Abstract:

Between 2010 and 2015, we implemented a set of research related learning activities, in the context of two curricular units from the Master Degree in Public Administration and Management and from the 1st cycle degree in and Public Sector and Local Government Management, namely Digital Government (DG) and Electronic Government (EG), both from the University of Aveiro in Portugal. Although initially designed for strictly pedagogical purposes and to familiarize students with research, these activities have formed the basis of several studies that have been published in journals and international conference proceedings.

In general, the activities developed with students aimed at evaluating the maturity of municipal websites, under different perspectives of analysis, at different dates and in different geographies, using content analysis and, as appropriate, maturity models or conceptual analysis. Overall, students' work was divided into two phases: a first phase of data collection, in which students, organized into groups, collected information on different sets of municipalities; and a second phase of data analysis, in which the students, organized in the same groups, analyzed and extracted conclusions from the global set of collected data, the data collected by all groups. In this second phase, depending on whether the students were 1st cycle or 2nd cycle, different levels of demand where required regarding the methods of analysis.

Specifically, the following studies/activities were developed:
• Evaluation of the maturity level of web sites of Portuguese municipalities participating in Digital Cities and Digital Regions programs, in the second semester of 2009-2010, by the students of EG
• Evaluation of the maturity level of web sites of all Portuguese municipalities, in the first semester of 2009-2010, by the students of GD
• Evaluation of privacy policies in web sites of all Portuguese municipalities, in the second semester of 2011-2012, by the students of EG
• Evaluation of the maturity level of web sites of all Portuguese municipalities, in the second semester of 2012-2013, by the students of EG, and in the first semester of 2013-2014, by the students of GD
• Evaluation of the maturity level of web sites of selected municipalities of Ibero-American countries, in the first semester of 2014-2015, by the students of GD.

The data collected and part of the analyzes developed by the students served as the basis for different publications, including three papers published in international scientific journals and five papers published in international conference proceedings. Two of these publications were co-authored with one of the students participating in the last study, due to the exceptional contribution it made to the final phase of the research initiative. It should also be noted that the last study took advantage of the existence of students of different nationalities in the same class.

In this article, we will attempt to explain the motivations, methods, difficulties and achieved results, noting that what began as a pedagogical initiative to involve students in activities related to research, aiming at satisfying the learning objectives of two curricular units from two different cycles of studies, eventually became a relevant research initiative, which gave rise to several publications in journals and minutes of international scientific conferences.

Keywords:

Learning Activities, Research Learning Activities, E-government Teaching.