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Maturity models (MM) have been adopted in organisations from different sectors of activity, as guides and references for Information Systems (IS) management. In the educational field, these models have also been used to deal with the enormous complexity and demand of IS management. This paper presents a research project that aims to develop a new MM for Higher Education Institutions (HEI) that helps them to address those problems, as a useful tool for the management of their IS (and institutions as well). Thus, the MM in this area are identified, as well as the characteristics and gaps that they present, justifying the need and the opportunity for a new and comprehensive MM. Finally, we discuss the methodology for the development of MM that will be adopted for the design of the new model (called HEIMM) and the underlying reasons for its choice. At the moment, we are developing the HEIMM.

This paper introduces a new method of communication between the school and the family, using an Electronic Booklet developed in the course of the authors' investigation project with the purpose of rendering the communication between both parties more effective. Today there is a general agreement, within educational sciences, as to the fundamental role occupied by the collaboration between the school and the family in the learning process and in educational success. With this Electronic Booklet, the communication becomes synchronous in a web environment. By logging in, educational actors can access a wide range of information: absences, behaviour, teacher advices, final grades, evaluation tools in each subject and corresponding evaluation, personal data, etc., eliminating the obstacles that hinder a successful collaboration between the school and the family.

The significant number of publications describing unsuccessful cases in the introduction of health information systems makes it advisable to analyze the factors that may be contributing to such failures. However, the very notion of success is not equally assumed in all publications. Based in a literature review, the authors argue that the introduction of systems must be based in an eclectic combination of knowledge fields, adopting methodologies that strengthen the role of organizational culture and human resources in this project, as a whole. On the other hand, the authors argue that the introduction of systems should be oriented by a previously defined matrix of factors, against which the success can be measured.

Information Systems and Technologies (IST) in healthcare have evolved gradually, and theories about IST adoption and maturity are sufficiently established in the literature of organizational management. This paper examines the evolution of IST in healthcare. The author introduces concepts associated with maturity models, addresses the generic maturity model for IST management, and presents the main maturity models, specifically focusing on the management of IST in healthcare. Widespread and detailed maturity models are not fully available, and the opportunity to develop new maturity models that focus on IST management in healthcare still exists.

The perception that an individual holds about his place in life, which depends upon his culture and values, defines this individual’s quality of life (QoL). When applied in a health context, this is known as: health-related quality of life (HRQoL). The assessment of HRQoL is a medical goal; it is used in clinical research, medical practice, health-related economic studies and in planning health management measures and strategies. Obtaining a patient self-assessment with QoL measuring instruments on the platform developed in this project, through friendly software, easy for the user to adapt to, aids the study, promotes the creation of databases, and accelerates its statistical treatment. The possibility of graphically representing results that physician needs to analyse, immediately after the answer collection, makes this assessment a diagnosis instrument ready to be used routinely in clinical practice.