Abstract:

This paper is focused on the presentation of storyboard and storytelling open–source online tools, for its application in the university context and in the education research projects.

The main aim of this paper is to provide an open source tool to support:
(i) university teachers, using storyboard tools as a novel educational resource to include in their master and practice classes, allowing them to structure concepts or explain methodologies through images that have attached short descriptions;
(ii) university students, as future industrial engineers, employing storyboard tools for structuring the decision-making process, by taking into account all the actors that are affected in the decision process;
(iii) education research projects, adopting storyboard as a tool to aid the creative writing through matching creative images with keywords to capture the essence of the research project. In order to deal with the proposed objective, this paper is organised in the following sections:
Section 1 will propose an introduction of the developed work. Considering the importance of storytelling in the three identified contexts: the university teachers, the university students and the education research projects.
Section 2 will propose and describe a set of storyboard and storytelling open-source online tools that are considered interesting for the university application and for the education research projects use.

A matrix of advantages and disadvantages of each identified storyboard open-source online tool will be provided.

Characteristics such as:
(i) video supported, moving images;
(ii) comic strips;
(iii) photos or images, collages;
(iv) social platforms blogs, documents connection;
(v) degree of personalization, free database images and materials;
(vi) music supported;
(vii) easy to use;
(viii) printable version;
(ix) maps connection;
(x) manuals and examples; etc. will be analysed.

According to the provided matrix an assessment process will be performed with the main aim of selecting of the most appropriate storyboard tools, considering the three identified contexts of use.

In section 3, practical applications with the identified storyboard tools will be described. Highlighting the easiness of use, the usability and the utility of each identified storyboard and storytelling open-source online tools.

Finally, in section 4, the conclusions will be provided, considering the strengths the proposed tools, for each of the three identified contexts:
(i) teachers,
(ii) students and
(iii) researchers.

Accordingly, storyboard tools will be used as a support tools for the master classes, decision-making processes, in different areas of the industrial engineering, and creative writing of education research projects. To this regard the three involved actors will benefit from an online and open-source tools for working in the education context and will be supported by the images with short text explanations to develop their classwork and research work.

Keywords:

Storyboard, storytelling, research projects, university teachers, university students, decision-making, master class, comic strips, creative writing.