The Part of the role of the Institute for the Environment in this implementation process is to initiate, administer and participate in establishing an IAQ accreditation process to qualify a first tier of independent IAQ experts. These in turn will be responsible for future accreditation sessions. In preparation for this process, the Institute for the Environment has been initiating supervising and participating in the development of IAQ Certification and Management Plans, as well as in the IAQ accreditation courses that will take place in Portugal from October 2006 until April 2007 This paper presents some aspects of the IAQ plans and procedures developed in Portugal for this effect. It sheds light on some of the technical, institutional, and policy challenges and highlights some of the constraints encountered so far. Special attention is given to the investment in the harmonization of existing IAQ knowledge, practices and procedures, and the effort needed to fill in some of the knowledge gaps observed.

Redes Sociais (RSs) representam um tipo de comunidade virtual cujos conteúdos são fomentados pela interação dos usuários. Entender com são as nuances da participação individual nas RGs podem representar um recorte do comportamento da sociedade, sob diversas perspectivas. Nesse sentido, este trabalho tem como foco a elaboração de uma estratégia de mapeamento da participação de usuários em RSs sobre eventos turísticos. Será realizada uma análise qualitativa, com a aplicação do método Grounded Theory, a respeito das informações partilhadas por dois grupos específicos de usuários: turistas e residentes. O intuito desse método é desvendar se os grupos de usuários apresentam um padrão de comportamento qualitativo na RS. A comunidade escolhida é uma RS sobre um evento turístico brasileiro, chamado de São João, na cidade de Campina Grande, Paraíba. Além da presença de uma metodologia qualitativa, no contexto de RSs, outra importante contribuição deste trabalho diz respeito à descoberta das peculiaridades na participação dos grupos de usuários, de acordo com suas condutas na RS.

Research management promotes an integrated approach to identifying, capturing, evaluating, retrieving, and sharing all of a higher education institutions' research information assets. These assets may include databases, documents, policies and procedures. Conceptually linked, knowledge and research assume critical relevance as an essential tool to insuring Higher Education institutions quality. Institutions are challenged to develop robust (internal) quality assurance systems in which information about scientific production, research projects, staff curricula are considered as relevant indicators. This commitment with science and research is also visible by the opportunities promoted by institutions for the academic development of their staff. Accordingly, the assessment of research and science indicators becomes an essential step for the definition of research development programmes in HE institutions. Based on this framework, it was developed an online questionnaire to be answered by academic staff, trying to assess some science and research indicators. Trying to measure the research potential of all faculty staff, this assessment tool is organized in distinctive four dimensions, namely researcher's (i) biographic data, (ii) scientific identification, scientific outputs (books, Books' chapters, scientific paper indexed and proceedings), (iii) research project with competitive funding and (iv) suggestions to improve research production. In what concerns to the application, all faculty staff members (teachers and researchers) were invited to contribute. The results were presented and discussed personally and collectively with all academic community. These results also provide relevant Key Performance Indicators, also known as KPIs or Key Success Indicators (KSIs), that could help managers and researchers gauge the effectiveness of various functions and processes important to achieving organizational goals. If scientific research is a strategic priority to higher education institutions, this kind of KPIs could be used to help academic managers to assess whether they or their faculty/research staff are on or off target towards those goals.