Abstract

Abstract

Abstract
The production of scientific publications is a cooperative activity that usually involves several authors. Current solutions of cooperative editors do not contemplate features such as references management and publications deposit. In this context, the authors have previously developed the PaperFlow platform that integrates the three main functionalities required to produce scientific publications: a cooperative text editor, a cooperative reference manager and a connector to scientific digital repositories. However, this approach did not included tools for a previous important stage: the conception of the scientific publications. This paper proposes an evolution of the original platform to accommodate the conception stage. For this purpose, the specification of PaperFlow/R includes new functionalities such as whiteboards, communication tools and versioning control that improve the cooperation abilities of the platform. © 2010 IEEE.

Abstract
The paper presents an proposal model for assessing the quality of educational collaborative virtual environments. This model is based on the Quantitative Evaluation framework developed by Escudeiro in 2008 and it consists in five phases. The purpose is to establish a theoretical model that highlights a number of relevant set of requirements in relation to the quality in educational collaborative virtual environments in order to facilitate the assessment of educational collaborative virtual environments. It is intended to apply the model during the lifecycle of product development and the selection of environment to support the learning/teaching process.

Abstract
This paper, referring to a work in progress, describes functional elements of the user interface of a Virtual World that may provide an important contribution to the process by which primary teachers and pupils collaborate in negotiating spatial configurations of educational spaces (classroom, playground, set for a theatre play, etc.). We have observed this process and some of its inherent difficulties and identified requirements or the functional elements of the interface. Finally, we reflect about factors impacting children's feelings of lack of authorship and ownership of spatial configurations resulting from collaboration and how a computer system may help in this regard. This Virtual World is therefore configured to be applied in educational contexts where curricular models reflect the new childhood culture where children have an active role in the spaces where they spend most of their time, as schools that adopt the Portuguese Modern School Movement pedagogical model.

Abstract
In this paper, it is presented a study concerning about the use of the three-dimensional virtual world Second Life (SL) to visualize and contextualize the learning of computer programming. SL allows students to use avatars to create 3D objects and program their behaviours, process data, and interact with external servers, using Linden Scripting Language (LSL), a language with C-like syntax and a state machine. Scripts can execute concurrently, and several students can simultaneously work over the same object and/or script. Through action research, we explore and analyse the potential of SL for teaching-learning introductory computer programming in computer science undergraduate courses. We believe this virtual environment has potential to help students, since it presents an immediately visual feedback of the program execution.