Serviços informacionais de acesso livre: um olhar em torno da adesão e uso dos repositórios institucionais da Universidade Tecnológica Federal do Paraná

Abstract

Institutional Repositories (IR) represent a solution to the difficulty of making institutional production available through free access and is a way of storage of digital materials, such as theses, dissertations, final papers, open educational resources and other materials. The IRs have the ability to maintain and manage for long periods of time and provide the appropriate access to information. In this context, this study aims to analyze the adhesion of researchers from the Federal Technological University of Paraná (UTFPR) to the use of IR. In this study, it was applied the exploratory case study methodology. In the first step of the research, a group of teachers from a Stricto Sensu postgraduation course in the Campus of Londrina, was conducted with the objective of collecting data which later supported the questionnaire answered by 95 permanent professors from the Stricto Sensu postgraduation courses of the 13 campus of UTFPR. The results show how much the participants of this research know about free access to scientific information, we also could identify the participants’ search and use behavior of scientific information, as well as the degree of knowledge that these professors have about the UFTPR Institutional Repositories, regarding its usefulness and functionalities and what are the motivations and impediments to its effective use in the storage and dissemination of scientific productions. We brought to a conclusion that the participants of this study have a superficial knowledge on the repositories. This is mainly due to two factors: poor use, or not yet having "heard" about them. Regarding to the knowledge about free access, once again we have identified that it is also superficial. This data leads us to highlight the need to broaden the way that the repository is disseminated and also pay attention to the user and to the researcher’s daily work, in order to think about new strategies for both, repository dissemination and management.