Among many possibilities of the Conferência Web service use from RNP, one in special has been changing the routine of Graduation Programs in Federal Institutions of Higher Education (Ifes). Distance thesis defense without the need of an on-site committee has reduced expenses, optimized processes and made the formation of graduates more quickly.

We have made a Top 5 of institutions that have carried out thesis defenses through Conferência Web since the beginning of the year until the end of October, and we have achieved the following ranking:

1.    Universidade Federal de Uberlândia (UFU) - 177
2.    Universidade Federal de Santa Catarina (UFSC) - 87
3.    Instituto Federal de Santa Catarina (IFSC) - 65
4.    Universidade Federal do Vale do São Francisco (Univasf) - 47
5.    Universidade Federal de Pernambuco (UFPE) - 26

We have invited the IT director of Universidade Federal de Uberlândia (UFU), leader in using the service, and coordinator of Graduation Program in Geography from Universidade Federal de Pernambuco (UFPE), fifth place, to tell what has changed since their institutions started using the Conferência Web for such purpose.

• Luís Fernando Faina – Director of the Information Technology Center (UFU)

 “After the drastic decrease of Proap (Program of Support to Graduation) resources from Capes in the last years, a great part of the PPGs from Ifes was forced to review the use of part of these resources for expenses like locomotion of members from Master’s and Doctoral’s boards. 

Hence, Conferência Web enables the performance of Boards of Assessment of Master and Doctoral Degrees for PPGs from Ifes. To do so, they should only use some of the services provided by RNP. The performance of these defenses through Conferência Web is viable, because the service includes not only audio and video combined, but also provides instant interaction, chat interaction, notepad and shared visualization of files or even screen from a remote computer.

The easy use of the platform by teachers and students from PPGs, using institutional emails, collaborates even more to its use and spread. Joined works between researchers are possible and are not restricted to defenses, considering that users may be invited to participate, without having an account linked to an Ifes.”

• Francisco Kennedy Silva dos Santos – Coordinator of the Graduation Program in Geography (UFPE).

 “The Graduation Program in Geography, in partnership with RNP, has been using Conferência Web to defend thesis since the end of 2018. The service has been allowing the optimization of dissertation and thesis defense processes of Master and Doctoral courses of the Program and has a direct impact on the costs of dislocation of members outside the defense boards.

Web Conference of thesis enables defense to happen even if there is an eventual issue of one or more board members, because it can be accessed through any computer. It counts on a network that has never caused image freezing or technical interruptions in our defenses, which facilitates the fluidity in the process. The service has allowed teachers of the Program to take part in remote boards in other countries, with a direct impact on its internationalization level.

After defense, graduates count with a service of event recording that enables a faithful registration of the debate about their paper and future adjustments when needed. The service allows a direct interaction among all participants of defense rooms and allows organizing sessions that comprise the defenses: exhibition and debates.”

Service at constant evolution

Responsible for Conferência Web, the analyst of Services Wescley Patrick reports that the RNP aims to increasingly listen to the pains of their client institutions so the service may help them more.

“It is under constant evolution. We have taken a great leap after establishing the new tool platform (in HTML5), considering that Adobe has discontinued the Flash technology. All the planned improvements are based on users’ feedbacks, so that we always have an updated tool that is continuously evolving”, explains.

Do you want to know more about Conferência Web?  Access the service page in our website.