Informar para integrar: um modelo de aplicativo para a integração de alunos em uma instituição de ensino superior

Abstract

The process by which the student recognizes the academic environment in an institution of higher education is fundamental for its permanence and good academic performance. This process of recognition contributes intensely to its integration with the university community. Currently, Teaching Institutions are immersed in a broadly digitally embedded society and seek innovative mechanisms that provide improvements in the user experience. In this context, the following research problem emerges: How to assist UFRN students in understanding and accessing the services, processes and mechanisms that permeate their education during the course? On the way to solve this problem, the present study aims to propose an application model of institutional integration for undergraduate students of the Federal University of Rio Grande do Norte - UFRN. To this end, the Design Thinking approach was used to achieve the project stages. The first stage of the research consists of immersion in the research problem, which occurs through the collection of data by documentary research, direct observation, application of questionnaires and cooperative evaluation of an application prototype submitted to the sample evaluation of UFRN undergraduate students. In the documentary research, the web sites, systems, and documents existing in the University were explored, allowing a wide view of the sectors and services existing in the institution. In parallel, two types of questionnaires were applied, the first one aimed at the incoming students and the second one for the students who probable will graduate in the period of the research. Data obtained from the UFRN's Superintendence of informatics (SINFO) showed that there were 5,358 incoming students and 1,194 graduating students in the period of research. This set of students received electronic questionnaires with closed questions in their e-mails, using the Likert scale. The second stage occurs with the creation of personas that synthesize the profiles of strategically identified students, helping in the achievement of the later stages. The third stage, the ideation, uses techniques of brainstorming, construction of an ideas menu and validation of the same by means of a matrix of positioning. In this way, the ideation provided appointment of solutions to the problems identified above. The fourth and final step presents an application prototype developed in Adobe XD software, through the use of benchmarking and cooperative evaluation. This last step aims to gather feedback on the preliminary prototype presented to users identified with the personas, collecting data used to improve the preliminary prototype of the application. Fifty undergraduate students, identified with the people created in the second stage of the research, participated in the cooperative evaluation of the prototype. Finally, the results obtained contributed directly and indirectly with the improvement of the preliminary prototype and the production of the projected content in the final version of the application prototype.