Chores

Planche 11 of L'Art du Menuisier

Not every­thing that can be counted counts, and not every­thing that counts can be counted.

William Bruce Cameron, 1963

Uni­ver­sity pro­fes­sors are assigned spe­cific func­tions which, in gen­eral, include the fol­low­ing (as defined by Por­tuguese leg­is­la­tion on uni­ver­sity higher edu­ca­tion):

It is true that some uni­ver­sity pro­fes­sors pri­or­i­tize cer­tain func­tions over oth­ers, strength­en­ing their roles as either researchers or teach­ers or con­sul­tants or admin­is­tra­tors. How­ever, in most cases, pro­fes­sors engage in tasks that span mul­ti­ple domains—though rarely all of them with the same inten­sity at any given time.

Indeed, along­side these core domains of aca­d­e­mic activ­ity, there exists a vari­ety of tasks that, while often less vis­i­ble, are essen­tial to the effec­tive oper­a­tion of both the insti­tu­tions pro­fes­sors serve and the broader com­mu­ni­ties they sup­port.

I have orga­nized these “chores” into eight groups: par­tic­i­pa­tion in sci­en­tific com­mit­tees, edi­to­r­ial work, invited talks, exam­iner respon­si­bil­i­ties, par­tic­i­pa­tion in aca­d­e­mic eval­u­a­tion pan­els, orga­ni­za­tion of sci­en­tific events, uni­ver­sity man­age­ment, and ser­vices pro­vided.

Participation in Scientific Committees

My most sig­nif­i­cant involve­ment in sci­en­tific com­mit­tees has been as Man­ag­ing Edi­tor of the Jour­nal of Infor­ma­tion Sys­tems Secu­rity (JIS­Sec), a role I have held since Sep­tem­ber 2006. JIS­Sec is a peer reviewed schol­arly pub­li­ca­tion focused on infor­ma­tion sys­tems secu­rity. My pri­mary respon­si­bil­ity is to assist the Edi­tor-in-Chief and coor­di­nate efforts with the Edi­to­r­ial Board. More infor­ma­tion about the Jour­nal is avail­able on the JIS­Sec site.

In addi­tion, I have par­tic­i­pated in sci­en­tific com­mit­tees of var­i­ous con­fer­ences. A chrono­log­i­cal list fol­lows, indi­cat­ing my role, the name of the con­fer­ence, loca­tion of the event, and the period of involve­ment.

A task closely related to par­ti­ti­pa­tion in sci­en­tific com­mit­tees is the review of papers. Below is a list of selected peer-review work I have car­ried out for jour­nals, con­fer­ences, and other edi­to­r­ial ini­tia­tives:

Editorial Work

I have edited two spe­cial issues of the Jour­nal of Infor­ma­tion Sys­tems Secu­rity fea­tur­ing selected best papers from two inter­na­tional con­fer­ences in infor­ma­tion sys­tems secu­rity:

I have also co-edited three con­fer­ence pro­ceed­ings in infor­ma­tion sys­tems secu­rity, pro­moted by The Infor­ma­tion Insti­tute :

Invited Talks

I have been invited to give talks on top­ics related to my research and pro­fes­sional expe­ri­ence. Each of the fol­low­ing entries includes the title of the talk, as well as the name, loca­tion, and date of the event where it was deliv­ered.

Examiner Responsibilities

The defense of PhD dis­ser­ta­tions, PhD pro­pos­als, Mas­ter’s the­ses, and Licen­ciatura final projects are sig­nif­i­cant aca­d­e­mic mile­stones. For a defense to take place, some­one must be will­ing to “attack”. That is the role of the exam­in­ers. The “atack” in this con­text refers to an intel­lec­tual dia­logue, where the exam­iner pro­vides com­ments, crit­i­cisms, and ques­tions. It is then up to the author to defend their choices, explain the method­olog­i­cal approaches used, and con­tex­tu­al­ize the con­tri­bu­tions of their work.

For each exam­iner role, I indi­cate the stu­dent’s name, the name of the pro­gram, the title of the work, the insti­tu­tion where the exam­i­na­tion took place, my role in the exam­i­na­tion, and the date of the defense.

I begin with exam­iner pespon­si­bil­i­ties for PhD works (dis­ser­ta­tions).

I now list my exam­iner respon­si­bil­i­ties for PhD pro­pos­als—detailed plans for doc­toral research projects intended to demon­strate the rel­e­vance, fea­si­bil­ity, and aca­d­e­mic merit of the pro­posed study.

Next is the list of my exam­iner respon­s­abil­i­ties for MSc works (the­ses). Some of my roles as Pres­i­dent between 2010 and 2012 and between 2022 and 2024 resulted from my posi­tion at the time as Direc­tor of the Mas­ter’s Pro­grams.

Lastly, my respon­si­bil­i­ties as an exam­iner for Licen­ciatura Final Pro­jects are listed below. These entries refer to final works com­pleted in Licen­ciatura pro­grams prior to the imple­men­ta­tion of the Bologna Process in Euro­pean higher edu­ca­tion. These pro­grams typ­i­cally lasted five years, with the final semes­ter usu­ally ded­i­cated to intern­ships in indus­try.

Participation in Academic Evaluation Panels

I have par­tic­i­pated in eval­u­a­tion pan­els for aca­d­e­mic recog­ni­tion of for­eign qual­i­fi­ca­tions requested by for­eign grad­u­ates. A list of the pan­els fol­lows, indi­cat­ing: the orig­i­nal degree, the name and loca­tion of the insti­tu­tion that granted it, the cor­re­spond­ing local degree to be rec­og­nized, the name and loca­tion of the insti­tu­tion grant­ing the local degree, the type of recog­ni­tion (as defined by Por­tuguese leg­is­la­tion), my role on the panel, and the date.

Organization of Scientific Events

This sec­tion lists the con­fer­ences and advanced courses I chaired or co-chaired. Each entry includes my role, fol­lowed by the name of the event, the host­ing insti­tu­tion, and the event’s loca­tion and date.

University Management

The first time I assumed a man­age­ment role in the sci­en­tific ecosys­tem was at the Por­tuguese Asso­ci­a­tion for Infor­ma­tion Sys­tems (APSI), where I served as Oper­a­tional Man­ager from Octo­ber 1994 to Decem­ber 1998.

After sign­ing my first con­tract with Uni­ver­sity of Minho in 1996, I became involved in var­i­ous man­age­ment respon­si­bil­i­ties. The list below sum­ma­rizes the uni­ver­sity man­age­ment roles I have held since then.

Services Provided

Uni­ver­sity exten­sion refers to the expec­ta­tion that pro­fes­sors con­trib­ute ser­vice to the aca­d­e­mic com­mu­nity, but also to enter­prises and soci­ety at large. This sec­tion lists the main ser­vice activ­i­ties I have been involved in.

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