Search results
1 – 10 of 584Nkeiru A. Emezie, Scholastica A.J. Chukwu, Ngozi M. Nwaohiri, Nancy Emerole and Ijeoma I. Bernard
University intellectual output such as theses and dissertations are valuable resources containing rigorous research results. Library staff who are key players in promoting…
Abstract
Purpose
University intellectual output such as theses and dissertations are valuable resources containing rigorous research results. Library staff who are key players in promoting intellectual output through institutional repositories require skills to promote content visibility, create wider outreach and facilitate easy access and use of these resources. This study aims to determine the skills of library staff to enhance the visibility of intellectual output in federal university libraries in southeast Nigeria.
Design/methodology/approach
A survey research design was adopted for the study. The questionnaire was used to obtain responses from library staff on the extent of computer skills and their abilities for digital conversion, metadata creation and preservation of digital content.
Findings
Library staff at the university libraries had high skills in basic computer operations. They had moderate skills in digital conversion, preservation and storage. However, they had low skills in metadata creation.
Practical implications
The study has implications for addressing the digital skills and professional expertise of library staff, especially as it concerns metadata creation, digital conversion, preservation and storage. It also has implications for the university management to prioritize the training of their library staff in other to increase the visibility of indigenous resources and university Web ranking.
Originality/value
This study serves as a lens to identify library staff skill gaps in many critical areas that require expertise and stimulate conscious effort toward developing adequate skills for effective digital information provision. It sheds light on the challenges that many Nigerian university libraries face in their pursuit of global visibility and university Web ranking.
Details
Keywords
Hanlie Baudin and Patrick Mapulanga
This paper aims to assess whether the current eResearch Knowledge Centre’s (eRKC) research support practices align with researchers’ requirements for achieving their research…
Abstract
Purpose
This paper aims to assess whether the current eResearch Knowledge Centre’s (eRKC) research support practices align with researchers’ requirements for achieving their research objectives. The study’s objectives were to assess the current eRKC research support services and to determine which are adequate and which are not in supporting the Human Sciences Research Council (HSRC) researchers.
Design/methodology/approach
This study uses interviews as part of the qualitative approach. The researcher chose to use interviews, as some aspects warranted further explanation during the interview. The interviews were scheduled using Zoom’s scheduling assistant. The interviews were semi-structured, guided by a flexible interview procedure and supplemented by follow-up questions, probes and comments. The research life cycle questions guided the interviews. The data obtained were coded and transcribed using MS Excel. The interview data were analysed, using NVivo, according to the themes identified in the research questions and aligned with the theory behind the study. Pre-determined codes were created in line with the six stages of the research life cycle and applied to group the data and extract meaning from each category. Interviewee responses were assigned to groups in line with the stages of the research life cycle.
Findings
The current eRKC research support services are aligned with the needs of HSRC researchers and highlight services that could be expanded or promoted more effectively to HSRC researchers. It proposes a new service, data analysis, and suggests that the eRKC could play a more prominent role in research impact, research data management and fostering collaboration with HSRC research divisions.
Research limitations/implications
This study is limited to assessing the eRKC’s support practices at the HSRC in Pretoria, South Africa. A more comprehensive study is needed for HSRC research services, capabilities and capacity.
Practical implications
Assessment of eRKC followed a comprehensive interviewee schedule that followed Raju and Schoombee’s research life cycle model.
Social implications
Zoom’s scheduling assistant may have generated Zoom fatigue and reduced productivity. Technical issues, losing time, communication gaps and distant time zones may have affected face-to-face interaction.
Originality/value
eRKC research support practices are rare in South Africa and most parts of the world. This study bridges the gap between theory and practice in assessing eRKC research support practices.
Details
Keywords
The purpose of this Real Impact Research Article is to empirically explore one of the most controversial and elusive concepts in knowledge management research – practical wisdom…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this Real Impact Research Article is to empirically explore one of the most controversial and elusive concepts in knowledge management research – practical wisdom. It develops a 10-dimensional practical wisdom construct and tests it within the nomological network of counterproductive and productive knowledge behavior.
Design/methodology/approach
A survey instrument was created based on the extant literature. A model was developed and tested by means of Partial Least Squares with data obtained from 200 experienced employees recruited from CloudResearch Connect crowdsourcing platform.
Findings
Practical wisdom is a multidimensional construct that may be operationalized and measured like other well-established knowledge management concepts. Practical wisdom guides employee counterproductive and productive knowledge behavior: it suppresses knowledge sabotage and knowledge hiding (whether general, evasive, playing dumb, rationalized or bullying) and promotes knowledge sharing. While all proposed dimensions contribute to employee practical wisdom, particularly salient are subject matter expertise, moral purpose in decision-making, self-reflection in the workplace and external reflection in the workplace. Unexpectedly, practical wisdom facilitates knowledge hoarding instead of reducing it.
Practical implications
Managers should realize that possessing practical wisdom is not limited to a group of select, high-level executives. Organizations may administer the practical wisdom questionnaire presented in this study to their workers to identify those who score the lowest, and invest in employee training programs that focus on the development of those attributes pertaining to the practical wisdom dimensions.
Originality/value
The concept of practical wisdom is a controversial topic that has both detractors and supporters. To the best of the author’s knowledge, this is the first large-scale empirical study of practical wisdom in the knowledge management domain.
Details
Keywords
Javaid Ahmad Wani, Taseef Ayub Sofi, Ishrat Ayub Sofi and Shabir Ahmad Ganaie
Open-access repositories (OARs) are essential for openly disseminating intellectual knowledge on the internet and providing free access to it. The current study aims to evaluate…
Abstract
Purpose
Open-access repositories (OARs) are essential for openly disseminating intellectual knowledge on the internet and providing free access to it. The current study aims to evaluate the growth and development of OARs in the field of technology by investigating several characteristics such as coverage, OA policies, software type, content type, yearly growth, repository type and geographic contribution.
Design/methodology/approach
The directory of OARs acts as the source for data harvesting, which provides a quality-assured list of OARs across the globe.
Findings
The study found that 125 nations contributed a total of 4,045 repositories in the field of research, with the USA leading the list with the most repositories. Maximum repositories were operated by institutions having multidisciplinary approaches. The DSpace and Eprints were the preferred software types for repositories. The preferred upload content by contributors was “research articles” and “electronic thesis and dissertations”.
Research limitations/implications
The study is limited to the subject area technology as listed in OpenDOAR; therefore, the results may differ in other subject areas.
Practical implications
The work can benefit researchers across disciplines and, interested researchers can take this study as a base for evaluating online repositories. Moreover, policymakers and repository managers could also get benefitted from this study.
Originality/value
The study is the first of its kind, to the best of the authors’ knowledge, to investigate the repositories of subject technology in the open-access platform.
Details
Keywords
Ugwunwa Esse and Yacob- Haliso
This study aims to investigate the facilitating conditions (FCs) and how these FC affect institutional repository (IR) sustainability practices in public universities in Nigeria.
Abstract
Purpose
This study aims to investigate the facilitating conditions (FCs) and how these FC affect institutional repository (IR) sustainability practices in public universities in Nigeria.
Design/methodology/approach
A survey research design was adopted in this study. The study population comprised 542 librarians from public universities that have IRs across Nigeria. A sample size of 230 librarians was determined using Taro Yamane’s formula. A multi-stage sampling technique was used to select the respondents in three stages, which were purposive, stratified and purposive sampling. A structured, validated questionnaire was used for data collection. Data were analyzed using descriptive and inferential (simple and multiple regression) statistics at a 5% level of significance.
Findings
The result revealed that the availability of FCs (ßeta = 0.459, t(211) = 7.719, p = 0.000) has a positive and significant influence on IR sustainability in public university libraries in Nigeria. The F-test (1, 223) value of 59.582 shows that there is sufficient evidence to substantiate the model’s usefulness in explaining IR sustainability. The R2 (0.211) indicates that 21.1% of the variation in IR sustainability is explained by the availability of FCs in public university libraries in Nigeria. The finding suggests that the availability of FCs is a vital predictor of IR sustainability in public university libraries in Nigeria. The result also depicts that out of the eight parameters that measure the availability of FCs, it was current awareness of IR that had a positive and significant influence on IR sustainability.
Originality/value
This study concluded that ICT skills and FCs are contributory factors to IR sustainability practices by librarians in public university libraries in Nigeria. It was recommended that university administrators formulate policies that promote the sustainability of IR and provide adequate funds to support IR sustainability. Furthermore, the library management in public university libraries in Nigeria should drive content recruitment and create awareness of the IRs among students and faculty to ensure continued use.
Details
Keywords
Godwin Oberhiri-Orumah and Ebikabowei Emmanuel Baro
The purpose of this study is to investigate the development of institutional repositories (IR) in tertiary institution libraries in Nigeria.
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this study is to investigate the development of institutional repositories (IR) in tertiary institution libraries in Nigeria.
Design/methodology/approach
The study adopted a survey research method. Online questionnaire and IR site investigation methods were used to collect data from 25 university libraries in Nigeria.
Findings
The study revealed that only 25 (14.7%) universities out of the 170 universities in Nigeria have successfully developed IRs and registered their presence in OpenDOAR. Other tertiary institutions such as Polytechnics and Colleges of Education investigated in Nigeria are yet to develop IRs. Contents such as theses and dissertations, conference proceedings and journal articles ranked highest being the most popular contents in the various IRs. The results showed that the development of IR saves space in the library, increases readership, increases access to local contents, minimizes damage to the original material, facilitates the dissemination of scholarly research and assists in globalization of Nigerian research findings. The IRs site investigation revealed that only few IRs have clearly defined access policy, content policy, submission policy and digital preservation policy. The study identified challenges such as inadequate facilities, unstable internet connectivity, lack of fund, irregular power supply, challenge of collecting materials for the IR, lack of skilled ICT personnel, copyright issues and absence of IR policies.
Practical implications
The results from the study will provide important data and insight into the development of institutional repositories in tertiary institution libraries in Nigeria, and generate suggestions for University Librarians, College Librarians, Polytechnic Librarians, tertiary institutions management and policy makers for developing institutional repositories in Nigeria and other developing countries.
Originality/value
The study investigated IR development in tertiary institutions in Nigeria. The findings will inform other tertiary institutions in developing countries that the development of IR provides an opportunity for the visibility of local contents emanating from institutions and make them see the reason to embrace this laudable development.
Details
Keywords
Ishrat Ayub Sofi, Ajra Bhat and Rahat Gulzar
The study aims to shed light on the current state of “Dataset repositories” indexed in Directory of Open Access Repositories (OpenDOAR).
Abstract
Purpose
The study aims to shed light on the current state of “Dataset repositories” indexed in Directory of Open Access Repositories (OpenDOAR).
Design/methodology/approach
From each repository/record information, the Open-Access Policies, Open Archives Initiative Protocol for Metadata Harvesting (OAI-PMH), year of creation and the number of data sets archived in the repositories were manually searched, documented and analyzed.
Findings
Developed countries like the United Kingdom and the USA are primarily involved in the development of institutional open-access repositories comprising significant components of OpenDOAR. The most extensively used software is DSpace. Most data set archives are OAI-PMH compliant but do not follow open-access rules. The study also highlights the sites’ embrace of Web 2.0 capabilities and discovers really simple syndication feeds and Atom integration. The use of social media has made its presence known. Furthermore, the study concludes that the number of data sets kept in repositories is insufficient, although the expansion of such repositories has been consistent over the years.
Practical implications
The work has the potential to benefit both researchers in general and policymakers in particular. Scholars interested in research data, data sharing and data reuse can learn about the present state of repositories that preserve data sets in OpenDOAR. At the same time, policymakers can develop recommendations and policies to assist in the construction and maintenance of repositories for data sets.
Originality/value
According to the literature, there have been numerous studies on open-access repositories and OpenDOAR internationally, but no research has focused on repositories preserving content-type data sets. As a result, the study attempts to uncover various characteristics of OpenDOAR Data set repositories.
Details
Keywords
Gema Bueno de la Fuente, Carmen Agustín-Lacruz, Mariângela Spotti Lopes Fujita and Ana Lúcia Terra
The purpose of this study is to analyse the recommendations on knowledge organisation from guidelines, policies and procedure manuals of a sample of institutional repositories and…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this study is to analyse the recommendations on knowledge organisation from guidelines, policies and procedure manuals of a sample of institutional repositories and networks within the Latin American area and observe the level of follow-up of international guidelines.
Design/methodology/approach
Presented is an exploratory and descriptive study of repositories’ professional documents. This study comprised four steps: definition of convenience sample; development of data codebook; coding of data; and analysis of data and conclusions drawing. The convenience sample includes representative sources at three levels: local institutional repositories, national aggregators and international network and aggregators. The codebook gathers information from the repositories’ sample, such as institutional rules and procedure manuals openly available, or recommendations on the use of controlled vocabularies.
Findings
The results indicate that at the local repository level, the use of controlled vocabularies is not regulated, leaving the choice of terms to the authors’ discretion. It results in a set of unstructured keywords, not standardised terms, mixing subject terms with other authorities on persons, institutions or places. National aggregators do not regulate these issues either and limit to pointing to international guidelines and policies, which simply recommend the use of controlled vocabularies, using URIs to facilitate interoperability.
Originality/value
The originality of this study lies in identifying how the principles of knowledge organisation are effectively applied by institutional repositories, at local, national and international levels.
Details
Keywords
Allison Symulevich and Jason Boczar
The purpose of this paper is to describe a state mandated merger of two institutional repositories from two separate campuses of a university into one new institutional…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to describe a state mandated merger of two institutional repositories from two separate campuses of a university into one new institutional repository. Due to a State Legislature mandate, the University of South Florida was required to merge institutional repositories from two campus into one new institutional repository.
Design/methodology/approach
USF Libraries formed a committee, planned for the migration and executed of the migration.
Findings
The authors discovered many unforeseen issues during the process of the migration such as difficulties with site redirects and hidden collections.
Originality/value
This project was a large-scale migration of institutional repositories, under a tight deadline due to a legislative mandate, that has not been discussed in detail in the literature.
Details