Explorando a pós-graduação em Ciência da Informação no Brasil: um estudo baseado nos dados abertos da CAPES

Abstract

This research focuses on the scientific output of stricto sensu graduate programs inBrazil,with a specific emphasis on the field of Information Science. The study, insertedintheline“Architecture and Knowledge Organization” highlights the importance of using opendataasan analytical tool, enabling the observation of growth patterns, regional asymmetries, andindicators that contribute to the evaluation of national science. The research problemliesinthe lack of reliable and standardized data on the field, which hinders longitudinal andcomparative analyses of scientific production. To address this limitation, the studyproposedmethods for processing and curating public data, aiming to build a solid foundationfordescriptive and exploratory analyses. The general objective was to analyze graduate educationin Information Science in Brazil based on open data from CAPES theses and dissertations,characterizing and positioning the field within the national systemthrough a bibliometricstudy. Specific objectives included identifying existing programs, examining their regionaldistribution, collecting data on faculty and students, and comparing Information Sciencewiththe broader national graduate education landscape. The theoretical framework coveredthefoundations of Information Science, public policies for graduate education, CAPESevaluation criteria, open data principles, and bibliometric approaches. The literaturereviewidentified studies that point to the growth of graduate education in Brazil and in InformationScience, as well as challenges such as regional inequality and lack of data standardization.The methodology was exploratory, descriptive, and quantitative, based on the analysis of openCAPES data. The steps involved data collection, cleaning, and normalization; structuringintodataframes; thematic segmentation; statistical analysis; and visualization throughgraphsandmaps, supported by the Python programming language and libraries such as pandas,matplotlib, seaborn, and plotly. Four datasets were analyzed: programs, faculty, students, anddefended works, covering the period from 2004 to 2022. The data were examinedontwolevels: the national panorama of graduate education and a specific focus on the InformationScience field. The main results indicate significant growth in the area of InformationScience in terms of the number of programs, scientific production, and number of graduates.However, regional inequalities were observed, with a greater concentration in the Southeastand South; variations in the average time to graduate; and low internationalization. Flawswere identified in CAPES records, such as the absence of unique identifiers for facultyandstudents, gaps in fields such as abstract and guidance, and terminological inconsistencies.These problems reinforce the need for standardization and the adoption of FAIR(Findable,Accessible, Interoperable, Reusable) principles. As a methodological outcome, the MITAB-DA (Integrated Methodology for the Treatment and Bibliometric Analysis of OpenData) wasdeveloped. It systematizes the procedures for extraction, cleaning, normalization, analysis,and visualization of CAPES data, providing a replicable model for bibliometric studiesonanational scale. The research is part of the “Knowledge Architecture and Organization”linebyfocusing on practices for organizing, analyzing, and retrieving scientific informationthroughmetric studies. In the end, the research achieves its objectives by offering an unprecedentedpanorama of graduate studies in Information Science, highlighting data curation as astrategictool for institutional assessment and public policy formulation.