Portugal
The current situation
Many Portuguese universities keep repositories of educational resources. An example is the one maintained by the University of Minho (http://e-repository.tecminho.uminho.pt/), a DSpace-powered repository containing many open educational resources. Its main aim is to contribute towards preserving, making known and available the educational resources produced by the University (elearning-repository(at)tecminho.uminho.pt).Another institution, which creates and maintains educational resources, is the Institute Camões (http://www.instituto-camoes.pt), an organism of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs which is responsible for the teaching of Portuguese as a Foreign Language in Universities abroad. It contains the largest repository of educational resources for Portuguese as a Foreign Language (cvc(at)instituto-camoes.pt).
Looking ahead
- the technological update of all Basic and Secondary schools and;
- the promotion of the integration and widespread use of ICT in teaching, learning and school administration
- creation;
- evaluation and certification;
- deployment and organisation;
- educational use/curriculum integration.
- it will hold information about commercial and non-commercial DLRs but may also include non-commercial DLRs themselves;
- users will be able to customise their repository;
- statistics will include the identification of popular functions, user surveys and the characterisation of user types (registered users);
- the system is intended to be user-friendly;
- it revolves around a strong notion of user community; however, it is still too soon to know what the response will be.
Other Portuguese educational repositories
General governmental initiatives. Museums, archives and libraries providing access to their resources.
Biblioteca Nacional Digital - with 20,000 documents.
DGEMN - With about 2.5 terabits of information, the Architectural Heritage Information System holds the largest online archive on architecture, engineering and urban planning, with 200,000 drawings, 340,000 photographs and 10,000,000 pages of text.
Resources in Portuguese museums - In matriznet you can find more than 30,000 objects and 45,000 images from museum's collections.
Associations/universities initiatives - (e.g. an initiative to put extra focus on mathematics to influence the students’ choice of education).
GAVE - 1000 mathematics resources 9º year.
Private/business
Microsoft has signed an agreement with 4 ministries in Portugal. Innovative teachers’ project is one of the results. http://www.professoresinovadores.com.pt. The teachers get software etc. and a diploma "Innovative teachers" by Microsoft.
Notes
- Competence Centres are local structures, comprising Universities, Schools of Education, associations of Teacher Training Centres, Teacher Associations. They train and support schools and teachers in the use of ICT. They also undertake research and help define national policies.
EdReNe members
EduWeb, Portuguese/Brazilian holding company, based in Portugal.
DGIDC - Direcção-Geral de Inovação e de Desenvolvimento Curricular, Ministry of Education
Presentations
EduWeb
http://edrene.org/presentations/Portugal-EduWeb.ppt
DGIDC - The Repository of the Portuguese Ministry of Education
https://files.itslearning.com/data/826/open/CO19/535.ppt

