The new website of the Graduate Program in Architecture and Urbanism (PPGAU) at the Federal University of Pará (UFPA) is now available. The page was developed from a standard template, using usability and portability criteria.

The standard has been adopted so far by 71 UFPA Graduate Programs. The initiative is the Dean of UFPA (PROPESP-UFPA)in partnership with the Laboratory of Systems Development (LADES), coordinated by PhD Professo Marcos Cesar da Rocha Seruffo, Castanhal campus, and with the Laboratory of Research and Experimentation in Multimedia of the Distance Education Advisory (AEDi-UFPA).

The new PPGAU site, as well as the other program sites, aims to facilitate public access to information about its functioning and enhance the institutional link with the UFPA. For this, the sites have a unified visual identity and access domain linked to the PROPESP. To check the others, simply enter the program acronym, followed by propesp.ufpa.br. With this new standard, the PROPESP hopes to enhance the visibility of scientific and technical production of Graduate Programs.

With the new site, visitors can access the programs information through eight tabs: "The Program", which presents key information about the program to users; "Academic", with info targeted to students’ academic environment; "Research", which features research initiatives under the program, projects details and research groups; "Social Impact" with information about PPG's contribution to society; “Agenda”, which concentrates data about events, meetings and other activities carried out under the program; "Admission" with information about the selection process; "Theses and Dissertations" with Graduate Programs’ productions downloadable files; "Documents" with regulations, forms, minutes and other laws governing the operation of the program.

In addition to organizing and pass on Graduate Programs’ information, all sites will present versions in English and Spanish, the PROPESP strategy to encourage the internationalization of UFPA research and graduate studies.

Among the advantages of the model is the adoption of Joomla! Platform, that is compatible with standards of UFPA Center of Information and Communication Technology (CTIC) and has versions for access on mobile devices (tablets, smartphones etc.). In addition, the platform is considered easy to use, ensuring that the programs themselves continue feeding and updating the new pages.

For this, the PROPESP along with the partner laboratories held two workshops to fill and update content, during which engineers, professors and technicians organized their own programs information and provided it on the new sites.

LAUNCH - To mark the start of operation of the new standard, the PROPESP will launch an event on December 14 (Monday) at 9:00 a.m. in the Auditorium of the Graduate Program building of ITEC (PGITEC). The event will also feature the participation of guest lecturer, PhD Professor Ronaldo Lopes de Oliveira, currently the Graduate Teaching coordinator of the Dean of Graduate Studies of the Federal University of Bahia (UFBA), who will deliver a lecture entitled "Scientific Integrity and Predatory Journals" about the dangers false journals offer to the productivity of the Graduate Programs.

PROJECT - The preparation of the sites was initiated in September 2015 from situational diagnosis made by laboratories partnered with PROPESP with regard to the pages of UFPA Graduate Programs that were in operation. In this survey several situations have been identified, among which stand out, the plurality of the Programs page formats, some being based on templates for blogs and / or external pages to the institutional domain of UFPA. In addition, various forms of organization of information of the Programs were identified, not always complete and / or updated.

Based on the situational diagnosis made and presented to all the Graduate Programs coordinators in October 2015, it was possible to establish parameters to guide the development of a site for institutional proposal. Among the adopted parameters are: ensure clarity and a standard in information architecture for all websites of UFPA, and the completeness and timeliness of information.