INFORMATION INERTIA IN THE WEB PORTALS OF A FEDERAL UNIVERSITY
Keywords:
information governance, organizational culture, transparency, informational inertiaAbstract
This article analyzes information inertia in the academic portals of the Health Sciences Center at the Federal University of Rio Grande do Norte, considering their role as instruments of proactive transparency and information governance. It is based on the assumption that outdated, incomplete, or underutilized institutional portals weaken access to information, accountability, and mediation between the university and society. The study is grounded in Brazil’s Access to Information Law, Decree No. 7,724/2012, and institutional documents, bringing together concepts of information governance, information culture, public transparency, and institutional theory. Methodologically, it adopts a qualitative-quantitative, descriptive-exploratory approach structured as a multiple-case study. An analytical framework composed of four dimensions was developed: institutional information and contacts; regulatory and organizational information; academic actions, programs, and services; and management, planning, and results. This framework was applied to the portals of sixteen academic departments. The findings reveal substantial heterogeneity among the portals, a predominance of minimal and intermediate usage profiles, and limited visibility of regulations, meeting minutes, plans, reports, and performance indicators. The study concludes that the observed limitations are not predominantly technological but rather sociocultural and institutional in nature, revealing a decoupling between formal governance structures and effective information practices oriented toward proactive transparency.