Author Archive: marisabs

PhD Defense in Informatics Engineering (ProDEI): ”Educational Question Generation with Narrative and Difficulty Control: A Special Focus on Portuguese”

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Candidate:
Bernardo José Coelho Leite

Date, Time and Location:
17 November 2025, 14:0, na Sala de Atos da Faculdade de Engenharia da Universidade do Porto

President of the Jury:

Pedro Nuno Ferreira da Rosa da Cruz Diniz (PhD), Full Professor in the Department of Informatics Engineering, Faculdade de Engenharia, Universidade do Porto.

Members:

Hugo Ricardo Gonçalo Oliveira (PhD), Associate Professor in the Department of Informatics Engineering, Faculdade de Ciências e Tecnologia, Universidade de Coimbra;

Maria Luísa Torres Ribeiro Marques da Silva Coheur (PhD), Associate Professor in the Department of Informatics Engineering, Instituto Superior Técnico, Universidade de Lisboa;

Luís Paulo Gonçalves dos Reis (PhD), Associate Professor with Habilitation in the Department of Informatics Engineering, Faculdade de Engenharia, Universidade do Porto;

Henrique Daniel de Avelar Lopes Cardoso (PhD), Associate Professor in the Department of Informatics Engineering, Faculdade de Engenharia, Universidade do Porto (Supervisor).

Abstract:

Humans pose questions all the time, and efforts to create AI systems to do the same have been developed. This task, known as Question Generation (QG), is a subfield of natural language generation that aims to automatically produce relevant and grammatically correct questions from a given input, such as text. A key motivation for QG is to support time-consuming tasks like the manual creation of educational questions by teachers. While QG systems have significantly improved, grammatical accuracy alone does not ensure educational value. Consequently, the adoption of QG tools in educational contexts remains limited.

This thesis is driven by three key challenges in QG: (1) the trustworthiness of AI-generated questions; (2) the limited controllability; (3) restricted applicability in less-resourced languages. To address these challenges, we focus on generating open-ended and multiple-choice reading comprehension questions from narrative texts for elementary school students. For challenge 1, we analyze and report the quality of generated questions, identifying both successful and failed cases. For challenge 2, we enhance controllable generation mechanisms by incorporating multiple attributes, such as narrative elements, explicitness, and difficulty, into the generated questions. Challenge 3 is addressed through a special focus on Portuguese, a morphologically rich language that remains underrepresented in QG research.

Our methodology spans from early rule-based and neural approaches to more advanced controllable QG techniques, including fine-tuning, zero- and few-shot prompting with both small and large language models. This offers a comprehensive view of the evolution and performance of QG systems across different stages. We contribute by systematically applying and adapting current QG techniques. We develop case studies that explore controllability and educational relevance, providing comprehensive analyses of question quality, and releasing new QG models and datasets tailored to less-resourced languages such as Portuguese. Evaluation combines automatic metrics with human-centered assessments involving experts, teachers, and students, whose input provides critical insights into the usefulness and effectiveness of the generated questions.

The results show that it is possible to generate well-formulated and answerable questions with controllable attributes. Although machine-generated questions approach the quality of humanauthored ones, semantic issues still arise. In addition, generating MCQs with answer options that are effective for students remains a challenge. These findings highlight the ongoing need for research in educational QG, especially in supporting less-resourced languages and enhancing the reliability of automated generation systems.

SINF 2025: Another inspiring edition of Semana de Informática wraps up

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By Álvaro Paralta, SICC, FEUP

“Lectures, workshops and problem-solving sessions. These were some of the activities at the latest edition of Semana de Informática (SINF), organised by the Informatics Group of the Student Association of the Faculty of Engineering of the University of Porto (NIAEFEUP). The initiative took place between 21 and 24 October at the Faculty of Engineering and was attended by more than 20 companies.

Over the four days, the companies interacted freely with FEUP students from their respective stands, distributed along the main corridor of the faculty. But that’s not all. In addition to the job fair itself, the programme also included workshops, lectures, problem-solving sessions and a networking dinner between the companies with the highest level of sponsorship at the event and the invited students.

According to Diogo Fernandes, president of NIAEFEUP, the overall assessment of the event is “very positive”. “We got the impression that the companies, in general, were very satisfied. And the feedback we received, both from trainers and speakers, was that the students participated actively in the activities – they were always very interested and engaged,” he comments.
“For us, organising a SINF means having the opportunity to bring new topics to students, as well as providing them with another opportunity to interact with companies. This is clearly something in which FEUP excels, in general – the ease with which we are able to reach the business community. There are always many job fairs and activities with companies that enhance this relationship. And having an activity of this type dedicated solely to Computer Engineering is very important,” reflects Diogo Fernandes.

Among the topics covered at SINF were Artificial Intelligence, Digital Transformation, Cybersecurity, Quantum Computing, Career Development and Entrepreneurship. “We have noticed that this has been an area that has been emerging more and more – not only because of growing demand from students, but also because of what we have seen at the events we have participated in,” explains Diogo.

There was also room for new features, such as problem-solving sessions and a networking dinner. “The contact that a company has with a student through a job fair is usually relatively quick and does not allow for much discussion or in-depth conversation. With this in mind, we prepared these activities, which we believe allowed for more detailed contact between the company and the student,” shares the president of NIAEFEUP. “With the problem-solving sessions, we gave companies a chance to closely observe the students’ ability to solve challenges. On the one hand, we managed to give students a more relaxed moment; on the other hand, companies were able to see their skills in a very practical way – not only in terms of solving the challenge itself, but also their teamwork, communication and leadership skills,” explains Diogo Fernandes.

The networking dinner was also developed in a more personalised way. The companies with the highest level of sponsorship were able to directly invite students who had positively impressed them during the interaction at their respective stands. This allowed the relationship between the employer and the potential candidate to be deepened, enabling mutual interests and opportunities to be explored in a more informal way and with more time.

NIAEFEUP organised this edition of SINF in the aftermath of the National Meeting of Computer Science Students, which took place in April at FEUP. “This was an added challenge because it was a very large event to which we were all very dedicated. This meant that we ended up starting SINF a little later,” shares the student. “It was challenging, but we already had a well-defined plan. We ended up gaining a lot of experience from the meeting, and that helped us.”

With their eyes already set on the future, NIAEFEUP’s goals include organising more training sessions with companies throughout the year. “We want to be more involved in the student training process, meeting their needs. And that’s what we’re working on,” concludes Diogo.

More information here.”

ECMLPKDD 2025 – European Conference on Machine Learning and Knowledge Discovery in Databases

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The European Conference on Machine Learning and Knowledge Discovery in Databases (ECMLPKDD), the largest European event dedicated to Machine Learning and one of the most important worldwide in the field of Artificial Intelligence, took place in Porto between 15 and 19 September 2025.

The organisation counted on the active participation of several students and researchers from the Department of Informatics Engineering (DEI) of the Faculty of Engineering of the University of Porto (FEUP), notably Carlos Soares (General Co-Chair) and João Mendes Moreira (Workshops Co-Chair).

Held at Alfândega do Porto, the conference brought together more than 1,300 participants from 60 countries, including around 450 students. The programme featured seven keynote speeches by some of the world’s leading researchers in the field, including Pedro Domingos (University of Washington), Cynthia Rudin (Duke University), Mirella Lapata (University of Edinburgh), Francisco Herrera (University of Granada), Sašo Džeroski (Jožef Stefan Institute) and Nuria Oliver (ELLIS Alicante – Institute of Humanity-Centric AI).

The scientific programme included around 400 accepted papers, in addition to numerous presentations at the 32 workshops associated with the event, reflecting the vitality and diversity of the European Machine Learning and Data Science community.

ECMLPKDD 2025 was supported by several national and international companies, including BNP Paribas, EDF, Google, ASML, NOS, NEC, Amazon, AstraZeneca and Banco de Portugal, as well as an institutional partnership with Porto Digital.

More information on the ECMLPKDD website.

DEI Talks | “smtgcc: Using an SMT solver to find bugs in GCC” by Krister Walfridsson

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The talk “smtgcc: Using an SMT solver to find bugs in GCC” will be presented by Krister Walfridsson on December the 4th, at 16:00, online:

Join the meeting 
Meeting ID: 373 912 942 228 7
Passcode: XS9M8dT3

Abstract:

“SMT solvers are increasingly effective for finding compiler bugs and validating optimizations. This talk presents smtgcc, a translation-validation tool for GCC. It is similar to Alive2 for LLVM, but smtgcc’s approach diverges from Alive2 because GCC and LLVM follow different design choices. I will explain how smtgcc works and discuss issues in formalizing the semantics of GIMPLE, GCC’s IR.”

About the Speaker:

Krister Walfridsson became involved with the GCC project while studying at university in the mid-1990s. Since completing his studies, he has worked with both compilers and operating systems in various embedded environments. Most recently, he spent 10 years at Arm as a principal compiler engineer in the Mali GPU team. He is currently taking a few years off to work on personal projects and to dance.

DEI Talks | “Knowledge Graphs + AI: The Evolution of Automated GitHub Issue Resolution” by Prof. He Ye (University College London)

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The talk entitled “Knowledge Graphs + AI: The Evolution of Automated GitHub Issue Resolution“, will be presented by Prof. He Ye on November 17th, at 14:30, in room B008, moderated by Prof. Alexandra Mendes (DEI).

Abstract:

“AI coding agents are becoming increasingly capable, achieving strong results on benchmarks such as SWE-bench. However, most still struggle with real-world challenges such as issue reproduction, precise context retrieval from large codebases, and the high cost of LLMs. In this talk, I will introduce our recent code agent, Prometheus — a knowledge graph-powered, multi-agent system designed to tackle GitHub issues in practice. Prometheus transforms entire repositories into a unified knowledge graph stored in Neo4j for scalable and structured reasoning. This enables precise, cross-language context retrieval, allowing large language models to generate accurate and efficient fixes. Prometheus delivers robust performance, resolving diverse issues across seven programming languages. I will show how combining LLMs with knowledge graphs can advance automated issue resolution beyond today’s benchmark-driven limits. We have recently transitioned this research into an off-the-shelf product that helps industry resolve software issues automatically.”

About the Speaker:

He Ye is an Assistant Professor at University College London. She previously worked as a Postdoctoral Researcher at Carnegie Mellon University and received her PhD from KTH Royal Institute of Technology. Her research centers on developing the next generation of code agents to automate software engineering tasks, with a focus on codebase context retrieval, automated issue resolution, and code agent memory construction. Beyond academia, she is the co-founder of EuniAI, a startup committed to turning research into real-world solutions that help developers address practical software challenges.

FCUP and FEUP dominated MIUP’s podium

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By Renata Silva (FCUP) and Mafalda Leite (SICC/FEUP)

” Several teams of students from the Faculty of Sciences (FCUP) and Faculty of Engineering (FEUP) of the University of Porto, shone at the most recent edition of the Inter-University Programming Marathon (MIUP), which took place on 18 October at the University of Aveiro’s Águeda School of Technology and Management. U.Porto dominated the competition podium with gold, silver and bronze medals.

Leading the way were the “Tiny Silly Problem” team, who managed to solve eight of the 10 problems proposed. The team is made up of students Marco Vilas Boas, from the Master’s in Informatics and Computing Engineering (FEUP), Félix Martins, from the Master’s in Artificial Intelligence (FEUP and FCUP), and Patrick Daniel, from the Master’s in Computer Science (FCUP).

One of the competition’s silver medals went to “Long long main“, by students Luís Barbosa, Luís Gonçalves and Sofia Sousa (all from the 3rd year of the Bachelor in Informatics and Computing Engineering at FEUP and FCUP), for managing to solve four of the proposed problems.

In 5th place in the competition were “oneL“, who won bronze, also by solving four of the competition’s challenges. This team includes students Filipe Zheng, from the 2nd year of the Bachelor in Artificial Intelligence and Data Science (FCUP and FEUP), Miguel Rocha and Rayner Sulyak, from the 1st and 2nd year of the Bachelor in Computer Science (FCUP), respectively.

Also taking part in the competition were “The CodeFathers“, students Joana Louro and Luís Santos, from the 3rd year of the Bachelor in Informatics and Computing Engineering, and Luís Santos and Pedro Machado, from the Bachelor in Computer Science, who finished in 13th place.

The teams were coached by Pedro Ribeiro, a lecturer at FCUP’s DCC, and André Restivo, a lecturer at FEUP’s Department of Informatics Engineering (DEI). This is the third year that the FEUP and FCUP teams have competed under the unified banner of the University of Porto. “These results highlight the talent and dedication of our students, as well as the collaboration between FEUP and FCUP. In particular, the winning team, made up of elements from both faculties and from a joint course, shows how co-operation within the University of Porto can lead to excellent results,” says André Restivo (DEI).

Pedro Ribeiro, a lecturer at FCUP, also highlights “the gratifying joint effort of two faculties who realise that UP as a whole is stronger and more united in an area of great prestige”. “Participating in the competitions and all the preparation and training involved is of great importance to the scientific growth of our participants, and we are proud to see a wide range of academic and professional excellence in the current and former competitors,” he adds.

The three medal-winning teams will now represent U.Porto at the Southwestern Europe Regional Contest (SWERC) 2025, which will take place from 21 to 23 November at the Instituto Superior Técnico in Lisbon.

About MIUP

The Inter-University Programming Marathon (MIUP) is a programming competition aimed at higher education students. The competition is run by teams of up to three people, where for five hours the teams will try to solve between nine and 11 different problems, using the programming languages C, C++, Java or Python.
The competition allows participants to test their problem-solving skills, while at the same time enabling students and teachers from Portuguese higher education institutions to socialise and exchange experiences.”

DEI Talks | “Energy-awareness in compute acceleration: The role of FPGAs” by Prof. Shreejith Shanker

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The talk entitled “Energy-awareness in compute acceleration: The role of FPGAs“, will be presented by Prof. Shreejith Shanker on October 30, at 11:30, in room B012, and will be moderated by Prof. Tiago Carvalho (DEI).

Abstract:

“The talk will cover a set of projects that my team at TCD is working on, spanning embedded and distributed systems to high-performance media workflows, and how FPGAs are enabling an energy-performance trade-off in these applications.”

About the Speaker:

Dr. Shreejith Shanker is an Assistant Professor of Reconfigurable Computing at Trinity College Dublin, Ireland and leads the research group on reconfigurable architectures, accelerators and workflows. His research interests include reconfigurable and adaptive computing architectures, in-network computing, post-production media workflows, design automation tools and distributed embedded systems, with a focus on performance-energy trade-off and hardware-software codesign approaches.

PhD Defense (PDMD): ”Food Wide Web: a digital food and media literacy program addressed to adolescents”

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Candidate:
Adriana Aguiar Aparício Fogel

Date, Time and Location:
October 20 2025, 14:30, Sala de Atos da Faculdade de Engenharia da Universidade do Porto

President of the Jury:

António Fernando Vasconcelos Cunha Castro Coelho (PhD), Associate Professor with Habilitation, Faculdade de Engenharia da Universidade do Porto.

Members:

Joana Alves Dias Martins de Sousa Ferreira (PhD), Assistant Professor, Faculdade de Medicina da Faculdade de Lisboa;
Ivone Marília Carinhas Ferreira (PhD), Assistant Professor, Department of Communication Sciences, Faculdade de Ciências Sociais e Humanas da Universidade Nova de Lisboa;
Sara de Jesus Gomes Pereira (PhD), Associate Professor, Department of Communication Sciences, Instituto de Ciências Sociais da Universidade do Minho;
Ana Filipa Pereira Oliveira (PhD), Assistant Professor, Faculdade de Comunicação, Arquitetura, Artes e Tecnologias da Informação da Universidade Lusófona;
José Manuel Pereira Azevedo (PhD), Full Professor, Department of Communication and Information Sciences, Faculdade de Letras da Universidade do Porto (Supervisor);
Ricardo José Pinheiro Fernandes Morais (PhD), Assistant Professor, Department of Communication and Information Sciences, Faculdade de Letras da Universidade do Porto.

Abstract:

The current complex and saturated media environment has given rise to an “infodemic” — an excess of information, both accurate and misleading, with potential impacts on the health of populations.
In the field of nutrition, the widespread dissemination of biased or incorrect content can contribute to unhealthy eating behaviors and may help explain the high global prevalence of obesity. Adolescents are particularly susceptible to this phenomenon because their self-regulation processes are not fully developed and because they are more influenced by external stimuli during this phase. This context reinforces the importance of promoting integrated food and media literacy among young people, providing them with tools that allow them to critically interpret, question, and consciously deal with the influences of food marketing and misinformation about nutrition. This study was developed in this context and had three main objectives: (i) to develop and implement a school-based intervention program using an intertwined perspective between media and food literacy issues; (ii) to evaluate the effectiveness of this intervention on the levels of media and food literacy of adolescents; (iii) to contribute to characterizing the media and food literacy levels of teenagers in Portuguese schools. The intervention consisted of ten 45-minute sessions, addressing eight dimensions of the food system — production, processing, distribution, planning and management, selection, preparation and cooking, intake, and disposal — through the lens of core media literacy competencies: access, analysis, evaluation, and creation. The contents included media materials that encouraged reflection and debate on the global food system. The program was implemented between October 2022 and May 2023 in four schools in northern Portugal — two were part of the intervention group and two were part of the control group. The final sample consisted of 202 students between the ages of 13 and 16 (M = 13.6; SD = 0.75). Data was collected through a questionnaire covering five main thematic areas: (a) exposure to food advertising, (b) satisfaction with body weight, (c) opinions, attitudes, and knowledge about media and food, (d) dietary practices, and (e) literacy related to food and media content. The questionnaire, constructed from pre-existing instruments, included open-ended and closed-ended questions and was administered to both groups before and after the sessions. In the intervention group, the creative projects developed in the classroom were also analyzed. Quantitative data were statistically evaluated, and qualitative data were subjected to a hybrid thematic analysis (inductive/deductive), followed by content analysis. After the initial qualitative analysis, a scoring system was developed that assigned numerical values to the responses. In line with the project objectives, healthy and sustainable choices, as well as critical evaluations and creations that encouraged participation, were valued. This scoring system included both closed-ended and task-based questions, allowing for a comprehensive and quantifiable assessment of the impact of the intervention on students’ food and media literacy, as well as their associated behaviors. The Likert section, consisting of 15 questions on attitudes, opinions, and knowledge, was scored from 0 to 4 per item, with a maximum possible score of 60 points. The food consumption section was converted to a weekly pattern and included a dietary adequacy index, with positive scores attributed to healthy behaviors (e.g. consumption of fruit and vegetables) and negative scores to unhealthy behaviors (e.g. consumption of fast food), with an initial score between -15 and 38, later transformed into a scale starting at 0, to facilitate interpretation. Finally, the section on food media literacy assessed the understanding of food labels (0 to 6 possible points, based on correct answers) and advertising literacy (score up to 14 points), including critical analysis of advertisements (one printed and one video) and an open-ended creative activity. The responses were analyzed based on their complexity, considering the ability to interpret marketing strategies and express ideas critically and creatively. The conversion of qualitative data into numerical scales allowed statistical comparisons between moments (pre vs. post) and groups (control vs. intervention; male vs. female). The results demonstrated that the intervention developed was feasible and effective. Significant improvements were observed in the students’ advertising literacy (1.5 vs. 1.9; p = 0.009) and in their ability to interpret food labels (2.0 vs. 2.2; p = 0.039). Among the girls in the intervention group, a significant improvement was observed in the total scores regarding opinions, attitudes, and knowledge about media and food (36.8 vs 38.1; p = 0.037). Concerning body satisfaction, significant differences between the girls in the intervention group and those in the control group at the preintervention moment became insignificant after the intervention (p = 0.015 vs. p = 0.402). The same occurred with the differences between the girls and boys in the intervention group, which were significant only before the program (p = 0.010 vs. p = 0.412). These data denote improvements in satisfaction with body image, particularly among the female participants, who reported a more balanced and healthy relationship with their bodies and eating habits after participating in the program. Regarding eating patterns, the male participants also showed improvements, but in specific habits, with an increase in the consumption of cereals and tubers standing out (6.2 vs. 8.2; p = 0.032). However, a persistent concern related to body weight was identified: 43.5% of the girls expressed a desire to change their weight, although only 28.3% considered themselves to be outside the weight they would consider normal. Among the boys, 76.1% declared themselves to be of normal weight, but 35.8% reported the desire to change their weight, even after taking part in the intervention. In addition, gaps in knowledge about the Mediterranean dietary pattern were found. Considering the entire sample, the students revealed difficulties in responding adequately to questions related to this topic, reporting only moderate levels of adherence to the aforementioned dietary pattern. In this aspect, they obtained a score of 30.6 (SD = 7.4), out of a maximum of 53. This is an important aspect in the characterization of adolescents, as the Mediterranean diet is the basis of Portugal’s national dietary guide, known as the Food Wheel. The adolescents also reported habitual exposure to advertisements for foods rich in sugar, salt and fat, despite the existing regulatory measures. Only 6.7% stated that they had not seen advertising for these products in the 30 days prior to the survey. In conclusion, this thesis proposes an innovative framework that integrates food and media literacy. Supported by empirical evidence, it includes a well-organized lesson plan and detailed assessment tools, constituting a practical resource for educators in general. The support resources used in the sessions are potentially adaptable to different educational and geographical contexts. The results contribute to the growing body of evidence supporting comprehensive educational interventions and reinforce the importance of integrating food and media literacy into school curricula as a strategy to promote critical thinking and informed food choices. Finally, the data suggest that a collaborative effort is essential to prepare adolescents to navigate an increasingly complex food environment, promoting healthier and more conscious choices. In this sense, collaboration between political decision-makers, education professionals, and stakeholders from the sectors involved (advertisers, advertising agencies, media outlets, social media platforms) is essential. The actions taken today have a substantial impact on the health and well-being of this and future generations.

Keywords: media literacy; food literacy; digital media; school-based intervention; adolescents.

DEI Talks | “Declarative Programming” by Steven Pemberton (ACM Distinguished Speaker)

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The talk “Declarative Programming” will be delivered by Steven Pemberton, a renowned researcher in Computer Science and Information Technology and an ACM Distinguished Speaker, on October 23rd at 10:00, in room B033, and will be moderated by Prof. João Ferreira (DEI). Admission is free.

Abstract:

“In the 50s, when the first programming languages were designed, computers cost millions, and relatively, programmers were almost free. Those programming languages therefore reflected that relationship: it didn’t matter if it took a long time to program, as long as the resulting program ran as fast as possible.
Now, that relationship has been reversed, which I call Moore’s Switch: compare to the cost of programmers, computers are almost free.
And yet we are still programming in descendants of the programming languages from the 50s: we are still telling the computers step by step how to solve the program.
Declarative programming is a new approach to applications: rather than describing exactly how to reach the solution, it describe what the solution should look like, and leaves more of the administrative parts of the program to the computer.
One of the few declarative languages available is XForms, an XML-based language that despite what its name might suggest is not only about form. Large projects, at large companies such as the National Health Service, the BBC and Xerox, have shown that by using XFoms, programming time and cost of application can be reduced to a tenth and sometimes even much more.”

About the Speaker:

“Steven Pemberton is a distinguished researcher in the field of computer science and information technology, with a long and rich history of contributions to the development of the internet and the web. He is affiliated with the Dutch national research centre Centrum Wiskunde & Informatica (CWI) in Amsterdam, The Netherlands, where he conducts research on interaction, declarative programming, and web technologies.
At university he was tutored by Dick Grimsdale who built the world’s first transistorised computer, and who was himself a tutee of Alan Turing. After university, Pemberton — coincidentally — worked in Turing’s old department in Manchester, writing software for the 5th computer in the line of computers Turing had worked on.
Pemberton was the first user of the open internet in Europe when the CWI created the first connection in 1988, and has been involved with the web from its inception, co-designing several web standards, including HTML, CSS, XHTML, XForms, and RDFa. He chairs two groups at W3C.
In addition to his work on the web, Pemberton has also made significant contributions to other areas of computer science, such as the design of programming languages, having co-designed the language that Python is based on, and the study of human-computer interaction. His involvement with ACM includes being editor in chief of The SIGCHI Bulletin, and then ACM interactions for a decade; he has chaired the CHI Conference and he co-founded the Netherlands local SIGCHI group, and chaired several local CHI conferences there.
He has received numerous awards and recognitions for his work, including the ACM SIGCHI Lifetime Service Award and the ACM SIGCHI Lifetime Practice Award.
As a speaker, Pemberton is known for his engaging and informative presentations, which draw on his deep knowledge of computer science and his passion for technology, and cover both social and technological aspects of computing. His talks are always thought-provoking and entertaining, and he has been invited to speak at numerous conferences and events around the world. In 2023 he became an ACM Distinguished Speaker. He is bi-lingual in English and Dutch.
A fuller bio, videos, and a full list of talks is available on his website: https://www.cwi.nl/~steven”

António Coelho visits The Arctic University of Norway to promote immersive teaching and pedagogical innovation

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Prof. António Coelho, a lecturer in the Department of Informatics Engineering (DEI) at the Faculty of Engineering of the University of Porto (FEUP), was recently in Tromsø, at the Arctic University of Norway (UiT), to strengthen ties with European partners and explore new teaching methodologies under the EUGLOH (European University Alliance for Global Health) university alliance.

Context and objectives of the visit

The visit, funded by the Erasmus+ programme, was motivated by the need to renew teaching practices, promoting more immersive and collaborative learning environments. As part of this university alliance, António Coelho leads the development of courses at the University of Porto that use virtual reality, simulations and educational digital games as central tools in the teaching-learning process. One of the key concepts it has been implementing are the so-called “Living Labs” – workshops, hackathons and courses run by interdisciplinary teams of students and teachers, with a strong component of co-creation, digital innovation and community services.

Main ideas defended

Safe learning environments to fail: in games you are allowed to fail and try again, something that António Coelho sees as essential in education. This type of environment encourages students to explore, experiment and learn through error, without fear of failure.

Virtual reality and simulations: make it possible to create a common virtual classroom, regardless of geographical location, where students and teachers can explore scenarios, make decisions and observe consequences in real time.

Interdisciplinary collaboration: for the professor, bringing together students with different backgrounds (e.g. computer science, health, design, music, arts and humanities) boosts creativity, innovation and aesthetic qualities in their work, while strengthening essential skills in the labour market, such as leadership, communication and teamwork.

Virtual internationalisation: in addition to physical mobility, it points out that virtual mobility through immersive environments can significantly increase the presence and quality of international interaction, overcoming the limitations that traditional communication platforms have.

Partnerships and concrete projects

During the visit, António Coelho spoke about the collaboration with EUGLOH, which is promoting various courses based on the Living Lab model, with the participation of the University of Porto and other European institutions, including UiT. Some of the courses mentioned:
“Serious Games as a global health education tool”, starting in autumn 2025, at partner universities such as Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München and Szeged.
“Putting the students first”, a course that will be taught online and face-to-face, involving multiple institutions, with a focus on “learning how to learn” and on students’ well-being and personal development, involving Paris-Saclay and UiT.

The initiative led by Prof. António Coelho reinforces a vision of modern teaching, open to risk and experimentation – teaching in which failure is part of the learning process. “The visit to Norway’s University of the Arctic was more than an institutional exchange: it was a concrete step towards transforming how we teach, how we learn and how we co-operate in international contexts. It is hoped that we will soon be able to see these ideas applied to FEUP projects as well, with direct benefits for students and teachers,” says the Professor in his reflection on the recent mission.