Aoife Ahern is Head of the School of Civil Engineering in University College Dublin. She graduated from Trinity College Dublin with a degree in civil engineering and a PhD from University College London and has been a lecturer, first in TCD and later in UCD since 2000. She also holds a professional diploma in Teaching and Learning. Her primary research area is transport engineering but over the last 18 years, she has developed a strong interest in teaching, education and engineering; in particular, she has been engaged in both national and international research projects looking at how Critical Thinking can be taught and defined in the university curriculum and in engineering education. Caroline Dominguez is a professor at the Engineering Department of the University of Trás-os-Montes e Alto Douro in Portugal, where she lectures business/industrial management. She is a member of CIDTFF (Didactics and Technology in Education of Trainers) and CETRAD (Transdisciplinary Studies for Development) research centers where she leads and participates in national and international funded projects (at present coordinating the Crithinkedu Eramsus + European funded project). Her main research interest and publications (ORCID nº: 0000-0002-8486-4142) are on educational issues (critical thinking) as well as project, quality, lean and human resources management. Before pursuing an academic career, she was the head manager of organizations dealing with development issues in Peru and Portugal, where she developed and implemented various international funded projects. Ciaran McNally is a civil engineer and holds a PhD from University College Dublin. His primary research interests relate to construction materials and he has been coordinator of several projects at a national and European level. He also holds a professional diploma in teaching and learning. John O'Sullivan is a Civil Engineer from Trinity College Dublin, and holds a Masters Degree from Queen's University Belfast and a PhD from the University of Ulster. He has been a lecturer in the UCD School of Civil Engineering since 2001. Although his primary research interests relate to environmental hydraulics and hydrology, he has a long-held interest in teaching and pedagogic innovation. He holds a professional Certificate in Teaching and Learning and serves on the School's Teaching and Learning Committee. Daniela Pedrosa is a Post-Doc Researcher at the University of Trás-os-Montes and Alto Developing optimum solutions to engineering problems typically relies on structured and complex thought processes that require evaluation, interpretation and opinion. Well-developed critical thinking (CT) skills are essential for dealing with the multi-dimensional nature of these problems. CT in an engineering context is well reported in teaching and learning academic literature. However, much of this is framed within theoretical and conceptual frameworks. Practical approaches of how CT skills are best promoted in engineering curricula are less common. A state-of-art review of practical interv...

Purpose The purpose of this research is twofold: identify and gain a better insight on factors that can influence high performance of Information Systems (IS) project teams from the perspective of IS professionals (i.e. team members and leaders), and thus contribute to the general discussion on high-performance project teams; and offer both IS project team members and their project managers some feedback on how to build and manage teams more constructively and to enhance team performance in today’s demanding business environment. Design/methodology/approach The authors used an exploratory case study of a small-size holding company and a qualitative analysis of the data to address the research questions. Findings Results show a set of perceived factors that can influence high team performance in IS projects. Participants’ perceptions barely coincide. For instance, mutual trust was the only factor suggested as facilitating high team performance by 5 participants (out of 13). Differences may be because of participants’ characteristics (e.g. time on the job). All perceived factors are classified in the literature as nontechnical (i.e. having to do with behavioral and/or socio-organizational matters of project management). Originality/value This paper is among the very few empirical studies consolidating knowledge on high-performance IS project teams (e.g. it is still unclear if there are IS project team-specific factors that influence high performance). For the highly technical IS industry, this study came across human-centric factors transversal to different project teams.

Peer-assessed online collaborative writing is of growing importance for higher education. Based on the quantitative and qualitative analysis of collected data, this work presents the results of a case study in a graduate civil engineering course at the University of Trás-os-Montes e Alto Douro, Vila Real, Portugal. After an overall presentation of the learning activity, it examines students’ attitudes towards web-based peer assessment and identifies which factors are related to students’ use and appreciation of feedback. In addition, an analysis of the type of feedback is presented in an attempt to evaluate students’  written communication skills. The results of this study provide indications on how to improve the design and implementation of future web-based peer assessment tasks and raise questions on the effectiveness of peer/teacher grading in the use of feedback

The construction industry plays a very important role in the Portuguese economy. In 2009, it was among the top five economic sectors, representing 13% of total employment. Nevertheless, project failures are still frequent mainly due to inadequate management practices and to the intrinsic characteristics of projects of the construction industry. Even though Portuguese construction has improved in recent years, cost and schedule overruns, low productivity and final product quality problems are still common. In this context, project management is a crucial tool for improving construction operations and for the overall success of projects. The aim of this article is to contribute to the discussion on success evaluation factors in a field where little has been written-the construction industry. Through a survey of 40 medium and large Portuguese companies several factors were identified which are currently considered in the evaluation of project success, as found in the literature review. The results show that the traditional factors, often referred to as the "Atkinson elements triangle" (cost, time and quality), are still the most relevant for evaluating the success of a project, but others, such as customer involvement and acceptance, have gained importance in recent years.