Informatics resources in the teaching of nursing under the perspective of professors and university managers

Objective: to identify and discuss the informatics resources available for the teaching of Nursing under the perspective of educators and managers of a federal institution of higher education. Method: this is a descriptive and exploratory study with a qualitative approach and analysis of the subjects‘ discourse. These subjects were the professors of the undergraduate and graduate courses in Nursing and prorectors/managers of the Federal Institution of Higher Education (FIHE). The instruments used for the data collection were two semi-structured questionnaires, after the approval of the research project by the Research Ethics Committee of Universidade do Rio de Janeiro, under the Protocol 038/2006. Results: 93% of the educators indicated that the institution under study does not have the informatics infrastructure that covers the educational activities. In its turn, 80% of the managers said that there is an informatics infrastructure favoring the academic activities. Moreover, both kinds of interviewees stressed the importance of informatics in the teaching of Nursing. Conclusion: it was possible to realize the huge contradiction present in the discourses of educators and managers, even considering the fact that the computer helps teaching aids, as far as it constitutes a didactic-pedagogical strategy, being important the informatics infrastructure in the FIHE, as well as the professor‘s training for the use of information technologies. Descriptors: nursing; nursing education; information technology.