ABSTRACT
Institutional Repositories (IR) have been considered
one of the method of disseminating and preserving methods for scholarly
research publication. The success of IR is dependent on the awareness and
attitude of lecturers. The study investigated the awareness and attitude of
lecturers in University of Benin towards the establishment of Institutional
Repositories (IRs). Descriptive survey research design was used. From a
population of 1889 lecturers, a sample of 189 was drawn using accidental
sampling technique. These samples represent 10% of the Lecturers in the
University of Benin. Questionnaire was the instrument used for data collection.
Data was analyzed using mean statistic, bar chart and pie chart. Findings reveal that majority of the Lecturers
in University of Benin are aware that their institution does not have
Institutional Repository (IRs). And they do not use Institutional Repository
(IR) in their institution. The results also shows that, the Lecturers agreed that; Depositing
their work in their institutional Repository is acceptable, IR
will increase the citation impact to my work, IR will enhance the visibility of
my university local content, Lecturers have a happy attitude when their works
are accepted and uploaded in IR and said they will be happier is IRs are established in University of Benin.
However, Lack of awareness of open access IR among researchers, inadequate
power supply, Lack of technical know-how, were the challenges facing the
establishment of IR in the university, 157 lectures agreed to this. This study
recommended that universities should encourage promotional activities geared
towards creating awareness of IR which will in turn enhance positive attitude
towards IR establishment in universities.
CHAPTER
ONE
Introduction
1.1
Background
of the Study
Institutional Repositories (IRs) are now
becoming a component of the technical infrastructure in research intensive
institutions and a favoured option for providing open access to research
output. The responsibility of each academic institution is to preserve,
organize and distribute the intellectual output of their faculty to the entire
world. University libraries have an increasingly important role to play in
supporting open access publishing and dissemination of research outputs. In
particular, many libraries are playing a leading role in establishing and
managing Institutional Repositories (IRs).
Christian
(2012) noted that for centuries, institutional libraries and scholarly
publishing were the conventional model adopted in disseminating and preserving
knowledge in academic and research institutions. Whereas institutional
libraries housed research outputs in the form of periodicals, journals
articles, textbooks and monographs, thus playing greater role in terms of
preservation than dissemination, scholarly publishing played a much greater
role on terms of dissemination through scholarly journals (Altbach, 2012). Over
the past several decades, the economy market and technological foundations that
sustains this symbiotic publisher-library market relationship has begun to
shift (Bacon, 2005). This shift has resulted in what Benkler (2010) called the
“networked information economy” free access which is gradually displacing the
“industrial information economy” (restricted access) that typified information
production from about the second half of the nineteenth century and throughout
the twentieth century. According to Lockyer, Fry, Bruce, Oppenheim and Houghton
(2012) ways in which scientific and scholarly knowledge is created and
disseminated are undergoing radical change in the light of new digital
technologies, though the extent and place of this change is not uniform across
disciplines.
According to Christian (2012) the
emergence of Open Access Initiatives as well as information and communication
technologies provides a veritable medium to address the problem of poor
visibility of academic research information emanating from developing countries
like Nigeria. The shift from the conventional print publication to the use of
digital sources and internet media have provided academic and research
institutions in Nigeria with an opportunity to make their grey literature and
research output accessible to the outside world. However, it may be surprising
to observe that academic and research institution in the country are yet to
take advantage of the benefits provided by open access institutional
repositories.
The open access movement emerged in
response to increasing legal and economic barriers by commercial scholarly
publishers which made access to research output and information difficult
especially to people in developing countries of the world. Thus the movement
seeks to promote free and open access to research output devoid of any
permission barriers and unnecessary legal restraints. The open access movement
therefore seeks to use the internet - a product of the ‘networked information
economy’ to provide free access to research and scholarly output to people
irrespective of their physical or geographical location, or their social and
economic means. (Cetto, 2001)
An institutional repository (IR) aims
at bundling the research output of an institution (E.g. A University or a
research center) and makes it available to the public. In the majority of these
cases these document servers are run by the libraries belonging to the
institution. With regard to this form of self-archiving, the lack of
willingness on behalf of scientists to upload their work on these servers is
the major problem. Studying nine important IRs worldwide, Xia and Sun (2007)
report that the archiving of the articles is mainly done by librarians or
administrative staff – hence, the self-archiving rate of authors is rather
small.
. According to Christian (2012), the
state of research and publishing in local academic journals in Nigeria has been
on the rise in recent times. Unfortunately, these publications widely
accessible has been to list the journals in the African Journal Online
database. Regrettably, the database is not openly accessible and hence only
details limited to the abstract of the research is openly accessible. Notwithstanding,
this statistic on the database help us to understand the state of research
publishing in Nigeria as compared to other countries. The lack of access to
information resource around the world is a matter of concern and issue that a
growing number of initiatives seek to remedy. One of such initiatives is the
open access movement. The aim of IR is to
increase visibility, preservation and storage of all types of
instructional output, including unpublished literature, support for learning
and teaching, standardization of institutional records, ability to keep track
of and analyze research performance, breaking down of publishers cost and
permission barriers, help universities to share their knowledge and expertise
(Christian, 2012).
Are
proposed as one of the major strategies for achieving open access. Essentially,
IR collects and provides free access to research output of a given institution.
The main function of IR is to provide improved access to the full text of
research articles and improve retrieval of relevant research (Christian, 2012).
The definitions of Institutional repository vary to great deal in the extent to
which artifacts are to be stored. They range from every digital material
created by institution (Lynch 2010).
Harnad, (2003) noted that
institutional repository is a digital archive of the intellectual product
created by the faculty, research staff, and students of an institution and
accessible to end users both within and outside the institution, with few if
any barrier to access. Lynch (2003) sees it as “a set of services that a
university offers to the members of its community for the management and
dissemination of digital materials created by the institution and its
community”. Hence the role of an institutional repository is basically to
collect, preserved and disseminates the host institution’s research outputs.
The research outputs could include electronic copies of pre-prints as well as
post-print articles, conference and working papers, committee papers, teaching
materials, thesis and dissertations, monographs, multimedia, student projects
etc. Although institutional repositories are usually associated with
universities and research institutes, they could also apply to governmental,
non-governmental and corporate organizations that generate intellectual output
that could be digitized and disseminated.
Chan and Costa (2005) noted that
institutional repositories administered by universities or research institutes
for members of their community, are the fastest growing form of open access
archives. Institutional repository has emerged to revolutionize the methods of
preservation as well as communication of research outputs in academic and
research institutions. Arising from the definitions, it could be seen that an
Institutional repository is institution-based, contains scholarly publications,
organizes and provide free access. Hence, it may be defined as a type of
digital library established by an institution, populated by the staffs,
researchers, students and other members of the institution and to be consulted
by both members of the university and the outside world. Barky (2010) noted
that IRs includes e-prints or other types of digital works by authors in a
single academic department or school or the whole institution.
Awareness
is a pre-requisite to subsequent usage of IR unless an individual uses it
unknowing. Christian (2012) identified lack of awareness as one of the issues
which adversely militate against the development of IR in Nigeria. He indicated
that lack of awareness of IRs among academic and researchers is high in the
country’s academic and research institutions.
Christian further noted that more than 74% of the respondents surveyed
during the course of his research are completely unfamiliar with IR. This
implies that knowledge of IR is very low among major stakeholders in the
development region like Nigeria. Alemeyehu (2010) indicated that regardless of
lecturers age and status, 31 out of 45 respondents have said that they didn’t
have any pre-knowledge of the IR. Moreover, the level of awareness according to
their academic status has also been found to be below in the academic status of
assistant and associate professor and research fellow. Therefore, awareness of
IR among lecturers seems to be one major issue to the development of IR for
research in developing countries. It is only when awareness is tackle in an
empirical study that usage may be enhanced.
Another
variable that may influence establishment and usage is attitude. Attitudes are
“inclination and feelings, prejudices or bias, preconceived notion, fear and
conviction about any specific topic (Taiwo, 2014). Allport (2010) stated that
an attitude “is a mental and neutral state of readiness organized through
experiences exerting a directive of dynamic influence upon individuals’
response to all objects or situation with which it is associated.” Attitude
according to Lahey (2011) is a belief that predisposes us to act and feel in
certain ways. Crider, Goethias, Kavanaugh, and solomo (2002) agreed that attitudes
are positive or negative evaluation of people, objects, ideas or events.
Attitudes are made up of emotional reaction (affective) thoughts, belief
(cognitive) and actions (behavioral).
A
person attitude towards an issue or object can be judged from his behavior in
situation involving that object or issue. When a person has a positive
attitude, the expected outcome is a pleasant feeling or result and vice versa.
It’s may also be inferred from his agreement or disagreement with statement
expressing beliefs, or feeling about objects. It is clear from the foregoing
that the development of positive attitude among lecturers toward the
establishment of IR will ensure effective implementation of IRs in universities
in the study area faculty in which lecturers are located and their academic
status may influence the establishment of IRs. According to Kim (2010) faculty
(lecturers) disciplines, professional rank and gender may be motivating or
impeding factors affecting their contribution to IR. Apart from awareness,
attitude of lecturers, faculty and academic status of the lecturers, there are
other factors that may influence the establishment of IR these include
lecturers’ willingness to deposit research articles in an IR, benefit of IRs,
well as challenges associated with the development of IRs. The success of an IR
depend on the willingness of the researcher to deposit their research output in
an IR can lead to its establishment in universities. Alemayehu (2010) found
that 26 out of 27 researchers who did have an awareness of IR were interested
to contribute content to repository.
Several
studies have also shown that many lecturers are not aware of the benefits of
depositing or using an IR. Thus, there is low collaboration between the IRs and
the researchers (lecturers). This low
collaboration between the IRs and researchers should be meditated in many ways
such as presenting the success stories about the achievements of IRs to them.
Furthermore, Westell (2010) pointed out that work still needs to be done to successfully
integrating repository into the research culture of lecturers while Beer
(2009); Harnad, Brody, Vallieres, Carr, Hitchocock, Gingras, Oppenhein, Hajjem,
and Hilf (2008)), suggested that the only way to gurantee 100% self-archiving
is with an institution mandate. There are generally technical challenges and
cost of installing IR. Software and this may influence IR establishment in
universities. Technological challenges may serve as factors that limit the
establishment and development of IR. Startman (2012) noted that IRs makes it
possible to collect content in one location, capture and provide open access of
a university, as well as preserve content that may be otherwise unavailable or
out of publication. Thus it is essential to explore lecturers’ willingness,
their benefit and challenges of IRs to determine if an IR will be worthwhile to
the library as well as the institution. It is therefore important to understand
what might motivate or deter the establishment of IR in universities.
Brief
History of University of Benin
The
University of Benin was founded in 1970 as an institute of technology and was
accorded the status of a full-fledged university by National Universities
Commission (NUC) on 1st of July 1971. On 1st April, 1975
the university at the request of the state Government was taken over by the
Federal Government following NUC directives.
1.2 Statement of Problem
In
recent years there has been increasing concern with the existing model of
scholarly communication. The rise of publication cost, subscription rates of
online journal and the bulk production of scholarly output in digital format
are becoming big problems and challenges to libraries in rendering services to
their users. With this fact, the emerging technologies have on the other hand
brought several methods to the libraries and academic institutions for
disseminating their research output, one of which is open access. Hence libraries have started adopting open
access technologies by taking institutional repository as an alternative
solution to introduce free access to scholarly research results, as well as for
the dissemination and preservation of digital documents as a response to the
current digital age.
Nigerian
university generally and federal universities particular, function as a focal
point for academic research in Nigeria. In view of the foregoing realities of
poor state of institutional repositories in Nigeria, this study seeks to
investigate the awareness and attitude
of lectures in University of Benin towards establishment of institutional repositories.
1.3 Objectives of study
The
general objective of the study is to find out
of awareness and attitude of lectures in University of Benin towards the
establishment of institutional repositories(IRs). The specific objectives are
to;
1)
Find out
lecturers awareness of IRs in University of Benin.
2)
Find out the attitude of the lecturers
towards the establishment of IRs in University of Benin.
3)
Find out the willingness of lecturer
towards depositing their research output in IR.
4)
Ascertain what lecturers perceive as the
benefits of IR in University of Benin.
5)
Identify general challenges of IR
establishment in University of Benin
1.4 Research Questions
The following research questions
will guide the study;
1)
Are lecturers aware of IR in University of Benin?
2)
What is the attitude of the lecturers
towards the establishment of IRs in University of Benin?
3)
What is the willingness of lecturer
towards depositing their research output in IRs in University of Benin?
4)
What do lecturers perceive as the
benefits of IR in University of Benin.?
5)
What are challenges of IR establishment
in University of Benin?
1.5 Scope of study
This
study covered all lectures in University of Benin, Edo state. The scope of this
study is University of Benin. Issues on awareness, attitudes and establishment
of IRs, perceived benefit and challenges associated with the development of IR
were also discussed in this study.
1.6 Significance of the study
Findings
from this study of awareness and attitude of lectures in University of Benin
towards the establishment of institutional repositories would be significant to
the university management, university librarians, lecturers and researchers in
the following ways. The university management will benefit from the study. This
will enable the management to take decisions on the establishment of IR in
University of Benin, after the establishment of IR in the university, it will
give visibility/ accessibility to the research output of lecturers in the
university.
The
university librarian will benefit from the study. This will assist the
university librarian in advocating for the establishment of IR in University of
Benin. In the long run, it will assist the university library to elevate the
problem of increasingly journal subscription costs and permission crisis and by
so doing, provide what their readers need. This will in turn enable librarians
to implement IR as one of their methods to disseminate and preserve digital
information resources. Lecturers are another set of persons to benefit from the
study. The establishment of the IR will enable the lecturers to deposit copies
of their publications in an IR which will attract faster publication time than
publishing in research journals. The depositing of the publications of lecturers
will enable their client to consult their works thereby increasing the
visibility of the work and for citation advantage.
Finally,
researchers and other scholars interested in electronic publication usage will
find it useful for their study. This is because it will boost the global
visibility and utility of their research and also introduce a novel research
culture focused on making international standard and values.
1.8 Operational definition of terms
Awareness:
this is the ability to perceive, to feel or to be conscious of events, objects,
thoughts, emotions or sensory patterns.
Institutional
Repositories: this has been defined as “a digital
archive of the intellectual product created by the faculty, research staff and
students of an institution, with few if any barriers to access.
Lecturers:
a member of the faculty of a college or university usually having qualified
status with rank or tenure who lectures in a university.
Publishing:
this is the process of production and dissemination of literature, music, or
information. It is also activity of making information available to the general
public.
Visibility:
the ability to see or be seen.
Technological
innovation: the technological
innovation system is a concept developed within the scientific field of
innovation studies with serves to explain the nature and rate of technological
change.
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