This course has the goal to conceive and develop an effective research design for the doctoral research project. By the end of the course, the student will know how to:

- Identify and contextually analyze the diversity of research designs implemented in the multidisciplinary field of DigitalMedia;

- Elaborate research questions, based on the ability to organize and carry out a review of relevant international literature, favoring references published in peer-reviewed journals;

- Recognize particular advantages and limitations of several empirical research techniques, articulating research questions, literature review and research design;

- Present and communicate clearly and accurately the assumptions, processes and results of the research project proposal;

- Produce and deliver within a defined deadline a final work that constitutes a first version for evaluation of the research project proposal. 

Syllabus

- Digital media and interdisciplinary research methods: fundamental and applied research

- Nature of scientific knowledge: from conception to operationalization

- Phases and stages of the research process

- Formulation of research questions

- Literature review: how to read and write a research paper

- Research resources

- How to design an experiment: “publish or perish” and “demo or die”

- Scientific writing

- Intellectual property, copyright, and patents; Ethics in research

- Case studies

Teaching methodologies

The work is organized around lectures of a more expository nature, where theoretical and epistemological knowledge of all approaches is transmitted. This theoretical support allows the student to develop her/his research design. The evaluation of the course is done through the submission of a research project proposal.

New University of Lisbon (FCSH) - NOVA FCSH, Torre A101 

FCSH: Paulo Nuno Vicente ( pnvicente@fcsh.unl.pt ) - Thursdays 10h-12h

Summarize the history of media and communication, leading up to the era of digital media.

- Know the latest communicational theories.

- Identify the social and cultural dynamics that create and are created by new mediums

- Analyze current events, companies, and trends in digital media from various perspectives (technical, social, cultural,ethical, economic, etc.)

Syllabus

- Introduction: Mapping new trends in media

- New trends and aesthetics: Popular culture and how media impacts it

- Convergence culture

- Political economy of digital media

- Measuring audiences & big data

- Participatory culture: from prosumers to activism

- Media and Marginalisation

Teaching methodologies

This course's teaching method is based on 'student-centered learning', a pedagogical approach that shifts the focus from professor instruction to student. For this reason, this syllabus is subject to change, once the interests of those enrolled in the PDMD are known to the professor. The assessment of this seminar is based on the program "Adopt an interdisciplinary scholar." During the semester, students are invited to adopt a 21st-century scholar with an interdisciplinary profile. The learning objective of this exercise is to become an expert in this scholar. 

The activity "Adopt an interdisciplinary Scholar" includes five tasks:

1. Intellectual biography

2. Annotated bibliography

3. Scientific Review

4. Oral presentation

5. Written article.

This activity will count for 70% of the student's assessment, and participation 30%.

New University of Lisbon (FCSH) - 

(you should choose 2 optional courses per semester)

** If you choose this course in the 1st semester, you cannot choose it in the 2nd semester **

At the end of this course the student should be able to:

* Understand relevant subjects to be able to innovate in his/her doctoral work;

* Develop specific skills for the development of his doctoral work;

* Develop critical thinking on key scientific areas for the writing of his/her doctoral thesis.

This Course is available for those students who need to learn about subjects that are not made available by existent courses included either in this or other current 3rd cycle Programs at the University of Porto or at Universidade Nova de Lisboa.

Syllabus

The syllabus will be defined by scientific supervisor of this study according to the student's needs. It is up to the Scientific Committee the responsibility of selecting and assigning the appropriate instructor and to agree with the specific subject for the course.

Obs.: Students should contact the teacher responsible for this course before selecting it.

Teaching methodologies

It is common to find students in a doctoral program whose research topics are not fully addressed in the courses available at the 3rd cycle of a given university. This course will enable these students to obtain the required knowledge under the scientific guidance of a PhD researcher specialist in the area. Distributed evaluation without final exam: individual report to be submitted at the end of the course. Each student attending a "Free Study" course has to deliver a final report on the work done under the supervision of a specific, previously assigned Instructor, who also is responsible for the evaluation.

Hugo Nicolau (IST) . hugo.nicolau@tecnico.ulisboa.pt

Tiago Guerreiro (FCUL)  . tjguerreiro@ciencias.ulisboa.pt

Nuno Correia (FCT/UNL)  . nmc@fct.unl.pt

P. N. Vicente (FCSH/UNL) .  pnvicente@fcsh.unl.pt

(you should choose 2 optional courses per semester)

The main objective of this course is to introduce students to the basic research tools, allowing them to:

- Understand the different steps and dimensions that typically integrate an academic research work

- Correctly select bibliographic sources in order to have a deep understanding of a given literature - Identify good practices on research and analyze critically specific research projects

- Identify state-of-the-art research lines in the main fields of the Doctoral Programme in Digital Media

 - Identify ethical issues arising in the context of the research activity

- Enhance skills to communicate a research proposal in an effective way. In addition, the course also intends to endow students with basic entrepreneurship skills

To this end, the course presents basic (economic and business) tools and concepts, allowing students to apply them in specific problems related to business model design. This course intends to create a dynamic of exploration of the most relevant scientific areas for the students of each academic year, promoting their involvement in the adequate preparation of their own research projects. The course focuses also on an introduction to the research process, looking at the whole development process of the doctoral thesis with the future perspectives of exploring the results. The course also fosters the characterization of the socio-economic value of the thesis in order to promote innovation and entrepreneurship. To this end, the syllabus includes as well the presentation of basic economics and business concepts, which allow students to understand the major blocks of a simple business model and evaluate the financial-economic viability of a specific business or project. 

FEUP: Syllabus

- Introduction and motivation

- Basic structure of a research project

- Basic mechanisms and tools for scientific writing

- Bibliography Selection Strategies

- Research methodologies: general vision and comparative analysis of different methodological options in the field of Digital Media (online communities etnography. Design-based research, correlational studies and grounded theory)

- Characterization of different research approaches

- Plagiarism and other ethical considerations in scientific research

- Entrepreneurship: conceptual analysis

- Business Model Design: Business Model Canvas applied to Digital Media Industries. 

FEUP: Teaching methodologies

The teaching methods in this curricular unit are based on an hybrid approach that combines:

- Theoretical lectures and group dynamics;

- Invited seminars lectured by researchers and practitioners with a relevant activity in the field of Digital Media;

- Oral presentations by the students in the class.

- Media technology

- Free option II

- Technologies laboratory

- Human-computer interaction laboratory

- Journalism laboratory

- Management, markers, and consumers laboratory

- Audiovisual creation and and interactive media laboratory

- Information management laboratory

** If you choose this course in the 2nd semester, you cannot choose it in the 1st semester

Describe the opportunities and challenges that the digital age creates for social research Evaluate modern social research from the perspectives of both social science and data science Create modern research proposals that blend ideas from social science and data science Provide a foundation of literacy of social media research

Syllabus

Critically thinking about social media research: potential, limitation, and ethics

Social Media Data Collection Digital & Trace Ethnography

Content analysis, Sentiment Analysis, and Big Data

Social Media Analytics

Social Network Analysis

Gephi-based analysis and Gephi-based research

Visual Analysis

Teaching methodologies

Each class meeting will be split into three main parts:

1. Overview: I’ll begin each class describing the main themes of the week

2. Case studies: We will discuss a few case studies

3. Discussion of proposals: Students present their proposals, and lead the discussion of the proposals.

In general, the class will be a mix of professor-led discussion and student-led discussion. As the semester progresses, students take an increasingly active role in the course.

The evaluation of this course, you will design a plan for an internet research project and will, if possible, also collect (at least) an initial sample of a dataset that you will use to complete the paper.The genre of the paper you can produce can take one of the following forms:

- A draft of a manuscript for submission to a conference or journal

- A proposal for funding (e.g., for submission for the FCT for a graduate student fellowship)

- A draft of the methods chapter of your dissertation

New University of Lisbon (FCSH) - it will happen just on the 1st semester 

The course aims to deepen and systematize the knowledge of Digital Media technologies, considering the following topics:

- Main characteristics of different media and its digital representations

- Multimedia information processing

- Architectures, software models and environments for building multimedia applications

- Navigation and structuring models for multimedia and hypermedia information

- Advanced application systems including mobile applications, tangible interfaces and augmented reality

As a result of this course students should acquire the following skills: 

* Theoretical knowledge about the different media and their digital representation 

* Analyze and process multimedia information

* Define and specify basic media architecture and software for the development of advanced applications

Syllabus

- Introduction: overview and challenges

- Multimedia Information  

   - Static information and dynamic information 

  - Text, image, audio and video: features and computational representation 

  - Color representation 

  - Sampling, spatial and temporal resolution 

  - Formats and representation standards, compression and transmission 

- Information processing 

- Filters 

  - Segmentation 

  - Feature extraction 

- Application development with digital media 

  - Multimedia Project 

  - Tools and development environments 

  - Architecture and application development 

- Hypermedia systems 

  - Models and examples 

  - Narrative and hypermedia 

  - Multimedia applications on mobile devices, tangible interfaces and augmented reality

Teaching methodologies

Classes include lectures and support in project implementation. Throughout the semester there will be two deliverables:

- Article synthesis and presentation on discipline topics, with theme proposed by the professor or proposed by the student and approved by the lecturer This article is individual and must have a maximum of 10 pages in ACM format. It is important to include a critical perspective on the subject(s) being compared with different approaches and paradigms. Although not mandatory, a concept map such as the ones produced by the VUE environment can be used. An example of a synthesis article (in this case applied to the case of augmented reality , considering the evolution as one of the most important conferences in the area - ISMAR )  is available in the digital library of ACM (PDF only available where subscription is available). - Project that includes the specification of components and the implementation of a multimedia system. It identifies the requirements, develops a detailed proposal for the system architecture and hosts a number of specific components. This work can be done individually or in groups ( two elements ). Instructions are available for project specifications. For the class diagrams the UML language can be used, which is available on various information, e.g. Quick Reference  and  UML 2 Class Diagrams. There is also a tool to generate diagrams from a textual explanation . For the class diagrams are multiple tools, for example UMLet and Violet.

New University of Lisbon (FCT) & FCSH - Thursdays 14h-16h

(you should choose 2 optional courses per semester)

** If you choose this course in the 2nd semester, you cannot choose it in the 1st semester **

At the end of this course the student should be able to: * Understand relevant subjects to be able to innovate in his/her doctoral work; * Develop specific skills for the development of his doctoral work; Develop critical thinking on key scientific areas for the writing of his/her doctoral thesis. This Course is available for those students who need to learn about subjects that are not made available by existent courses included either in this or other current 3rd cycle Programs at the University of Porto or at Universidade Nova de Lisboa.

Syllabus The syllabus will be defined by the scientific  supervisor of this study according to the student's needs. It is up to the Scientific Committee the responsibility of selecting and assigning the appropriate instructor and to agree with the specific subject for the course. Obs.: Students should contact the teacher responsible for this course before selecting it.

Teaching methodologies

It is common to find students in a doctoral program whose research topics are not fully addressed in the courses available at the 3rd cycle of a given university. This course will enable these students to obtain the required knowledge under the scientific guidance of a PhD researcher specialist in the area. Distributed evaluation without final exam: individual report to be submitted at the end of the course. Each student attending a "Free Study" course has to deliver a final report on the work done under the supervision of a specific, previously assigned Instructor, who also is responsible for the evaluation.

FCT: Nuno Correia  nmc@fct.unl.pt 

(you should choose 2 optional courses per semester)

The curricular unit aims to deepen and systematize students' knowledge regarding the user-centric design and development of interactive systems involving Digital Media. Students will be knowledgeable about the methods for designing and evaluating an interactive system, while also gaining skills and competencies in the process of developing a concrete project. Overall, they will be able to propose and evaluate innovative solutions for Digital Media interaction problems.

Syllabus - Interaction design process - Iterative design - User-centered design - Design and usability principles - Design principles - Usability attributes - Heuristics - Conceptual models - Sketching user experiences - Design for the wild - Sketching attributes - Experience design - Sketching techniques, including interaction - Paper sketches and prototypes - Prototyping - High vs low fidelity prototypes - Computational and non-computational prototypes - Prototyping techniques and tools - Evaluation methods - User studies - Heuristic evaluation - Interaction 

design and multimedia project development.

Teaching methodologies

The classes include the presentation of the theoretical concepts, illustrated by application examples, followed by its practical application by the students in the development of multimodal/multimedia projects. The program will be updated with each edition, in a model of modules covering the aspects referred to in the topics to be addressed. The course evaluation comprises the development of a media interaction related project (topics are discussed in class and usually relate to students' research work). The project includes an initial specification, sketches, and a prototype. The methods for sketching and prototyping are discussed in class. User evaluation is also recommended. The work is mostly centered on the user interface and user experience. The work done is presented in a session with all students.

(starts February 24 (until March 24) at FCUL and then online from April 7)

For students in Porto, online until March 24. Then in person in Porto in room B122

IST: Valentina Nissi (valentina.nisi@tecnico.ulisboa.pt )

(you should choose 2 optional courses per semester)

- Aim at facilitating sense-making around digital information, while providing the tools for public audiences to understand the world - Promote the understanding of the main information visualization techniques and the theoretical foundations necessary for their creation, including the fundamentals of graphic perception, visual coding methods and the main techniques of interaction and narrative - Promote the critical evaluation of data visualizations, understand their strengths and weaknesses and suggest improvements - Stimulate the capacity for data analysis and determination of the problem being treated, organizing the results properly, transforming vague problems into solvable issues and understanding what to highlight - Promote the ability to read and discuss the current literature on visualization - Promote the acquisition of ideas and interaction techniques through sketches - Promote the use of data to produce stories with impact and authority 

Syllabus

Journalism, data and visualization: new tools and new challenges - Master the use of data in journalistic storytelling - Telling visual stories with data - Visualization history - The role of data mining and open data - Wisdom, Data, Information, and Knowledge - Exploratory versus explanatory - Directed by the author versus directed by the reader - The specifics of narrative visualization - The value of visualization - The design of the visualization - The process - Types (sets and sequences, temporal data, maps, shapes, text and hypertext, hierarchies and graphics) - Nominal, ordinal, interval and proportion - Density, focus and small multiples - Environment | Desktop, Mobile, Tablet and more - How did narratives evolve on different platforms? - Conventional and unconventional forms of presentation - Success stories: who is innovating in this space? - Perception, aesthetics, interactivity, animation, color, narrative and software

Teaching methodologies

In this course, students will be exposed to the topic of visualization, to develop critical thinking about the issues raised by this topic. They will also be exposed to practical development and will have contact with the available tools. Classes will be theoretical/practical. The first half of each class will be predominantly theoretical, with the subject presented and illustrated with examples. The second half of the class is intended to discuss mandatory readings of the main coursework (individual and group), and to carry out small practical tasks on the subject presented in the first half of the class. The course unit's evaluation is based on the quality of student participation in class, the average of the various components of group work, and the classification obtained in the individual final work: - Participation in classes: 20% - Group project: 40% - State of the art Report: 40%

(you should choose 2 optional courses per semester)

- Know the operating logic of the digital market/industry - Characterize and decode the structure, dynamics, control, and circulation of knowledge/talent in a society that generates data and consumes information - Be able to discern the Impact factors of online business in offline and vice versa - Major development/research topics;- Ethical issues.

Syllabus

- Industries and digital market; - Digital transformation and corporate culture; - Content consumers, electronic/online players, and virtual interactivity; - Producers/managers of content and role of digital platforms (social networks and social media); - Scientific agenda.

Teaching methodologies

1- Define the state of the art in the various areas of investigation. Bibliometry and meta-analysis; 2- Apply creativity techniques to generate ideas and fit them as to their relevance in the scientific agenda; 3- Laboratory testing of ideas, concepts, and models; 4- Link digital technology and management in a concrete organizational context; 5- Apply qualitative and quantitative methods. Evaluation will take place through the submission of a final project.

Kira Gama Rocha ( kgrocha@fe.up.pt )

(you should choose 2 optional courses per semester)

Promote the understanding of the main theoretical and conceptual elements in the definition of interactive narrative, recognizing its historical trajectory and its plural interdisciplinary appropriations Promote the understanding and analytical appropriation about the expressive and communicative potentialities made possible by the language of digital media Promote the understanding and analysis of contemporary scientific knowledge in the sphere of user experience and human-centered design in the specific context of interactive narrative Operationalize interaction design strategies applied to an original digital project to be developed in subgroups Promote the acquisition of technological knowledge related to the digital interactive creation process Promote the conception and operationalization of an interactive narrative project, based on the appropriation of digital creation platforms and tools.

Syllabus - Fundamental definitions: from narratology to ludology in case studies. From the concept of "narrative" to"interaction" to "interactive narrative": Immersion, Presence, and Flow - The language of digital media: paths and milestones of interactive narrative in case studies (virtual reality, augmented reality, interactive digital games, interactive film) - Interdisciplinary scientific knowledge and interactive narrative: From Psychology to Cognitive Sciences - Digital Creation Laboratory: Introduction to the fundamentals of multimedia. Introduction to online tools and platforms for non-linear/interactive digital production: script, flowchart, interface

Teaching methodologies

The curricular unit is organized in two components: (1) theoretical-practical, predominantly expository, presenting concepts and theories and discussing its implications in subgroups and in plenary; the analytical appropriation of concepts, theories and practices is carried out actively, using dynamics of direct participation by students; (2) laboratorial, predominantly oriented to the application of technological knowledge and its foundations, favoring the agile creation of prototypes of low and high fidelity.

Theoretical-practical evaluation: - individual - frequency (20% of the final classification) - in subgroups - research and analysis exercises (20% of the final classification)

Laboratory evaluation: - individual - creation and prototyping exercises (20% of the final classification) - in subgroups - final prototype (40% of the final classification)

(you should choose 2 optional courses per semester)

The curricular unit “Laboratory of Information Management” is framed by the central role that information systems play in the context of digital media. At the end of this course, students should be able to: – Know and describe the role that information management plays in the context of digital media; – Know the challenges and solutions associated with the collection, description, representation, storage, handling,processing, presentation, and preservation of information; – Use tools for tasks of collection, description, characterization, representation, storage, manipulation, processing,presentation, retrieval, and information presentation.

Syllabus – Historical perspective of information management; – Information systems: definition, components, applications; – Collection, description and characterization of data collections; – Storage, representation, manipulation and access to information; – Information processing, presentation, visualization and retrieval; – Information management and governance; – Information preservation.

Teaching methodologies

The curricular unit is organized into six thematic modules: 1. Introduction to information management; 2. Collection, description and characterization of data collections; 3. Database management systems; 4. Information retrieval and processing; 5. Information management and governance; 6. Information preservation. The modules are organized in theoretical-practical classes, with an expository component and a practical component. In each module there will be a connection with researchers and professionals through invited lectures. The assessment is carried out on the basis of two individual components: - The report on one of the thematic areas addressed (50%) - A practical project on one of the thematic areas, which includes a descriptive report (50%)The weight of each component is 50%. The theme to be developed by each student, in both evaluation components, is defined on a case-by-case basis and established during the first module.