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This study aims to assess the scholarly communication competence of Zambian library and information science (LIS) professionals by evaluating their awareness, knowledge and practices regarding scholarly publication.

Applying a quantitative research approach, the study used a specially designed questionnaire. Responses from 57 professionals across universities and colleges in Zambia were gathered using convenience sampling. Data analysis involved descriptive statistics, mean and standard deviation calculations and t-values and p-values to understand respondents’ perceptions and knowledge of scholarly communication and publication.

The findings revealed significant gaps in respondents’ knowledge and awareness, particularly regarding predatory journals, journal selection factors, open-access models, publication challenges, reference management software (RMS) usage and research obstacles. The study underscored the necessity for increased training and capacity-building initiatives among Zambian LIS professionals to enhance their scholarly communication competence.

This research contributed to the field by highlighting deficiencies in scholarly communication awareness among Zambian LIS professionals. It emphasised the need for targeted interventions, awareness programs and educational support to improve academic literacy and scholarly publication practices. Additionally, the study suggested future research avenues, such as longitudinal studies and strategies for enhancing RMS adoption, to advance scholarly practices among Zambian professionals further.

This study aims to establish the use of active scholar assessment (ASA) in the field of education leadership as a new methodology in ranking administration and leadership journals. The secondary purpose of this study is to respond to the paucity of research on journal ranking in educational administration and leadership.

This empirical study uses on‐line survey research methods with analysis of variance (ANOVA) statistical analysis.

The main findings of this study are: ASA minimizes noted limitations in peer assessment studies; publishing rates and years of service do not significantly influence quality assessment bias; ASA provides a comprehensive and fair assessment of journals; and ASA responds to established criteria as a new, independent system for journal ranking. This study also provides current rankings of educational administration and leadership journals.

This study points to the importance of continued research using ASA in journal assessment in education and other social sciences.

This study provides a new methodology in assessing journal quality, awareness, and importance to the field for journals in educational administration and leadership.

This paper aims to explore the effective ways to utilize current awareness services (CAS) for library and information science (LIS) professionals. It seeks to identify core journals for systems librarianship based on Bradford analysis.

The study explored the methods for CAS based on literature review, followed by Bradford analysis of systems librarianship literature, which was conducted by the quantitative analysis approach.

A core journal list for systems librarianship was built based on Bradford analysis. Three effective ways to utilize CAS by table of contents (TOCs) alerts were identified.

To keep up to date with the latest literature in the field of interest, LIS professionals should take advantage of CAS. The study found three effective ways to utilize CAS by TOCs alerts and identified core journals for systems librarianship. The research can help LIS professionals efficiently navigate the information tsunami to obtain the reliable and relevant information that deserves their time and attention, and stay aware of new developments in their area of interest.

This paper aims to assess the use of electronic journal resource at the University of Dar es Salaam. The study involved the postgraduate students in the School of Education at the University of Dar es Salaam.

A combination of questionnaires for postgraduate students and interview for the reference librarians was used, whereby 100 postgraduate students and six reference librarians were involved in the study. SPSS and content analysis were used to analyse the data.

Major findings of the study reveal that majority of the students reported using electronic journal resources for various purposes including working on the assignments, research proposal writing, literature review, research report writing, current awareness, leisure and for extra exploration of ongoing scientific debates through peer-reviewed papers. The challenges encountered in the use of electronic journal resources include power outage, inadequate bandwidth, slow download speed, inability to access the resources from home, lack of training, lack of awareness, limited access to computers and difficulty in searching. Finally, the recommendations for improving the use of electronic journal resources are provided.

This is the first time an effort has been made to assess the use of electronic journal resources by postgraduate students in the School of Education at the University of Dar es Salaam. The study could be used to assess the postgraduate students’ need for electronic resources at the University of Dar es Salaam and other users in higher learning institutions.

Open access (OA) is often considered as particularly beneficial to researchers in the global south. However, research into awareness of and attitudes to OA has been largely dominated by voices from the global north. A survey was conducted of 507 researchers from the developing world and connected to INASP's AuthorAID project to ascertain experiences and attitudes to OA publishing. The survey revealed problems for the researchers in gaining access to research literature in the first place. There was a very positive attitude to OA research and OA journals, but when selecting a journal in which to publish, OA was seen as a much less important criterion than factors relating to international reputation. Overall, a majority of respondents had published in an OA journal and most of these had paid an article processing charge. Knowledge and use of self-archiving via repositories varied, and only around 20% had deposited their research in an institutional repository. The study also examined attitudes to copyright, revealing most respondents had heard of Creative Commons licences and were positive about the sharing of research for educational use and dissemination, but there was unease about research being used for commercial purposes. Respondents revealed a surprisingly positive stance towards openly sharing research data, although many revealed that they would need further guidance on how to do so. The survey also revealed that the majority had received emails from so called “predatory” publishers and that a small minority had published in them.

The purpose of this paper is to review RefAware, a new current awareness product introduced to the University of Calgary in September 2008. Coinciding with the product's launch, a team of three librarians was established to develop expertise with RefAware and promote it within the library and across campus.

A brief overview of current awareness tools leads into a discussion of key features available in RefAware, supplemented by a detailed section guiding the user through the product. In addition to highlighting key promotional undertakings, comparisons are drawn between RefAware and Ingenta, one of the earliest current awareness services used by the University of Calgary Library.

Benefits of using this current awareness tool include access to current and reliable information, ability to search within multiple disciplines on a predetermined topic, the convenience of receiving alerts when new information becomes available, and direct export to RefWorks. Limitations include inability to combine search profiles into one search string, cumbersome source list creation tools, inconsistent functionality when exporting citations, and lack of clarity with regards to classification of source names.

While its capability to simultaneously search through many new electronic publications makes it a multi‐disciplinary electronic journal, RefAware should be viewed as a complement to other research tools, not as a replacement.

An objective review of this new current awareness product for librarians is provided.

The study aimed to determine the correlations occurring between systemic support and environmental awareness. Additionally, the authors wished to establish which systemic factors (criteria of the ISO 14001) impact those dependencies.

Quantitative and qualitative research were carried out (survey findings were analysed against documentation research and self-observation records). The authors used literature review, analysis of system documentation, survey research and self-observation. The research was conducted in the period from April to May 2020. It focused on a chemical company operating within the structure of a large capital group and employing over 1,500 people. The system theory was used in the research. This theory recognises the existence of correlations and interactions among its subsystems and the elements that constitute them.

The conducted study points unequivocally to a considerable discrepancy between employees' opinions and records made in the documentation. Correlations between support and awareness level do exist, although for them to be positive, it is necessary to ensure an efficient process of communicating the effectiveness of the environmental management system. Reliance merely on audit findings, management reviews and environment monitoring process is insufficient. More focus is required on building employee commitment, as well as on counteracting excessive formalisation.

Environmental management systems have been gaining in popularity. There have been studies into the motives behind implementation of such systems, their benefits and their barriers for their application. However, there is a lack of research on the relationship between the individual criteria of the environmental management system.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the use of e‐journals by the users of IIT Delhi and Delhi University.

Survey research was conducted to access e‐journal use among IIT Delhi and Delhi University users. A stratified random sample method was used for selection of respondents. The survey was conducted through a structured questionnaire taking a random sample of 300 users (PG and PhD) from different disciplines of IIT Delhi and Delhi University libraries and the response rate was 66.66 per cent. The questionnaires were administered personally among the users of IIT Delhi and Delhi University during the survey period (March‐May 2011).

From this survey it was found that most of the users are aware of e‐journals and they are not only using them for building and updating their knowledge but also for collecting relevant material for their study and research purposes as information can be acquired expeditiously through e‐journals. The main aim of consulting these journals is for retrieving information regarding research, publishing research papers and manuscripts, assignments, presentations, seminars, and largely to update their own knowledge. However, this study also reveals several inherent problems especially with the use of e‐journals e.g. slow downloading as revealed by maximum IIT Delhi and Delhi University users. Other mechanical deficits like non‐availability of a particular issue, lack of training and limited access to terminals are also present while using e‐journals.

The present study consists only of e‐journal users of IIT Delhi and Delhi University. The geographical coverage is restricted to Delhi. The responses have been taken from users and the data have been collected during the months of March‐May 2011 only.

The problem is selected by the investigator to understand the use of e‐journals by IIT Delhi and Delhi University users so that libraries can make further improvement in their e‐journal services depending upon the results and suggestions.

The paper provides suggestions derived from the analysis of data which in turn will help to enhance the use of e‐journal services and fulfill the needs and requirements of users in the libraries of IIT Delhi and Delhi University.

The purpose of this paper is to provide insights into publication practices from the perspective of academics working within four disciplinary communities: biosciences, astronomy/physics, education and history. The paper explores the ways in which these multiple overlapping communities intersect with the journal landscape and the implications for the adoption and use of new players in the scholarly communication system, particularly open-access mega-journals (OAMJs). OAMJs (e.g. PLOS ONE and Scientific Reports) are large, broad scope, open-access journals that base editorial decisions solely on the technical/scientific soundness of the article.

Focus groups with active researchers in these fields were held in five UK Higher Education Institutions across Great Britain, and were complemented by interviews with pro-vice-chancellors for research at each institution.

A strong finding to emerge from the data is the notion of researchers belonging to multiple overlapping communities, with some inherent tensions in meeting the requirements for these different audiences. Researcher perceptions of evaluation mechanisms were found to play a major role in attitudes towards OAMJs, and interviews with the pro-vice-chancellors for research indicate that there is a difference between researchers’ perceptions and the values embedded in institutional frameworks.

This is the first purely qualitative study relating to researcher perspectives on OAMJs. The findings of the paper will be of interest to publishers, policy-makers, research managers and academics.

The present paper details research conducted into various aspects of author experience, attitudes and perceptions of publishing in paper and electronic journals. A sample of 1,040 authors in a variety of disciplines was identified as having published a journal article in the preceding year. A questionnaire was distributed to these authors and 537 usable replies were received. The questionnaire was analysed in terms of author experience in the paper and electronic domains, authors’ views on various aspects of electronic journals and their current skills. The results of the questionnaire suggest a small but increasing willingness to submit articles to electronic journals, but also suggest continuing concern about the permanence of such media. Almost a third of the sample felt that the addition of multimedia to their articles would be beneficial but few had the necessary skills to produce and incorporate multimedia objects. It is concluded that authors should be involved more in future research and debate in electronic serial publishing.