem based learning curriculum implementation processPublication . Macedo, Rui; Trigueiro, Maria João; Portugal, Paula; Sousa, Helena; Faias, JoaquimThe Bologna declaration process was an opportunity for a major change in Physiotherapy curriculum at Escola Superior de Saúde do Porto – Portugal. In 2008-2009 school year a Problem Based Learning curriculum was adopted. Literature and a previous study pointed to student’s resistance and to problems associated with the implementation of this new aproach. Regular meetings with student’s where put in place in order to deal with this anticipated problems. For each meeting there was a written record. For each curricular year, three or more Curricular Units produced regular meetings. Two or more meeting records were produced in most Curricular Units. The aim of this study is to understand the perceptions of 1st, 2nd and 3rd year Physiotherapy students about the PBL approach, during the first year of implementation. A Corpus of 24 records from the 1st, 2nd and 3th year meetings was submitted to Thematic Content Analysis by two referees which agreed on a posteriori categorical system. Peer debriefing was used to ensure trustworthiness and authenticity. The analysis revealed 4 dimensions – Means, Organization, Curriculum, Assessment - which included all themes relating to major areas of concern. Major concerns changed throughout the curricular units and throughout the year and differed from student’s curricular year. Means strongly influenced the other dimensions. Organization problems resulted mainly from lack of experience of curriculum designers. Curriculum dimension reveals some misunderstanding of Problem Based Learning both from students and teachers whereas Assessment problems relate mainly to subjects, methods and the timing of information to students.
- Perceptions of occupational therapy students of Escola Superior de Saúde do Porto - Portugal about the PBL approachPublication . Macedo, Rui; Trigueiro, Maria João; Portugal, Paula; Sousa, Helena; Faias, JoaquimThe Student's role in the new learning paradigm has become central after the implementation of the Bologna process. When we made the choice to build a Problem Based Learning curriculum, we knew that we were heading to the construction of a learning community where the student was asked to play the main role in building knowledge and acquiring skills. In this pedagogical method, learning is based in participation and sharing. This also means new responsibilities. According with the literature, this concept seems to conduct to some resistance and adverse reactions from students. Nevertheless, this approach is pointed as promoting active learning and support knowledge and skills acquisition in real life situations. These characteristics suit it very attractive as a model of teaching for an Occupational Therapy Course, reason why it was adopted at the School of Allied Health Sciences of Polytechnic of Porto - Portugal starting in the 2008-2009 scholar year. The aim of this study is to understand the perceptions of 1st, 2nd and 3rd year Occupational Therapy students about the PBL approach, during the first year of implementation. We conduct a qualitative exploratory study, using a Corpus of 11 records of meetings, which are analyzed using Content Analyses. Adopting an a posteriori categorical system as strategy, three investigators working independently proceed to the analysis of the records in order to obtain an inter-rater agreement. Peer debriefing is used to ensure trustworthiness and authenticity. Five dimensions are revealed by the analysis: PBL approach, Curriculum, Organization, Resources, and Physical Context. These dimensions are similar between students from several curricular years. The major concern is related with the lack of resources and the need of feedback revealed by students during the curricular units ongoing and evaluation moments. Also the need for a high support from the tutors is pointed by students. The resources available are sparsely and results in a higher need for support from teachers, especially from those who are tutors. Difficulties with organization, namely with feedback provided are due to lack of experience from teachers and students unsafe concerning their own competences. Students consider that PBL approach requires much hours of hard work per week. They also think it is a more difficult learning method. Even so, they refer a better acquisition of knowledge and skills and recognize the positive aspects of the approach.
- Analysis of Financial Indexes with Computational TechniquesPublication . Tenreiro Machado, J. A.; Duarte, Gonçalo M.; Duarte, Fernando B.This paper applies Multidimensional scalling techniques and Fourier Transform for visualizing possible time-varying correlations between twenty five stock market values. The method is useful for observing stable or emerging clusters of stock markets with similar behavior. The graphs may also guide the construction of mutivariate econometric models.