Abstract

Abstract
Social isolation and loneliness are among the important factors for the degradation of the life quality as the persons’ aging process advances. These factors can have a pronounced effect on the general health and are caused by the decrease in social interaction by the person with the friends, family and ex-coworkers groups. On the other hand, the software and hardware technologies has reached a maturation point were the electronic assistants can acquire information from the user through camera images, as well as to communicate with the user by means of natural voice language. In this context, a model for the adoption of electronic intelligent assistants by the elderlies has been proposed in previous work. In the current work, it is assessed the possibility of using the current consumer assistants to implement the proposed model. Several assistants are analyzed (Amazon, Google, Microsoft and Apple), assessing their functionalities and how they could be used to assist the elderly in strengthening their social bonds with the family, friends and ex-co-workers groups. © Springer International Publishing AG 2017.

Abstract
Higher education institutions (HEI) and students are highly dependent of information systems, implemented as web applications. Students must be able to access this applications, thought accessible web interfaces, in order to perform their academic activities. This paper presents an overview of a typical set of web applications used by students and the main concerns regarding accessibility compliance. The analysis was conducted using the systems at the University of Trás-os-Montes e Alto Douro. © 2013 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg.

Abstract
Higher Education Institutions (HEIs) have come a long way on the usage of Information Systems (IS) at the several phases of the execution of their business plan. These organizations are very peculiar in the sense that most of the IS technologies have been developed as a consequence of the research work of the HEIs, positioning them as creators and as consumers of IS technologies. In fact, a considerable part of the IS products, currently available for the education sector, was initially created in a HEI as an in-house development. For these reason, the adoption of IS technologies by HEIs has followed two distinct paths: the in-house creation, previously described; and a current market adoption, similarly to most other companies IS adoption. Up to 2013 the IS applications for HEIs was mostly provided as web applications running on the HEI local datacenters and devoted to some specific phases of the HEI business plan. Currently, in 2016, this scenario has evolved in two ways: (i) to a wider range of type of applications, including: the old type of web application; new mobile applications; and new web application, running on the cloud and used as a service, (ii) to a more extended support coverage regarding the HEI business model phases, i.e., there are more IS applications supporting more aspects of the HEIs’ activities. In 2013, it was published a study regarding the accessibility support in HEI IS applications and related user practices. Due to the advances in IS technologies and their adoption by HEIs, it is now time to update this perspective on accessibility and HEIs IS, in order to assess how the progresses on IS applications used in HEIs have dealt with the accessibility concerns. The study updates the IS accessibility features as well as the new systems and new types of systems currently in use. © Springer International Publishing AG 2017.

Abstract
The research activities in a Higher Education Institution (HEI) is highly dependent of the development of research projects. Most times, these projects have, at the core of their workforce, scholarship fellows financed by the project budget and responsible for the execution of very specific research tasks. The procurement process, leading to the contracting of these fellows, evolves several internal bureaus, from several organic units of the HEI, in a complex and long process. This work reports on the development of system to support this process. The solution was integrated in the HEI ecosystem in a harmonious manner, by implementing the necessary features and using the other HEI systems features when possible. After a year, the scholarship management system has proved a success, providing the user features to conduct the process as well as the management analytics to proper support the governance of the research area.

Abstract
The University of Tras-os-Montes e Alto Douro is part of a consortium that is providing courses in an e-learning model. In this courses, the students' evaluation requires their physical presence. Currently, the consortium has the general objective of provide evaluation activities in all of the consortium's institutions, independently of the student's Higher Education Institution (HEI) of origin. That way, the student can go through the learning process on-line, using the Learning Management System (LMS), and attend an evaluation activity at the HEI geographically more conveniently located. In pursuing this objective, the consortium is creating a set of specific rooms with the sole purpose of supporting the evaluation of e-learning students. These rooms are located in each one of the HEIs, and equipped with thin personal computers (PC), connected to a local, properly configured, server. These PCs and server will run a customized version of the operating system, in a Virtual Desktop Infrastructure (VDI) model, providing a controlled and safe infrastructure for the usage of the LMS to execute the evaluation activities. In a first phase, it is being created one room in each one of the consortium HEIs. A set of rules and a certification process will be designed, in order to have a standard level of service across all the rooms. Together with the certification process it will also be defined an audit process in order to regularly verify the compliance of the rooms with the previously designed certification standards.