This work-in-progress research paper explores how the growing recognition of the social implications of artificial intelligence (AI) is prompting the need to revise engineering curricula. preparing engineers to promote social engagement, foster public participation, and enhance citizens' AI literacy. The paper is based on ongoing research that includes interviews with engineers working in AI, directors of engineering courses, and policymakers focusing on the identification of the main implications of AI for society. The preliminary results point out the relevance of debating engineering curricula in light of the new challenges imposed to meet citizens' and community expectancies and develop AI literacy.

Despite the opportunities for intercultural exchange and diversity in higher education, HEIs continue to grapple with implementing diversity policies and establishing a culture that fosters dialogue and acceptance of diverse perspectives and modes of life. This paper analyzes important trends in the country (Portugal), highlighting key incidents and identified problems, as well as showcasing main practices that have been implemented. Furthermore, it describes the primary policy instruments adopted by one specific university - University of Minho- and provides insights into students' perceptions of discrimination and hate practices within the same institution. By examining these aspects, this work aims to contribute to the understanding of the challenges and potential strategies for Higher Education Institutions (HEI) in fostering a culture of diversity, ultimately paving the way for more inclusive and equitable learning environments in engineering education.

Answers and discussions on the subject of skill gaps have established that young Higher Education Institutions (HEI) graduates display high rates of job-hopping and strong resistance to signing long-term contracts with companies. These graduates are part of a generation with increasing access to online and/or freelance work, as well as working simultaneously for several companies. However, local companies, particularly in the North region of Portugal, are still strongly dependent on people able to make a long-term commitment due to the nature of their operations. This text seeks to shed light on the implications of this mismatch between an increasingly mobile, nomadic labour force and long-term recruitment needs among companies. This working in progress shall analyse data obtained through interviews held with 20 employers in the Northern region of Portugal, shedding light on this disparity as both a great source of instability and of new opportunities for local entrepreneurs to develop innovative firms able to respond to HEI graduate profiles.

This practice work in progress presents the perception of employers regarding the skills graduates bring to the labor market and the strategies they implement to cope with soft skill problems. It draws on an original qualitative data gathered from interviews with human resources managers of 20 firms located in the North of Portugal, a region that has been engaged in a public initiative that attempts to solve skill gaps and deficits. The findings show that employers complain about soft skills and blame higher education institutions for their skill problems. The type of soft skills required by employers reveals different strategies. The employers sampled implement remedial strategies and turn to the expertise of consultancy and other specialized services to provide training for their recent graduates. Sometimes, higher education appears as a partner for critical knowledge development. Insisting on the need to strengthening the links between different institutions in Portugal, the text underlines the assumption that a multidisciplinary approach joining social sciences and humanities with technical fields of education should be fostered as one of the solutions to cope with soft skills gaps.

This paper presents a part of the development of a system for the analysis of yarn through image processing. The creation of a system capable of analyzing quality and making it accessible to any yarn producer becomes the main motivation for this project. The obtention of the linear mass through image processing considers captures from a low-cost camera. With this system it will be possible to measure yarn characteristics such as linear mass, hairiness and irregularities. The preliminary tests, in a comparison with the existing equipment in the market, show a reduced deviation error, representing a good result.

This paper describes the initial steps of a project developed with the aim of fostering diversity and the gender equality at the University of Minho, with a particular focus on the school of engineering. The project follows the action-research method, starting by gathering the perspectives of the various organizational participants (academics, non-academics, researchers, and students). The insights emerging from the collected information supported the definition and the prioritization of actions and activities of the Gender Equality Plan. Four levels of intervention were considered: Human Resources and Management Practices, Research Content and Delivery, Teaching and Students' Services and Institutional Communication, under the EQUAL-IST Project (Gender Equality Plans for Information Sciences and Technology Research Institutions). The techniques used to gather the supporting information included interviews with decision makers, as well as focus groups with students, teachers, and academic staff at the School of Engineering. From the analysis of the gathered information emerged a set of challenges and opportunities to improve gender equality. The Gender Equality Plan (GEP) now being implemented at the university addresses the identified challenges and integrates actions to seize the opportunities to achieve greater gender equality. GEP was designed in line with 3 main goals: raise awareness, implement structural changes and engage stakeholders in mind-set change.

This paper is a work in progress research to practice project developed in order to enhance the quality of engineering programs. It is a fact that the so called global work market has become challenging and increasingly multicultural The not so new trend for university programs is the internationalization that is a strategic element to raise the quality of courses and thus attracts more students. This trend has made many universities to revise and update their strategies so that their students and their graduates can have the essential academic and professional skills that allow them to enter and to stay in the work market. Although it is not the only measure that guarantees a good course it adds value for the formation of the new professional. The objective is to make it more attractive and promote the double diploma in order to higher the quality of the offered programs.

This work in-progress research to practice paper analyzes the learning achievements of first-year engineering students, in order to observe if there are eventual gender differences. Studies suggest that women have higher enrollment rates and achievements in Higher Education. Women also dedicate more time studying and are more committed attaining their degree than men. Although the percentage of female students' application in Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) courses increased in the last years, there is still a greater proportion of women choosing higher education in social sciences and humanities areas. A sample of 723 1st year engineering students (66.8% male) was analyzed according to their academic background, their social origin and their habits of study. The results do not differentiate the Engineering Students according to their gender in socio-cultural variables of origin, however they significantly differentiate the two groups of students in their habits of study. Female students show greater organization of their time and activities of study, being also more thoughtful and self-regulated learners. At the same time, at the end of the first semester, they present a higher rate of successful curricular units and higher average grades. Some implications are highlighted for the teaching-learning process in engineering courses.

The Professional of today needs to acquire a dynamic ability to absorb information, adjust to organizational goals, and navigate in a complex work environment. For this reason, a classic approach seems to be more useful for the demands of today's job market. It is at least interesting to notice, that the classic approach is being neglected, at a time when its product might be more interesting than ever. The Engineering Education Team of COPEC — Science and Education Research Council has designed a program that is knowledge centered and specially challenging, which integrates classical engineering approaches and real experience in order to achieve a high level of engineers ready to perform as professionals or researchers. It aims to form the Engineer — a professional that is capable to learn for life and be creative in many ways.

Retention is an issue that has been faced by many engineering colleges due to the difficulties and lack of knowledge about what it really is to be an engineer. The first 3 years of the course are particularly intense and hard. A way to overcome this period might be achieved by implementing a new kind of course, more enticing and dynamic. That is the idea of COPEC's engineering education research team, to embed a program with a more interesting activity for students in the first year. It is what has been named after “The Year of Discovery”, a short-term workshop in order to show students the possibilities of performing as engineers in a global environment - a project developed for a private university, in order to decrease the retention rate in their engineering programs.

This paper shows the course designed by COPEC — Science and Education Research Council education research team, for engineering students what is called “working with communities course”, which provides the students of engineering in 3rd year the chance to work with consultancy for the entrepreneurial community, in the region. It is for an engineering school of a private university and the goal is provide the needed resources to enable interdisciplinary efforts to prepare engineering students to tackle real-world challenges in engineering, entrepreneurship and new business ventures as professionals. The process is designed in order to offer a space that has been named after “innovative office”, where local entrepreneurs go with a problem or project to discuss and to find sustainable solutions under the consultancy of young engineers. So far the program has been working well and is opening doors for young engineers.

Utilizing emerging technologies to provide expanded learning opportunities is critical to the success of future generations. So teachers have to be prepared to motivate and entice the students about getting knowledge pertinent for their formation as engineers. This paper describes the "International Engineering Educator" developed by the engineering education research team of COPEC — Science and Education Research Council. It is offered by the International Institute of Education of COPEC, which is a certification organization in accordance with the Ministry of Education of the Country referring to the National Law of Higher Education. It also offers a professional register as "International Engineering Educator" of the International Society for Engineering Pedagogy for those who are interested in such certification as something else. The target attendees for this program are the engineering community of CPLP — Community of Portuguese Language Countries. It is successful and many interested professionals are attending the program.

Knowledge in Basic Sciences, Basic Sciences of Engineering and Specifics of Engineering are fundamental for the education of an engineer. However the insertion in labor market demands sometimes some practice or experience that should also be provided by the engineering schools. Taking this into account, the Engineering Education Research Team of COPEC - Science and Education Research Council has designed a program for an engineering school which main goal is to prepare engineers for the future work market, the engineer for the future. It is an interdisciplinary environmental engineering program that intends to offer students an exciting opportunity to focus their technical capabilities on evolving science that affects human quality of life in an international scale and can simultaneously help preserve and restore areas in which they work. Emerging issues challenge environmental engineers in public health, conservation and restoration of natural systems, water and wastewater treatment, pollution prevention, and more.

Following the new trend in education, more focused on a global perspective, COPEC - Science and Education Research Council is offering an MBA, online, in Social Engineering for all Countries of CPLP - Portuguese Language Countries Community. The goal is to cover these countries' engineers, which are also seeking for opportunities, as the majority are countries of growing economy based on their very rich resources. The idea of an online program is the possibility of reaching a broader audience and at the same time of enriching the experience of offering and implementing a program that can disseminate ideas and concepts, which fits the needs of the target audience. The Education Research Team of COPEC is convinced that Engineers with proper knowledge and skills can take action in order to solve social problems, as engineers are problem solvers.

The Portuguese-speaking countries are home to more than 240 million people located across the globe but having cultural similarities and a shared history. The CPLP (Community of Portuguese Language Countries) nations have a combined area of about 10,742,000 square kilometers (4,148,000 sq. mi), which is larger than Canada. The proposal of this paper is to show and discuss with some details how engineering education is developed in countries of Portuguese languages due to the peculiarities in the historic development of the countries.

This paper presents a study on the development of a methodology to automatically determine yarn mass parameters using Image Processing (IP) techniques. The sample images were analyzed and processed through a custom made application developed in LabVIEW from National Instruments using IMAQ Vision Toolkit. The results show that a reliable diameter, mass and yarn faults determination can be obtained using IP techniques. Step-by-step algorithms used to determine yarn mass parameters are described. The presented approach allows improving products quality as well as the possibility of increasing the efficiency of the textile industry.

This paper presents a method to automatically determine yarn hairiness using Image Processing (IP) techniques. After image acquisition, the samples are analyzed and processed by a custom-made application developed in Lab VIEW from National Instruments with the IMAQ Vision toolkit. The results show that a reliable quantification of the yarn hairiness index can be obtained. This methodology can be used as an efficient alternative to the traditional commercial hairiness testers suppressing their constraints. Step-by-step algorithms used to isolate the yarn core, to highlight the fibres and to measure the hairiness index are described.

The large Continent of America has in its territory besides overseas regions, dependencies and colonies 35 sovereign countries, 25 in North America and 12 in South America. Among them there are two big countries Brazil, which official language is Portuguese and Argentina, which official language is Spanish. Both are of political and economical importance in South America. They both belong to the so called Iberian America, which is a term used since the second half of the 19th century to refer collectively to the countries in the Americas, which were formerly colonies of Spain or Portugal. The Iberian countries in Europe are Portugal, Spain, Andorra and Gibraltar. The objective of this paper is to present the history and he current status of engineering education in Iberian America countries Brazil and Argentina followed by the countries that originated the engineering education in these countries, Portugal and Spain.

This paper presents a new innovative technological solution idea to automatically quantify the yarn mass parameters (hairiness, diameter and mass), the yarn production characteristics (snarls length, number of cables, fibres orientation and cables orientation) and the yarn surface porosity, as well as the yarn associated fabrics prediction, using Image Processing (IP) and Artificial Intelligence (AI) techniques. The presented approach suppresses the constraints of the traditional commercial testers used for yarn quality parameterization measurement, as it is characterized by its low cost, low weight, low volume, higher resolution and precision, high technological stability, reduced maintenance and lower hardware complexity, presenting the possibility of online use for control during production. Moreover, as a result of the superior resolution and elevated accuracy, the automatic determination of some new yarn relevant parameters will be introduced (e.g. protruding/loop fibres length and number, irregularities length, absolute number of cables and surface porosity, among others). Finally, the results of this project will establish, among other benefits for the textile industry, a new level of parameterization, allowing increased products' quality and superior efficiency, contributing to an economic recovery.