Representações sociais sobre informação e conhecimento na educação a distância: um estudo de caso na UFMG

This article presents the concepts of information and knowledge adopted by undergraduates, professors and assistant teachers from the distance education in the undergraduate courses in Biological Sciences and Mathematics at Federal University of Minas Gerais (UFMG). The social representations were systematized in the study that investigated the formation of informational culture in the distance education modality. It was used as a theoretical framework the Social Representation Theory and the technique of CSD (Discourse of the Collective Subject) developed by Lefevre and Lefevre. According to the social representations of research subjects, information is the basis for the construction of knowledge and is understood as a human phenomenon that relates to the production of meaning. The systematic knowledge is the information that can be socially communicated.