Transparência na Pós-Graduação da UFJF: divulgação via website dada às ações e à atuação dos programas

Abstract

Digital information and communication technologies have been expanding the possibilities of the implementation of the principle of publicity in public administration and reassigning the concept of transparency resulting from this constitutional principle. Federal universities, as public entities, have the mission of publicizing actions they carry out using different instruments for this purpose. In this perspective, the present research had as general objective analyze how to what extent the websites of stricto sensu Academic Postgraduate Programs in Federal University of Juiz de Fora (UFJF) are being used as instruments to provide transparency and visibility to the actions taken under these Programs. Once evidenced the existence of weaknesses in transparency and visibility given to the actions of these Programs on their websites, it was intended to answer the following question: what are the difficulties found by UFJF managers and technical-administrative staff to ensure the disclosure and the transparency, through websites, of the actions developed by the Programs? The specific objectives defined for this study were: I) to describe the processes of management of information available on the websites of UFJF Postgraduate Programs; II) to analyze the procedures and challenges found by the professionals responsible for managing the websites to keep them complete and up to date; III) to propose an educational action plan for the improvement of the websites, just as the processes of management of the published information in these virtual spaces. It was assumed as a hypothesis for the causes of low visibility and transparency observed in the websites the lack of knowledge of the managers in relation to the content to be published in these spaces and also on the technical aspects necessary to organize and update these contents. The Qualitative and Quantitative case study methodologies were utilized in this paper, whose investigation was based on the bibliographical and documentary research, plus field research. The instruments used for data collection were the questionnaire, composed by closed and open questions applied to the content managers of the websites, and interviews with semi-structured scripts, carried out with the managers of the sectors directly involved in the creation or management of websites. Among the evidences of the problem it was highlighted the results of the latest Capes’ evaluations, held in 2013 and 2017, in which, on average, 44% of UFJF sctrito sensu academic programs have not shown adequate transparency regarding their actions. Through field research it was possible to partially confirm the assumed hypothesis. It was confirmed that 80% of the website managers are in fact partially or totally ignorant of Capes' recommendations on the nature of the content that should be disclosed on the websites of the Programs. On the other hand, although approximately half of the managers did not participate in a training course, almost all of the participants say they know how to perform the basic actions necessary to manage the contents of the websites. Thus, the prognosis about the lack of technical knowledge of the managers as a cause of the low visibility and transparency verified in the websites was refuted. As a proposal for the improvement of the websites, the actions of standardization, normalization of contents, updating and improvement of the training course for its managers were suggested.