The role of institutional leaderships in the SAPO Campus adoption process - Conference paper

Oct 15, 2026

Uploaded by dhado

SAPO Campus (SC) is a Web 2.0 platform designed to promote collaboration, communication, and sharing in institutional settings, especially education. Since 2012, groups of schools have intentionally adopted SC, supported by principal and school-leader involvement strategies. A literature-informed study used interviews to examine strategies across adoption processes and their effectiveness, focusing also on continuous and sustainable platform use. Interview content was analyzed to align overall findings with prior research while revealing additional strategies.

LanguageEnglish

CategoryResearch & Report

FormatPDF

Pages14

Reading Time35 min

AccessFree to download

I. Introduction

SAPO Campus and its adoption context

Pilot project adoption strategy

Study roadmap

II. Conceptual framework

Critical factors for technology adoption in education

Macro-level factors

Mesо-level and micro-level (overview)

The role of institutional leaderships in the SAPO Campus’adoption process Fátima Pais [fpais@ua.pt](fpais@ua.pt) Luís Pedro [lpedro@ua.pt](lpedro@ua.pt) Carlos Santos [carlossantos@ua.pt](carlossantos@ua.pt) Universidade de Aveiro, Portugal Abstract SAPO Campus (SC) is a web 2.0 service platform, whose aim is to promote collaboration, communication and sharing practices in institutional settings, specifically in educational contexts . Since 2012, a group of schools has promoted the institutional adoption of SC. Taking into account the fact that this is an intentional process as institutions support the platform’s adoption, a study was carried out in order to identify the involvement strategies used by principals and school leaders when adopting this technology. Based on a literature review, which included several studies dealing with involvement strategies and how they connect to institutional leadership, an interview was designed not only to understand the strategies used throughout each adoption process, but also their effectiveness . Our research approach also valued the issues related with the continuous and sustainable use of the SAPO Campus platform in terms of the strategies designed and implemented by the schools’principals . The content of these interviews was then analysed, making it possible to establish that, overall, the general outcomes are aligned with the results found on previous research, eventhough it was possible to identify other strategies used throughout the technology adoption process . Keywords: SAPO Campus, Leadership, Technology, Adoption, Strategies F.Pais, L. Pedro & C. Santos Digital Education Review-Number 29, June 2016-[http://greav.ub.edu/der/](http://greav.ub.edu/der/ 31)[ 31](http://greav.ub.edu/der/ 31) I. Introduction SAPO Campus (SC) is a social media platform developed by the University of Aveiro and PT Comunicações/SAPO within the SAPO Labs initiative . One of the aims of this platform is to foster innovative concepts within institutional settings, namely by adopting a user-centred approach, promoting users’ learning interests and supporting collaborative knowledge construction (Santos et al., 2014) . Even though the platform was initially thought out and designed for Higher Education contexts (Santos et al., 2009a; Santos et al., 2009b), it was later redesigned so it could reach out and be used in other educational levels and settings (Pais et al., 2012) . As a result, in 2012, a group of schools adopted and started to use the platform . In the beginning of this process (pilot project), SAPO Labs’team has designed a strategy in order to promote the institutional adoption of SAPO Campus . This adoption strategy relied on the fact that the platform adoption had an intentional purpose – because the schools involved had to declare their intention to adopt the platform – an institutional purpose – because the intention to adopt SAPO Campus came from the school’s principals, on behalf of the institution – and a formal purpose, because a collaboration protocol was established between SAPO Labs and the school, where the Terms of Service were defined. In this initial phase, the engagement and compromise of the schools was guaranteed as was the institutional adoption of the technology. In the next sections we will discuss the critical factors behind the adoption of technologies in educational settings and will put forward an overall conceptual framework that identifies and characterises the fundamental dimensions and principles of SAPO Campus . In the Methodology section we will present the research question that guides this study and the instruments used to collect data and will analyse and discuss the results obtained. Finally, some conclusions are presented and briefly discussed. II. Conceptual framework This section is divided in two complementary sub-sections . In the first one we identify and discuss the critical factors of the technology ad

FAQs

What is SAPO Campus and what purpose does it serve in educational institutions?

SAPO Campus is a Web 2.0 social media platform intended to foster collaboration, communication, and sharing practices in institutional and educational contexts.

Why was the adoption of SAPO Campus treated as an intentional process?

The adoption depended on institutions declaring their intention to adopt the platform, with the intention initiated by school principals and formalized through a collaboration protocol and Terms of Service.

How did the study assess involvement strategies and their effectiveness?

The study used a literature review to inform the design of interviews, then analyzed interview content to identify strategies used during adoption and evaluate their outcomes, including sustainability of use.

Oct 15, 2026

Uploaded by dhado