Open access and visibility to UFMG's intellectual production: organization and dissemination of the School of Architecture's collections

Abstract

The study aimed to implement an open access policy for the Federal University of Minas Gerais (UFMG). To this end, a case study was carried out at the School of Architecture. The open access policy developed aims to promote institutional visibility and provide society with feedback on the knowledge generated at the institution. Considering the size of the university and the diversity of its scientific output, the study began with the experience of the School of Architecture, one of the institution's 23 academic units. The selection criteria were the specificity of the bibliographic production and the representativeness of the School of Architecture for Minas Gerais and for the country. This is a descriptive study using the case study method and the following research techniques: bibliographical research, documentary research, interviews, questionnaires and participant observation. Through these tools, the main concepts and information on the state of the art of open access to information in the national and international context were investigated and the intellectual production of the School of Architecture's teaching staff was qualified. 

The points of view of teachers and managers on the benefits of an institutional repository for their professional practices, the school's information needs in relation to the organization and dissemination of production, the process of internationalization of the school's production, as well as the motivation to collaborate with the deposit of production in the repository and how this policy should be inserted at the university were also analyzed. This action aimed to identify elements that support the planning of the organization of information in a single repository of open access to information, which enables greater visibility of the scientific and cultural productions of the School of Architecture and UFMG. The results of the research guided the decisions and guidelines for the implementation of the UFMG Institutional Repository and the construction of an information policy model.