Institute Name: Universidade do Minho, Dept. of Informatics
Description:
The University of Minho was founded in 1973 and started its academic
activities in 1975/76. Most of the teaching and scientific activities are
carried out in two sites: the campus of Gualtar, in Braga, with about 8,800
students, and the campus of Azurém, in Guimarães, with about 3500 students.
The postgraduate population is currently above 800. Most of the technological
courses are offered in Guimarães. Science, economics, education, management
and arts courses are predominantly located in Braga.The University has
31 departments and 11 research centres. The departments are integrated
in seven schools: Engineering, Sciences, Economics and Management, Arts
and Human Sciences, Social Sciences, Education, and Teacher's Training.
In the past few years, the number of undergraduate students has grown at
a rate of about 15% per year. A student population approaching 15,000 is
planned for the academic year 1998/99. Such growth rate, unusual
in Portuguese universities, will make the University of Minho one of the
biggest Portuguese universities before the end of the
century.
The School of Engineering, with approximately 280 members of staff and 3500 students, is in a period of rapid expansion of its infrastructures, and aims at systematically improving its scientific and teaching standards. In order to achieve this objective, its 8 departments are fully responsible for their specific scientific areas, namely for the running of undergraduate and postgraduate courses and a variety of research projects. They also cooperate in industrial development programmes. The School has 7 research centres in the areas of: Information Technologies and Telecommunications; Textile Science and Technology; Civil Engineering; Mechanical Engineering; Polymer Engineering; Biological Engineering; Production and Energy Technologies; Materials; and Biotechnology and Fine Chemistry.
The Department of Informatics (DI) is one of the departments that is
involved in the Information Technologies and Telecommunications research
centre. The DI is involved in three undergraduate degrees (systems engineering
and informatics; mathematics and computer science; and business informatics),
a M.Sc. in informatics and hosts several Ph.D. students. The DI has 75
members of staff organised in research groups that cover areas such as:
computer science foundations, operating systems, artificial intelligence,
computer communications, computer engineering, software engineering, information
systems, teaching and informatics. Requirements engineering is a research
issue for more than one of these groups, specially for the information
systems and software engineering groups. Research projects are financed
by national (e.g., JNICT, PRAXIS) and international programmes (e.g., ESPRIT)
and often involve researchers from other institutions (in Portugal and
abroad).
University of Minho is also a partner of several interface institutions
that facilitate the establishment of contacts with local and
national companies in order to carry out collaborative research and consultancy.
The DI is very much involved with one of these institutions - IditeMinho.
Through IdeiteMinho's "centre for the development of information systems"
the DI has the opportunity to conduct action research projects in the area
of information systems planning and information systems development.
Researchers associated with the project:
Prof. Joao Alvaro Carvalho
Brief CVs of Key Researchers:
Name: Prof. Joao Alvaro Carvalho
Nationality: Portuguese.
Academic Qualifications & Experience: Prof. Carvalho received his PhD from the Information System Dept. of UMIST, Manchester, UK in 1991. Since 1992 he is assistant professor at Universidade do Minho. He teaches Informations Systems; Project supervisor for final (5th) year undergraduate students; Dissertation supervisor for Master level student and PhD students.
Prof. Carvalho's research interests include the use of IT in organisations;
information systems development, information
systems modelling, requirements engineering; method engineering; computer
supported cooperative work
Selected Publications:
Carvalho, João A. e Luis Amaral, Organisational Knowledge and its Manipulation as the Basis for the Study of Information Technology Applications in Organisations, ECIS'96 - 4th European Conference on Information Systems, Lisboa 1996.
Chaves, António e João A. Carvalho, Expressiveness and Legibility in
Conceptual Modelling: A Comparison of Three Techniques in Siau, K. e Y.
Wand, Proceedings of the workshop "EMMSAD'96 - Evaluation of Modeling
Methods in Systems Analysis and Design", Heraklion, Grécia, 20 e 21
de Maio de 1996 no âmbito da conferência "CAiSE'96 - 8th International
Conference on Advanced Information Systems Engineering".
Santos, Isabel e João A. Carvalho, An Assessment of the Applicability of OOA to the Development of Information Systems, Proceedings of the ICRE'96 - International Conference on Requirements Engineering (Colorado Springs, Colorado, USA, April 1996), IEEE Computer Society Press, 1996.
Carvalho, João A. e Luis Amaral, Using an Explicit System of Concepts
for Information Systems Modelling: COMOD, in Zupancic, J. e S. Wryzca (eds.),
Proccedings of the 4th Intenational Conference Information Systems Development-
ISD'94: Methods & Tools, Theory & Practice, Bled, Eslovénia, 20
a 22 de Setembro de 1994, 93-103.
Contact Details:
Principal Investigator: Prof. Joao Calvaro
Address: University of Minho, School of Engineering, Department of Informatics, Campus of Azurem, 4800 Guimaraes, Portugal
Telephone number: +351 53 510258/9
Telefax number: +351 53 510250
EMail: jac@ci.uminho.pt
List of Members