1) promote a greater involvement of the network members; 2) enlarge the network to new participants namely in the Portuguese speaking

countries; 3) improve and assess the online platform, to fulfil its members’ needs and thus achieving its sustainability.

Further developments

M. José Loureiro, M. João Loureiro, M. Paço, M. Gonçalves, L. Pombo, P. Santos, D. Neri de Souza, F. Neri de Souza

References:

Bitusikova, A., Bohrer, J., Borosic, I., Costes, N., Edinsel, K., Hollander, Jacobsson, G., Jakopovic, I., Kearney, M., K., Mulder, F. (2010). Quality

Assurance in Postgraduate Education. ENQA Workshop Report 12. ENQA (European Association for Quality Assurance in Higher Education), 76.

Retrieved from http://www.enqa.eu.

Catterall, J., Ross, P., Aitchison, C. & Burgin, S. (2011). Pedagogical Approaches that Facilitate Writing in Postgraduate Research Candidature in

Science and Technology. Journal of University Teaching and Learning Practice, 8(2). Retrieved from http://ro.uow.edu.au/jutlp/vol8/iss2/7.

Loureiro, Mª João and Caixinha, S. (2011). Workshop at the ICEM&SIIE 2011, University of Aveiro

Visitors per location between Oct 2011 and May 2012.

* Image icons from http://www.iconfinder.com

Online Resources

1) growing demands of the so-called information society led to the restructuration of Higher Education – Bologna Declaration – aiming

to improve both postgraduate students’ education and research;

2) large variety of curricula constitutes a challenge for the evaluation of postgraduate study programs (Bitusikova et al., 2010), including the

research competences postgraduate students should develop and how they should be promoted and assessed (Catterall et al., 2011);

3) to increase the quality of postgraduate education efforts need to be focused on the study of innovative approaches to the

development and assessment of those competences (Loureiro and Caixinha, 2011).

Context

Objectives: to create an online community of research that allows: 1) The optimization of synergies to support research supervision processes,

creating environments that facilitate interaction and relationship between those involved. 2) The individualized support for the development of

generic research competences (e.g. information literacy, methods and research, communication, collaboration...). 3) The improvement of

research supervision’s quality and, hopefully, the postgraduate training and research.

Stage: early stage of development – existential stage – members involved in definition of identity, development of sense of

community, discussion of perceived Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats (SWOT analysis). Online platform

launched in September 2011 (http://cms.ua.pt/RedeSIDEdu). Several resources already available (bibliography, video recorded sessions,

discussion forums, groups…).

Project

Good acceptance:

Figure above shows that the

platform was visited from

diverse countries.

The average number of visits

per day is around 105 pages.

75% of the visitors return to the platform,

which reveals a high interest on the

available tools and content.

Online Data Indicators

Figure 2. Page views between Oct 2011 and May 2012.

Figure 3. Visitors overview between Oct 2011 and May 2012.

Present a network – RedeSIDEdu which aims to facilitate supervision of research processes, involving actors of postgraduate studies, both

students and supervisors – e.g., the network context, objectives, development stage, acceptance and future steps.

Aim