Proprietary digital platforms in public education: the cheap that can be expensive

Abstract

This article aims to investigate the adhesion of federal universities from the Midwest to the education services of the large information technology corporations, the namely: Microsoft and Google, following the question: in the context of remote teaching, have the federal universities in the Midwest adopted or suggested to the academic community the services of proprietary platforms for the development of your academic activities? The methodology used involves bibliographical research, through the analysis of academic articles and institutional documents. Among the results, it stands out that, with the exception of the Federal University of Mato Grosso (UFMT), the four other federal universities in the Midwest proposed documents and training for the use of platforms from Google and Microsoft. Supported by the theoretical studies of Van Djick and Poell (2018) and Parra et al (2018), it is observed that these are international private organizations with access to research, development and innovation data from Brazilian public universities. In conclusion, the research formulates the following hypothesis: tailored that universities adhere to free or “very advantageous” partnerships offered by large corporations to carry out their academic activities, it is lost the opportunity to develop public information and communication technologies aimed at the development of the country.