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The purpose of this paper is to investigate the research obstacles facing Zarqa University (ZU) faculty members, and the ways of overcoming them according to their points of view.

The study attempted to investigate the research obstacles facing ZU faculty members and how to overcome them according to the points of view among the staff. This was carried out through answering four key research questions: What are the research obstacles facing ZU faculty members according to their points of view?; Are there any statistical differences between the trends among ZU faculty members regarding research obstacles attributed to the type of faculty (scientific or humanity), gender and academic rank?; What are the ways of overcoming research obstacles facing ZU faculty members, from their points of view?; and Are there any statistical differences between the points of view among ZU faculty members regarding the ways of overcoming research obstacles attributed to the type of faculty (scientific or humanity), gender and academic ranks? The principal research tool used was a questionnaire, designed and developed by the researcher and based on his personal academic experience, intuitive hints gathered from discussions with ZU faculty members, related literature, and consultation with academic referees specialising in library and information science. The questionnaire was modified where necessary. The final version included a set of questions on the research obstacles facing ZU faculty members and the ways of overcoming research obstacles according to their points of view. In order to verify the reliability of the study, the initial questionnaire was reviewed by four referees to solicit their opinions on clarity and the extent to which each phrase met the study objectives: two university professors and two university associate professors. The researcher also applied Cronbach alpha (α) to the responses using a statistical package (SPSS), and the stability coefficient of the tool was 0.631, acceptable for the educational purposes of the study.

The study revealed that the means of the respondents' trends towards the ways of overcoming research obstacles were higher than the means of the trends towards research obstacles. The means of the responses towards the ways of overcoming research obstacles ranged from 2.91 to 4.49, while the means of the responses towards research obstacles ranged from 1.79 to 4.01. It also revealed that in spite of ZU faculty members having good motivation as well as research and statistical skills, as demonstrated in their responses, the financial and moral support required were the main problems. Furthermore, there were no significant differences between the trends among faculty members towards research obstacles and the ways of overcoming them attributed to dependent variables, such as type of faculty (scientific or humanity), academic ranks and gender.

The study limitation was the trends among ZU faculty members, who were in the first semester of the academic year 2008/2009.

The importance of the study comes from its results by finding out the trends among ZU faculty members towards the research obstacles at the university and ways of overcoming them. It is an important tool to inform ZU's administrators of the study results in order to try to avoid research obstacles and support the ways of overcoming them whilst encouraging faculty members to perform more research in different fields.

The purpose of this paper is to report the findings of a survey undertaken at Al Ain University of Science and Technology (AAU) to investigate and understand faculty awareness, use and perception of Open Access (OA) resources.

Using a Web-based survey questionnaire, data were collected from full-time faculty members teaching at AAU, United Arab Emirates (UAE).

The study found that faculty members possess a good knowledge and a positive perception of OA resources. They frequently use OA resources for teaching, learning and research activities. However, the findings indicate that female faculty members are more likely to use OA resources than male faculty members. Faculty members with a high level of awareness or use are found to have a highly positive perception of OA resources. Presenting research reports at conferences and seminars or publishing research papers is weakly associated with the level of awareness and use of OA resources. The study revealed no association between the faculty member and their use of OA resources.

It is essential for scientific communities to understand the importance of OA resources and how to use them effectively in teaching, learning and research activities.

This kind of research is new to the Gulf Cooperation Council countries in general and the UAE in particular. The findings of the study may help to improve the awareness and the use of OA resources among scientific communities not only in the Arab countries but also around the world.

The purpose of this paper is to explore and encapsulate the enablers that can facilitate agility in faculty members of engineering institutions. The paper also aims to conduct a prelim qualitative validation of the enablers and analyze the interplay between them using the total interpretive structural modeling (TISM) approach.

The study adopted the TISM approach to comprehend the interactions and transitivity between the enablers. Cross-impact multiplication matrix (MICMAC) analysis was applied to rank the enablers and classify them on the basis of the driving and dependence power into dependent, autonomous, independent and linkage enablers.

Extensive literature review and expert opinion helped identify 16 enablers that can promote workforce agility. The results indicate “management support” as the most crucial enabler. Rewards and recognition and employee empowerment were among the other enablers that have a high driving force. New capabilities, learning and innovation and the expanding role of faculty members were found to have high dependence power, which makes the enablers dependent on other enablers for activation.

The results of this study would assist the management of engineering colleges and universities to design, adopt and implement policies and practices that would facilitate agility in faculty members. Faculty members shoulder the responsibility of molding the future generation, and hence, it is important that they are competent enough to impart quality education. The policymakers should focus on policies and practices that leverage human resource potential and support an innovative climate that nurtures entrepreneurial activities in engineering institutions.

So far research on workforce agility has predominantly focused on the manufacturing sector. Despite the workforce (refers to faculty members here) being crucial in contributing to the progress of universities and colleges, very little work is done on how faculty members can be made agile. Application of the TISM method in identifying the variables that can facilitate faculty members' agility in engineering institutions in India is a new and original contribution to the literature on workforce agility.

This paper aims to determine and analyze the rate of content submission by lecturers in relation to type of university, discipline, academic qualification, rank and teaching experience and identified the determinants of research output submission by faculty members in Nigerian varsities.

The survey was conducted in six universities with functional institutional repositories in Southern Nigeria. Data collated through questionnaire from the university lecturers were analyzed using frequency distribution, percentages and regression analysis.

Results showed that submission of research output was higher for lecturers in Social Sciences than for those in the Sciences; the highest among those with doctorate degree, senior lecturers and those with 6–10 years of teaching experience. The rank of faculty members and the type of university were significant determinants of research output submission.

The survey was limited to universities in Southern Nigeria with functional institutional repositories. There should be further investigations on same study in universities with functional institutional repositories in other regions in Nigeria.

Increased submission rate by faculty members will sustain the institutional repositories.

Faculty members get in contact, make friends and engage in collaborative research.

This report contributes to the global knowledge and communication’s field through the provision of empirical evidence on the determinants of content submission in open access institutional repositories.

Research readings groups represent a recent innovation in accounting doctoral education that appears to be spreading at research-oriented universities. In this chapter, the authors describe how accounting research readings groups can serve as a mechanism to engage doctoral students in the consumption and discussion of research throughout all phases of the doctoral program. An accounting research readings group supplements the breadth of knowledge gained in doctoral seminars by adding depth of knowledge in a focal research area. The authors offer insights from the educational psychology literature to justify research readings groups as a form of team-based learning and then offer suggestions on the formation and operation of these groups. The authors enumerate the many benefits that these groups afford to both doctoral students and faculty members. The authors also distribute a survey to faculty organizers of the existing accounting research readings groups and share the results of this survey to supplement their advice with firsthand experiences, the authors also share the results of a survey distributed to faculty organizers of existing accounting research readings groups. The authors’ goal is to encourage the use of accounting research readings groups to inspire, foster, and enhance the research culture within accounting departments and doctoral programs.

The purpose of this paper is to identify the barriers and challenges to international interactions of the faculty members in Iran.

To achieve the purpose, a qualitative phenomenological approach was used. The research population was all experts in the field of higher education in Iran, it included 17 experts who were selected through purposeful sampling by snowball method and based on theoretical saturation. To collect the data, a semi-structured interview was used and for the data analysis, an inductive content analysis was applied.

The findings showed that the barriers and challenges to faculty members’ international interactions can be defined through three main barriers: inside university barriers, outside university barriers, and individual barriers.

This research identified the barriers and challenges of faculty members’ international interactions in Iran. The method of this study can be applied in other applied fields as well.

This study adds to the authors’ knowledge about international interactions of the faculty members and also the barriers and challenges of these interactions, so to have more interactions of faculty members at the international level, universities should make an effort to identify barriers and eliminate them, more than ever.

BUSINESS SCHOOL GRAFFITI is a highly personal and revealing account of the first ten years (1965–1975) at Britain’s University Business Schools. The progress achieved is documented in a whimsical fashion that makes it highly readable. Gordon Wills has been on the inside throughout the decade and has played a leading role in two of the major Schools. Rather than presuming to present anything as pompous as a complete history of what has happened, he recalls his reactions to problems, issues and events as they confronted him and his colleagues. Lord Franks lit a fuse which set a score of Universities and even more Polytechnics alight. There was to be a bold attempt to produce the management talent that the pundits of the mid‐sixties so clearly felt was needed. Buildings, books, teachers who could teach it all, and students to listen and learn were all required for the boom to happen. The decade saw great progress, but also a rapid decline in the relevancy ethic. It saw a rapid withering of interest by many businessmen more accustomed to and certainly desirous of quick results. University Vice Chancellors, theologians and engineers all had to learn to live with the new and often wealthier if less scholarly faculty members who arrived on campus. The Research Councils had to decide how much cake to allow the Business Schools to eat. Most importantly, the author describes the process of search he went through as an individual in evolving a definition of his own subject and how it can best be forwarded in a University environment. It was a process that carried him from Technical College student in Slough to a position as one of the authorities on his subject today.

This paper aims to assess the usage behaviour of electronic resources (e-resources) among health sciences faculty and their level information literacy (IL) practices, and whether individual characteristics and IL skills can influence faculty member’s usage of e-resources at Muhimbili University of Health and Allied Sciences (MUHAS).

The authors conducted questionnaire surveys using a stratified random sampling technique to 135 faculty members at MUHAS between August and October 2016. The study used regression analysis to determine factors associated with the use of e-resources among faculty members at MUHAS.

In addition to Google search engine, Wikipedia and four scholarly databases and search engines, the level of awareness of other 19 scholarly databases and search engines which are either subscribed or open access resources was less than 50 per cent. In addition to Google search engine, Wikipedia and five scholarly databases and search engines, the self-reported usage of other 18 scholarly databases and search engines was less than 50 per cent on the on “daily” and “weekly” categories. In total, 18 of the 32 IL competencies were rated below 50 per cent in the “good” grade by the faculty members. These IL competencies included information search techniques, reference management, critical appraisal and Web 2.0 technologies. The IL competencies (ß = 0.223), an experience of using e-resources (ß = 0.222) and some research disciplines [nursing (ß = 0.191) and pharmacy (ß = 0.186)] positively predicted self-reported usage of e-resources among faculty members.

This is a comprehensive study that assesses the use patterns of e-resources across different health sciences disciplines in a university setting, and the influence of demographic characteristics and IL skills on the usage of e-resources in Tanzania. The results of this study will be useful to academic libraries to inform and review their policies and practices in relation to the IL training programmes and information services in a university setting.

Two main purposes guide this study. The first is to assess the level of individual, group, and organizational learning at Qatar University (QU), and the level of career resilience among its faculty members. The second is to explore the relationships between these levels of learning at QU and the career resilience of its faculty members.

This study is quantitative in nature and was conducted using a survey methodology as its research design. A variety of statistical techniques were utilized in this research. A multiple regression model, the Pearson production‐moment correlation coefficient (r), means, and standard deviations were used as the main statistical techniques.

The findings of this study indicated that faculty members at QU practice three different levels of learning – i.e. individual learning, departmental learning, and university learning – separately or combined in a moderately high way. Further, the results clarified that faculty members at QU perceived themselves to have a moderately high level of career resilience. In terms of the relationship between career resilience and the three different levels of learning, the results of the Pearson production‐moment correlation coefficient (r) and the coefficient of determination, R², statistically confirmed the positive, modest, and significant relationship between career resilience and the three levels of learning combined.

A hypothesized correlation between career resilience and organizational learning is affirmed. The results of this study confirm the feasibility of connecting two emerging frameworks, i.e. organizational learning and career resilience. Therefore, studying the organizational learning of faculty members is a device that can be used to predict the possibility of faculty members adopting the characteristics and values of a learning organization in their academic life individually or organizationally, while displaying minimal dysfunctional behavior through their career resilience.

The purpose of this paper is to design a talent-based model for recruiting faculty members at regional comprehensive universities in Iran.

To achieve the purpose, grounded theory approach was used. The research population consisted of all experts in the field of higher education in Iran. Nineteen experts were selected through purposeful sampling by Snowball method and based on theoretical saturation. To collect the data, a semi-structured interview was used and for the data analysis, a thematic analysis technique was applied.

The findings showed that the model for recruiting the faculty members in Iranian regional universities included four components: Personal Characteristics, Professional Capabilities, Behavioral Capabilities and Cognitive Capabilities.

This research identified the recruiting components and its results can be used to recruit capable faculty members purposefully and in accordance with the Iranian academic strategic plan. The method of this study can be applied in other applied fields as well.

This study adds to the authors' knowledge about recruiting of the faculty members and also the factors that can be helpful in a talent-based selection. Therefore, in order to have capable faculty members, universities should make an effort to identify relevant components and design a comprehensive model to recruit more capable faculty members.