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The application of Social and Emotional Learning (SEL) methodologies within classrooms has been widely adopted and examined, highlighting its positive impact on the academic, emotional, and social sectors at both the individual and classroom levels. Through this wide applicability, a need is identified to focus more on the development of SEL approaches that support the integration of the various parts of a SEL methodology (e.g., planning, implementation, monitoring and assessment). Such approaches should not underestimate the value of the SEL assessment. It is necessary to engage both the developers and the practitioners of SEL methodologies and provide tools to assist teachers to better interpret the collected data and results and plan targeted SEL activities. Motivated by such needs, we detail the EduCardia SEL methodology, which focuses on the provision of a set of guidelines and tools to assess and improve the social and emotional competencies of students in primary and secondary educational levels, taking advantage of Information and Communication Technologies (ICT). The EduCardia SEL methodology considers the integration of the various parts of a SEL methodological approach and supports continuous assessment processes while offering user-friendly interfaces to interpret the produced results. Evaluation results are provided based on the application of the EduCardia SEL methodology in K12 schools in Greece for a short period of time, considering three different age groups. The targeted competencies are shown to be improved, while teachers provide insights on the applicability and efficiency of the proposed approach.

Significant efforts have been allocated over the last thirty years towards the conceptualization and assessment of the Emotional Intelligence (EI) construct. However, there is limited work on examining the EI construct in a group level. Collective Emotional Intelligence (CEI) is introduced as the ability of a group to promote awareness and regulation of members’ and group’s emotions, improving their capacity to collaborate effectively and avoid or easily resolve conflicts. High CEI levels in a group positively affect the group’s performance. In this article, we provide a definition of collective EI constructs, based on the extension of the open-access EmoSocio EI model. EmoSocio is selected as a basis since it regards an EI model, enriched with sociometric indexes at an individual and group level. A set of new constructs are included in the model for representing abilities for emotions’ management in a group level along with indicators for revealing the group dynamics. EmoSociograms is also presented as an open-source psychometric tool to dynamically manage and assess the social and emotional competences of individuals and groups. Evaluation results regarding the validity and the reliability of the extended EmoSocio model are made available, based on the assessment of CEI constructs in in-person and online groups, formed under an educational and working context, as well as an online discussion forum.

The design of solutions that are able to exploit the available data collected in smart cities environments can lead to insights that can guide the implementation of approaches that have the potential to significantly improve the quality of life within a city. Such solutions include tools for the production of advanced analytics considering data fusion challenges. The preparation of qualitative input data sets, collected in many cases through heterogeneous sources and represented in various formats, constitute a very important step toward a meaningful analysis. Such input data sets, combined with approaches that reduce the data processing burden and support the easy and flexible-in terms of configuration-replication of an analysis, can lead to the next generation analytics tools. In this paper, a novel approach toward the production and consumption of linked data analytics in urban environments is presented. The approach is based on the exploitation of linked data principles, enhancing the ability of managing and processing of data, in ways not available before. In addition to the description of the overall technical approach, the application of the proposed solution into a real-life scenario for examining the health impact of outdoor air pollution in urban areas within an international, national, and regional perspective is detailed. A set of interesting results are produced along with their interpretation toward the provision of suggestions for policy making purposes.