Geoportales orientados a los usuarios. Caso de estudio: el Geoportal de la Universidad del Azuay

Geographical information is necessary for different users and it is seen from differ- ent contexts of work such as academia, science, government and economy. For this reason, it is needed to have it available in a timely and agile way. The publication of cartographic information in Ecuador is growing in public institutions, in particular, thanks to the national geoinformation policies (officially registered in 2010). Thus, the creation of Spatial Data Infrastructures (SDI) is currently supported. The Uni- versity of Azuay (UDA) created its SDI in 2012 as a result of the use and construc- tion of local geographic information map displays. Thanks to research and agreements with public institutions, access to environmental data (previously pre- sented only in paper publications) was obtained through the web portal for the city of Cuenca. It is intended that such data could be comprehensible by users of non- technical profile such as citizens. This challenge has generated a process of constant updating of the geoportal in which the user is involved in several stages such as design, prototype and tests, in order to present the data to the personnel interested in knowing and monitoring the city's environmental state. In order to evaluate these improvements, a controlled test was designed for a focal group to know the percep- tion of the user's web page when comparing it with the previous one (technical) and to evaluate the effectiveness in communicating this information.