Abstract:

In this article, we will present the project, funded by European funds (ref. PTDC/LLT-LIG/31113/2017) and developed at the University of Minho, PortLinguE. The aim of the project is to use open data to create resources for the scientific community and society in general and to empower the community itself to participate as content and knowledge creators.

Cronin (2017, p. 1-2) notes that the concept of "open education" has been defined from different perspectives (for instance, open as in resources that don't have a cost for the user or open as in admission to formal education without entry requirements). Our project is oriented towards open education, from the perspective of open educational resources, as it uses open data to create new resources, and from the perspective of open educational practices, as we seek to "respect and empower learners as co-producers on their lifelong learning paths" (Ehlers, 2011) by promoting open learning architectures and citizen science.

With this in mind, we are developing:
(1) a bilingual search engine (Portuguese-English), that presents a given term in both languages, in comparable texts (found through web scrapers in open access sources such as Google Scholar, Pubmed, RCAAP), which are not the translation of each other. This engine uses comparability metrics (views, citations or references, among others) to train machine learning algorithms to optimize the information retrieval process; and
(2) mappings of knowledge areas in primary, secondary and higher education, through the creation of glossaries and digital visualizations, using open access content, such as school programs, and through the direct collaboration with schools and students, encouraging the creation of learner-generated content and community participation in knowledge construction.

Even though, as Tennant et al. (2006) point out, open science practices promote a culture of education and scientific literacy, the urgent need for scientific and academic literacy in Portuguese education is well documented, especially because it constitutes a factor of inequality among students. Thus, another branch of the project focuses on the creation and aggregation of resources that support academic and scientific literacy, divided into seven steps that intend to guide students in the preparation of academic papers.

We also know that the dissemination of science is essential in a framework of open science and open education, so the third branch of the project focuses on promoting contact between the general population and researchers and scientists, through the creation of sponsorship networks and scientific profiles of researchers.

References:
[1] Cronin, C. (2017). Openness and Praxis: Exploring the Use of Open Educational Practices in Higher Education. The International Review of Research in Open and Distributed Learning, 18(5). https://doi.org/10.19173/irrodl.v18i5.3096
[2] Ehlers, U.D. (2011). Extending the Territory: From Open Educational Resources to Open Educational Practices. Journal of Open, Flexible, and Distance Learning, 15(2), 1-10. Distance Education Association of New Zealand. Retrieved March 14, 2022 from https://www.learntechlib.org/p/147891/.
[3] Tennant J. P., Waldner F., Jacques D. C. et al. (2016) ‘The Academic, Economic and Societal Impacts of Open Access: An Evidence-Based Review’, F1000Research, 5: 632.

Keywords:

Open data, open science, open education, specialised language, multi-literacy.