RESEARCH IN DISTANCE EDUCATION IN BRAZIL AFTER THE CREATION OF UAB (OPEN UNIVERSITY OF BRAZIL)

This paper aims to present the Brazilian reality in the context of research in distance education from the results of an investigation that considered the mapping of scientific production in the events promoted by the Brazilian Distance Education Association (ABED) and in periodical publications in Portuguese indexed in the SCIELO database. It considered the areas of Humanities and Applied Social Sciences in the period between January 2006 and March 2010. For that was used as a basis an international study conducted by Zawacki-Richter (2009) that categorized the areas of research in distance learning and identify gaps and priority areas of research. The choice of this period was motivated by the beginning of the activities of the UAB (Open University of Brazil) in 2006. The creation of the UAB opened up the entry of 75 public institutions to the offering of regular courses at the undergraduate and graduate levels using distance education. This work is intended to provide tools for conducting research and research and publications on distance education in national and international partner institutions in UAB.