Active transparency and its link with the institutional origin: the case of Colombian universities

Abstract

The study evaluated the scale of active transparency of Colombian universities and determined the influence of the institutional origin on their access to information practices. For this purpose, an active transparency index (ITA) was designed and the existence of statistically significant differences between official and private universities was analyzed by means of nonparametric tests. The results show that there is a "low" degree of access to the information and that it is limited to basic data of the institutions, leaving aside information on their procedures and, especially, on financial and control matters. However, the results are higher in official universities, which leads to statistically significant differences between them, so that the institutional origin makes a difference when it comes to making public the information.