TABLE OF CONTENTS
TITLE PAGE i
APPROVAL PAGE ii
CERTIFICATION PAGE iii
DEDICATION PAGE iv
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS v
TABLE OF CONTENTS vii
LIST OF THE TABLES x
LIST OF FIGURES xi
ABSTRACT xii
CHAPTER
ONE: INTRODUCTION
Background of the Study 1
Statement of the Problem 13
Purpose of the Study 14
Research Questions 15
Hypotheses 16
Significance of the Study 17
Scope of the Study 19
CHAPTER
TWO: LITERATURE REVIEW
Conceptual
Framework
Concept of Open Access Resources 21
Concept of Awareness 26
Concept of Utilization 31
Concept of Postgraduate Students 36
Concept of University Library 40
Concept of Private University 44
Emergence of Open Access Resources 49
The Role of the Library/Librarian in Open Access to Knowledge 51
Challenges of Open Access to Knowledge 54
Theoretical Framework
Ranganathan’s Laws of 1931 59
Wilson’s 1981 Model of Information Seeking Behavior 64
Review of Eempirical Studies 67
Summary of Literature Review 79
CHAPTER THREE: RESEARCH METHOD
Design of the Study 82
Area of the Study 83
Population of the Study 83
Sample and Sampling Technique 84
Instruments for Data Collection 85
Validation of the Instrument 87
Reliability of the Instrument 87
Method of Data Collection 88
Method of Data Analysis 88
CHAPTER FOUR: RESULTS
Research Question 1 90
Research Question 2 93
Research Question 3 95
Research Question 4 96
Research Question 5 98
Research Question 6 100
Research Question 7 102
Research Question 8 104
Research Question 9 106
Hypothesis 1 108
Hypothesis 2 109
Summary of Major Findings 110
CHAPTER FIVE: DISCUSSION OF FINDINGS, IMPLICATION, RECOMMENDATIONS ANDCONCLUSION
Discussion of the Results 113
Implications of the Study 125
Recommendations 127
Limitations of the Study 129
Suggestions for Further Research 129
Conclusion 130
REFERENCES 132
APPENDICES
I: List of Open Access Publishers 141
II: The Distribution of Postgraduate Students in Licensed Private Universities in Nigeria 173
III:The Distribution of the Population and Sample Size 174
IV: Questionnaire 175
V: Observation Checklist 184
VI: Validators’ Comments 186
VII: Reliability Test 188
LIST OF TABLES
1: Percentage Distribution of Respondents on Availability of Open Access Sources 90
2: Mean Rating
of Medium Employed in Creating Awareness of Open
Access Resources 93
3: Mean Rating of Extent of Awareness of
Open Access Resources in the Library
95
4: Mean Rating of Extent of Utilization
of Open Access Resources in the Library 96
5: Mean Rating on the Influence of Awareness Creation on the Utilization of Open Access Resources 98
6: Mean Rating of the Challenges Associated with Awareness of Open Access Resources 100
7: Mean Rating of the Challenges
Associated with Utilization of Open Access Resources 102
8: Mean Rating of the Strategies for Enhancing Awareness of Open Access Resources 104
9: Mean Rating of the Strategies for
Enhancing Utilization of Open Access Resources 106
10: Analysis of Variance (ANOVA) on the Awareness of Open Access Resources in Libraries of Private Universities by Postgraduate Students 108
11:Analysis of Variance (ANOVA) on the Utilization of Open Access Resources in Libraries of Private Universities by Postgraduate Students 109
LIST OF FIGURES
Schematic Diagram Showing Relationship between Variables of the Study 58
Wilson’s 1981 Modified Model of Information Seeking Behaviour 66
ABSTRACT
The
purpose of this study was to determine the awareness and utilization of open
access resources in libraries of private universities by postgraduate students
in Nigeria. Nine research questions and two null hypotheses guided the study. A
descriptive survey research design was used for the study. The population of
the study (603) consisted of all postgraduate students in Nigerian private
universities, irrespective of their courses of study. A total sample size of
120 respondents was selected using multi-stage sampling technique. The
researcher developed a questionnaire titled “Awareness and Utilization of Open
Access Resources Questionnaire” (AUOARQ) and an observation checklist, which
were used to collect data for the study. These research instruments were
trial-tested for reliability in a South-West Nigerian private university. The
reliability of 0.97 was established using Cronbach Alpha procedure. A total of
120 copies of the questionnaire were distributed to respondents, out of which
113 copies were returned and found to be correctly filled. This gave a response
rate of 94.2%.The questionnaire was administered and collected by the
researcher and two research assistants who were librarians and who were
adequately instructed to ensure effective administering and collection. The
data collected were analyzed using Mean (X) and Standard Deviations to answer
the research questions. Two null hypotheses guided the study and were tested at.05
level of significance. The major findings of the study were that the overall
availability of open access sources in the libraries was poor. Also, the
general awareness and utilization of open access resources amongst postgraduate
students were also low. Some major challenges that led to the preceding were
that libraries did not organize seminars and workshops to sensitize students on
open access resources, little or no information materials on open access
resources in the library, erratic power supply, slow Internet connectivity,
lack of Internet searching skills, inability of library staff to assist users
to access to open access resources easily online and most especially, lack of
awareness of the existence of open access resources contributed to its poor
utilization by users. However, there was no significant difference in the mean
ratings of awareness and also in the mean ratings of utilization of open access
resources in libraries of private universities by postgraduate students in
Nigeria. Based on the findings, it was strongly recommended that the library
should oftenorganize seminars and workshops on open access for both students
and other library stakeholders, the library should acquire information
materials that teach the basics of open access and how to utilize it
maximally,provision of power inverters as backup for stable electricity
andincreasing the Internet bandwidth in the library to avoid slow downloading
or slow Internet connection when browsing the Internet. Also, library staff
should be given in-house training and orientation on the general concept of
open access and how to assist users access these resources easily online and
making open access a compulsory course to be taught in class to create its
awareness
CHAPTER ONE
INTRODUCTION
Background to the Study
Accessing
and dissemination of free scholarly publications should be a basic human right
which should be advocated and explored because of its ability to close the gap
between developed and developing countries.Free exchange and use of information
especially research based information forms the basis for economic, cultural,
social and scientific development, yet this has been compromised by restricted
access model of publishers and the dependency of researchers on research works
published in qualitative but restricted access journals (Canada, 2009). Canada
further opined that Open Access is capable of fostering information and
knowledge sharing within research, educational and scientific communities especially
in traditionally or economically disadvantaged regions. Therefore,open access
to knowledge has become essential for a country’s educational, socio-cultural,
and scientific development.
Traditionally,
scholarly publications have been sold on subscription to libraries and in the
age of print on paper this was the only model available that enabled publishers
to disseminate scholarly publications and recoup the cost. Unfortunately, this
meant that only researchers in institutions that could afford to pay the
subscription charges were able to read these scholarly articles. Even wealthy
universities could only afford a proportion of the world’s research literatures
and for institutions in poorer countries this proportion is tiny or even
non-existent. However, the Budapest Open Access Initiative in 2002 was the
first global Open Access initiative. Attending scholars were asked to sign an
agreement to preferentially publish their findings in open access journals.
This agreement can still be signed online today. In 2003, the Berlin
Declaration on Open Access to knowledge in the Sciences and Humanities was
published after a Conference with that name. Open access basically emerged to
address the issue of escalating cost of scholarly and scientific journals,
which had restricted scholars free access to research works globally.
Since the emergence of Open Access initiative, the
concept has been defined in different ways by numerous authors. The concept of
Open Access was first defined globally by Budapest Open Access Initiative in
Swan (2012:15) thus:
Free
availability on the public internet, permitting any users to read, download,
copy, distribute, print, search, or link to the full texts of these articles,
crawl them for indexing, pass them as data to software, or use them for any
other lawful purpose, without financial, legal, or technical barriers other
than those inseparable from gaining access to the Internet itself.
In the same vein,
Bethesda (2003) sees open access as, where the author and copyright holder
grants all users a
free, irrevocable, worldwide, perpetual right of access to, and license to
copy, use, distribute, transmit and display the work publicly and to make and
distribute derivative works, in any digital medium for any responsible purpose,
subject to proper attribution of authorship as well as the right to make small
numbers of printed copies for their personal use. Also, Suber (2010)sees Open Access (OA) as broad, and goes beyond scholarly publications. The writerdescribes openaccess
literature asdigital,
online, free of charge and free of most copyright and licensing restrictions. Suber
further stressed that open access contents are not restricted only to
peer-reviewed research articles.They
can be in any format from texts and data to software, audio, video and
multi-media. However, the Open Access movement focuses on peer-reviewed
research articles and their preprints. Open Access can also apply to non-scholarly
contents like music, movies and novels, even if these are not the principal focus
of most Open Access activists.
Therefore, from the foregoing definitions, the researcher simply define Open
Access as a barrier-free access to online works and other resources which can
be in any format from texts and data to software, audio, video and multi-media.
Consequently, like any
other information resource, open access resources have their forms or characteristics
for which they are known. However, Harnad (2008) has described the
characteristics of Open Access
as information,
which is free, immediate, permanent, full-text, on-line and accessible. Harnad further suggested three main justifications of Open Access. These are, to maximize the
uptake, usage, applications and impact of the research output of a university; to
measure and reward the uptake, usage, applications and impact of the research
output of a university (research metrics); and to collect, manage and showcase
a permanent record of the research output and impact of a university.
Therefore, from Harnad’s view and description of Open Access distinctiveness,
it will not be wrong to say that Open Access has seven peculiarities:
- It is free availability of scholarly
publication;
- It
is free of copyright and licensing restrictions;
- Its
materials are available online or on the Internet;
- Its
materials are full text;
- Its
materials can be accessed by anybody from anywhere without any discrimination;
- Its
materials can be freely used by anyone;
- Open
Access contents can be scholarly articles and their preprints in any format
from texts and data to software, audio, video, andmulti-media.
Conversely, any form of scientific output
(research work) can and should be made openly available by simply postingit onto
a website. This can and does happen for journal articles, book chapters and
whole books, data sets of all types including graphics, photographs, audio and
video files and software. Wallis (2009) observed that academic
libraries have come up with two major Open Access initiatives which are
Institutional Repositories
and Open Access Journal Systems. Institutional Repositories (IRs) are also
known as Digital Repositories, Open Access Repositories or The Green Route to
Open Access. Swan (2012)defined Open Access repository
as that technology that houses collections of scientific papers and other
research outputs and makes them available to all on the Web.Swan further opined
thatOpen Access Repositories may be institutionally-based, enhancing the
visibility and impact of the institution or they may be centralized,
subject-based collections like the economic repository (research papers in
economics). The researcher went further to explain institutional repositories
as digital collections of the outputs created within a university or research
institution.
Institutional
Repositories (IRs) is seen as the hallmark of open access publishing.Grundmann
(2009) opined that IRs are widely seen as the fastest route to open access to
the widest range of scholarly and research literatures since they allow authors
to publish in their choice of journals while providing the broadened access
without pay barriers. Grundmann also observed that scholars retain their
ability to publish in the most prestigious journals in their field while
simultaneously breaking down barriers to the wide dissemination of their
research. Reviewed literature further reveals that Open Access repositories (or
archives) are digital collections that make their contents freely available
over the Internet. These digital repositories collect the research output of
the members of a university’s research community and support the archiving and
long-term preservation of the institution’s intellectual output. Mostly,
institutional repositories are hosted within academic libraries around the
world to digitally collect and preserve academic papers and documents in order
to make them freely accessible to the students, faculty and the public.
As for the second type
of Open Access initiative which is Open Access
Journals (OAJ) which is also known as ‘The Golden Route to Open Access
publishing’, it is seen as another major initiative towards Open Access itself. According to Abukutsa-Onyango, (2010), Open Access can be achieved by launching Open Access Journals or converting existing
journals to Open
Access. Abukutsa-Onyango further stated
that the best-known Open
Access software is the Open Journal System. However, Suber (2006) went ahead to
define Open access journals as scholarly
journals that are available online to the readers without financial, legal or
technical barriers other than those inseparable from gaining access to the
internet itself.Hirwade and Rajyalakshmi (2006) further buttressed that Open
access journals are peer reviewed journals made available, free of charge, to
the public through the Internet.
Some Open Access journals charge a document
management fee from authors. Open Access journals allow free access to read,
download, copy, distribute and print articles and other informational material.
They are peer-reviewed. Open access to research journals and literature
accelerates research and enriches education and knowledge sharing between more
developed countries and less developed countries. Stranack (2008) opined that,
several libraries have launched Open Access journals. Stranack further gave examples
which included the University of Toronto’s Journal Hosting Service, The
Canadian Online Journal of Queer Studies in Education, Clinical &
Investigative Medicine which is the official journal of the Canadian Society
for Clinical Investigation and, The University of Toronto Journal of
Undergraduate Life Sciences (JULS).
Giarlo (2005) observed that even if scholars did not turn to
Open Access in order to bypass unaffordable
access fees, they would turn to it in order to take advantage of the Internet
as a powerful new technology for sharing knowledge instantly, with a worldwide
audience, at zero marginal cost, in a digital form amenable to unlimited
processing.Giarlo further observed that open access
can provide numerous benefits such as researchers having wider visibility and
usage of their research findings, open accessresources give a significantly larger
and more diverse audience, increased exposure to research also increases
citation rate, open access also provides an avenue to connect with a global
society more easily and researchers can publish without printing costs and readers
around the globe can have barrier free access to the latest literature and
research findings. In the same vein, Willinsky (2010) buttress that Open Access
can give authors a worldwide audience larger than that of any
subscription-based journal no matter how prestigious or popular and
demonstrably increases the visibility and impact of their work. For journals
and publishers, Open Access makes their articles more visible, discoverable,
retrievable and useful because they are displayed on the World Wide Web. If a
journal is Open Access, then it can use this superior visibility to attract
submissions and advertisement, not to mention readers and citations. In
addition, the benefit to libraries is that Open Access solves the high
subscription price and permission crisis for scholarly journals. Open Access
also serves library interests in other indirect ways especially where
librarians want to help users find the information they need. Regardless of the
budget-enforced limits on the library’s own collection, Open Access augments
the limited library collection. Universities can also benefit from their
researchers’ increased impact created by their publications in Open Access and
the university’s visibility is also being increased as their researchers are
cited and their publications referenced globally.
However, from the preceding facts on the concept of open
access and its profits to library users, awareness is still a pre-requisite to
subsequent use of open access publications unless an individual uses it
unknowingly. According to Stevenson (2008:28), “awareness is having knowledge
of something”. This could also mean having information about something or even
being familiar with something. However, according to Dinev, Hart and Mullen
(2008), awareness raises consciousness and knowledge about a certain technology
and its personal and social benefits. Dinevet al further supported this view by
establishing awareness as the central determinant of user attitude and behaviour
towards technology. In the open access environment, awareness has also been
acknowledged as an important factor determining the use of this mode of
scholarly communication (Fullard, 2007). However, the awareness of open access
resources entails; being conscious of its existence, its features, its benefits,
and subsequently how to easily access them online. Although the awareness of
open access cannot be over emphasized, the concept of open access is assumed
not to be widely known among researchers from different geographical localities
and research disciplines. Some related literature indicated that open access is
an unknown concept to many researchers and academicians. Even so, the library
must go into deliberate awareness creation and advocacy amongst its users for
open access resources to be maximally utilized. The users especially
postgraduate students who are the major users of scholarly publications for
their research, thesis and dissertation would need to be sensitized by the
library on the basics of open access resources and how best to access them
easily online.
Nevertheless, in any given library, quite a number of resources
(finance, human and material) are usually devoted towards achieving its target
objectives. The efforts geared towards making a variety of information resources available and
accessible in a library will be a waste of time if such materials are not
adequately utilized. It is through the use of available library materials that academic excellence
can be achieved. Ashiru (2003) opined that libraries all over the world play
vital roles in the intellectual development of students because such libraries
are the nerve centres of all academic activities in any citadel of learning. Ashiru further opines that to achieve academic excellence, students should make
significant use of library resources, open access resources
inclusive.To Aguolu and
Aguolu (2002), it is impossible for any nation or institution to develop
without creative and imaginative utilization of accumulated information.Muthiah (2016) acknowledges that the Five Laws of Library Science
formulated by Ranganathan revolve around the user or are user-centered, thus
emphasizing the service nature of the profession. One of the laws, “books are
for use” implies that information resources in a library system are for
utilization. Therefore, utilization in this present study refers
to the proper use of information in order to achieve a desired educational or
scholarly result.Utilization of Information resources and services is
usuallydetermined by the library statistical record, which shows the number of
materials consulted and those actually borrowed for home reading but for open
access resources utilized to be ascertained, the history of websites visited by
users on the computer system will need to be visited and checked.However, it may be appropriate to deduce that the decision making
of an individual, to a great extent, depends on the degree of his or her information resources patronage or use,
especially utilization of open access resources. This is because it encompasses
current and relevant research findings that are panacea to issues of life.
Hence, the need for open access utilization by library users including
postgraduate students who are potential researchers in the university learning
environment cannot be over emphasized.
Presumably, university
education has assumed a centre stage in the development of Nigeria. The rate
universities are established and the immense population seeking admission in
these universities in Nigeria shows that the quest for knowledge is increasing.
This was supported by Ajadi (2010) who observed that it is the importance
attached to university education for the development of high level manpower
that has led to the proliferation of universities in Nigeria. In the same vein
the writer also opined that the university among other institutions trains the
country’s high level manpower and is invariably a potent driver of its
ec
