Academics’ Attitudes toward the Utilization of Institutional Repositories in Nigerian UniversitiesScholastica C. Ukwoma and V. W. Dike
abstract: This study was carried out to ascertain the attitudes of academics concerning the utilization of institutional repositories (IRs) in Nigerian universities. The study took the form of a descriptive survey, gathering data from the five Nigerian universities with IRs. The result showed that the universities developed IRs to create a forum for their research, to collaborate with colleagues, and for long-term preservation. Academics have positive attitudes toward the utilization of IRs, and they willingly submit their publications. They believe that publishing works on institutional repositories will improve accessibility to scholarly literature and increase the citation impact of their work. The implication of this study is that academics’ support of institutional repositories favors the growth of IRs in Nigeria. Their contributions and observations will have a considerable impact on the improvement of IRs generally.
Introduction
Institutional repositories (IRs) have gained prominence, both in developed and developing countries, because they offer a solution to the management of content in universities. Much of the content produced by universities is organized using
traditional systems peculiar to that institution alone, which often hinders access and retrieval. An IR, on the other hand, provides a platform for archiving and managing such information that enables easy access and use by researchers.
Academics use an IR to access articles and other information resources for research and learning. An IR can provide scholars with wider knowledge of the research carried out in their subject area of interest. Academics download published articles of their col-leagues from institutional repositories, from which they review the literature to identify new findings or gaps in knowledge.
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Academics’ Attitudes toward the Utilization of Institutional Repositories in Nigerian Universities18
Academics also utilize their IRs for archiving published works to increase their visibility and collaboration with other academics. Utilization of IRs promotes visibility and provides a global network for academic scholarship. Michelle Armstrong stated that research dissemination is a core mission for all universities.1 Libraries provide institutional repository services to support this goal. However, self-archiving—that is, submission by the authors—is a better option to ensure sustenance of an IR in terms of content creation and updates. It is therefore important to study this major group of contributors to IRs.
Research is vital for both academics and students.2 Academics’ involvement is a major issue in the development of IRs for research in Nigeria. If scholars fail to contribute,
IR content will lack quality publica-tions. This, in turn, will affect the rate of use. The willingness of academics to use the IR as a platform to archive their research output and to collaborate with colleagues is necessary for the sustain-ability of IRs.
Different categories of academics perform teaching and research in the various faculties of the university. Since
they may have divergent views on the use of IRs, it is necessary to ascertain the opinions of members of the various faculties toward IR utilization. A study of this subject will give more insight into the extent to which their work is archived on the IR.
Research Objectives
The objectives of this study were to answer two questions: (1) For what purposes do academics use institutional repositories in Nigerian universities? and (2) What is the attitude of academics toward using IRs for accessing materials and submitting their content for archiving? To answer these questions, the study tested and attempted to disprove three null hypotheses:
Hypothesis 1: “There is no significant difference in the mean rating of the attitude of senior and junior academics toward submitting their content for archiving in institutional repositories.”
Hypothesis 2: “There is no significant difference in the mean rating of academics in the faculties of arts, sciences, social sciences, and medicine and pharmaceutical sciences with respect to their attitude toward submitting their content for archiving in institutional repositories.”
Hypothesis 3: “There is no significant difference in the mean rating among academics in the universities under study with respect to their attitude toward submitting their content for archiving in institutional repositories.”
The willingness of academics to use the IR as a platform to archive their research output and to collaborate with colleagues is necessary for the sustainability of IRs.
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Scholastica C. Ukwoma and V. W. Dike 19
Purpose of an Institutional Repository
An institutional repository is a platform for archiving research publications to increase citation and visibility and to preserve scholarly communications. The relatively recent development of the institutional repository promises to help ensure long-term preserva-tion of digital scholarship.3 Juha Hakala stated that preservation of electronic documents means taking steps to ensure the longevity of these resources; it applies to both materials that are born digital and those converted from traditional analog form.4 Hakala further identified refreshing, migration, and emulation as three strategies that can be used for long-time preservation.5 Tyler Walters wrote that librarians who manage institutional repositories naturally think of how to ingest their researchers’ scholarly content into the repository.6 He further stated that institutional repositories can be a central tool for organizing and accessing both formal and informal scholarly communications generated and disseminated in digital format.7 Chinwe Anunobi and Ifeyinwa Okoye highlighted that an institutional reposi-tory is a way of reducing the cost of scholarly publication and increasing the visibility and access of scholarly research.8 Gideon Christian observed that most academics publish for the purposes of advancement in their career, to collaborate with peers, and to gain prestige from their work.9 This implies that an IR could be used for various purposes, such as to locate current information, publish academic works, or download resources from the Web, depending on the interest of the researcher.
The rationale for implementing an IR, as suggested by B. K. Vishala and M. K. Bhandi, is to provide an opportunity for members of the academic community to post research online, expanding exposure and access to their works.10 Writing on the objectives of an IR, Stephen Akintunde stated that it creates global visibility for an institution’s schol-arly research, collects content in a single place, provides for open access to institutional research output by self-archiving, and stores and preserves other institutional digital assets.11 Younghee Noh opined that research achievement accounts for 60 percent of a university’s performance ranking, made up of 40 percent for academic peer review and 20 percent for citation per faculty member.12 Noh further stated that university libraries account for a significant portion of the academic success of universities.13
Scholarly communication has had tremendous impact on global recognition of academics and institutions. Authors gain popularity through their publications, which improves their university’s ranking and visibility. Nader Ale Ebrahim, Hadi Salehi, Mo-hamed Amin Embi, Farid Habibi, Hossein Gholizadeh, and Seyed Mohammad Motahar pointed out that an important measurement for a scholar’s productivity is the number of citations to his or her articles.14 Therefore, academics should be encouraged to self-archive their quality works to increase citation counts and improve global recognition. David Shotton and Jason Priem, cited by Ebrahim and his coauthors, stated that deposit-ing a paper in an institutional repository is a way of increasing the paper’s visibility.15
an institutional repository is a way of reducing the cost of scholarly publication and increasing the visibility and access of scholarly research.
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Academics’ Attitudes toward the Utilization of Institutional Repositories in Nigerian Universities20
Due to the pressure on university ranking, most institutions encourage academics to increase their research output. Felix Ubogu and Maryna Van den Heever stated that ranking systems have attracted wide attention from stakeholders, both national and
international, who are interested in the performance of universities.16 An IR is an avenue to improve the visibility and rank-ing of an institution.
Raym Crow explained that an IR cre-ates an enabling environment for schol-arly publication and increases the global visibility of the research publications of
an institution.17 IRs add to the credibility of a university and play an important role in establishing the university’s identity and values.
Attitude of Academics toward Institutional Repositories
The attitude of academics toward submission of contents to their institutional reposi-tory may be positive or negative depending on the approach adopted by university management. A positive attitude depends to a great extent on the understanding and acceptance of academics, as was analyzed by Fred Davis in his technology acceptance model, a theory about how users come to accept and employ a technology. According to Davis, the attitude of a user toward a system is a major determinant of whether the person will actually use or reject the system. The attitude of the user, in turn, is influenced by how the user perceives the system’s helpfulness and ease of use.18
Later authors suggested that the technology acceptance model should include behavioral intention as a new variable directly influenced by the perceived usefulness of system. This gave rise to a modified version of the technology acceptance model, shown in Figure 1.
An institutional repository is the result of technological developments in informa-tion management, preservation, and use. The attitude of users toward an IR will be influenced by the degree to which the IR has proved helpful and the ease with which it can be used. Therefore, if the system—that is, the IR—is too complex, users will adopt the technology slowly or not at all. Even for academics who are expected to archive their research publications on IR, their attitude depends on how useful the repository has proved to their colleagues. If using it has increased visibility or enhanced collaboration, it will motivate others to see archiving on an IR as important. But if the case is the con-
trary, it will be difficult to persuade any academic to archive his or her research output on an IR.
Attitudes of academics, therefore, have a significant effect on submis-sion of content for archiving on an IR. However, these attitudes may differ with such variables as discipline, rank, and institutional policy. Paul Genoni’s
IRs add to the credibility of a university and play an important role in establishing the university’s identity and values.
. . . faculties consider institutional repositories to be particularly suited for various types of gray literature—that is, preprints or prepublication versions, technical reports, papers, and other unpublished materials.
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Scholastica C. Ukwoma and V. W. Dike 21
survey of faculty attitudes, perceptions, and concerns for the perpetuation of traditional scholarly publishing indicated that faculties consider institutional repositories to be particularly suited for various types of gray literature—that is, preprints or prepublica-tion versions, technical reports, papers, and other unpublished materials.20 Academics may enthusiastically welcome having an IR at first, especially when they have heard about the benefits from using it, but their support sometimes cools. The work of Victor Nwokedi revealed that 29.55 percent of faculty members indicated willingness to submit content, 24.24 percent responded that they were not willing to submit, and the majority 46.21 percent remained undecided.21 A study at the University of the West Indies in St. Augustine, Trinidad and Tobago, discovered that 8 percent of the academics from the Faculty of Engineering were aware of IRs, but none had deposited a research paper on the university’s IR.22 There may also be differences by discipline. Esoswo Ogbomo discovered that academics in the faculties of education and arts in several universities in Nigeria had more positive attitudes toward institutional repositories than academ-ics in the other faculties.23 The author further stated that though the attitude of faculty members from education and arts was more positive, academics in the faculties of sci-ence and social science submitted more content to their IR,24 contrary to what one might expect. Another study discovered that no significant difference existed between different faculties in the members’ use of information technology.25
Ibironke Lawal indicated that academics in the sciences in some institutions in United States and Canada have a high rate of contributing to their IRs.26 Muluken Alemayehu, in a study on researchers’ attitudes toward institutional repositories, discovered that the researchers believe that an IR should be freely accessible.27 The status of academics made no difference in their attitude; regardless of academic status, they all have a positive at-titude about making their research results freely disseminated through the university IR.
Methodology
The present study took the form of a descriptive survey, gathering information about the respondents’ perspectives on IRs. The population for the study consisted of 5 head
Figure 1. A modified version of Fred Davis’s technology acceptance model
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Academics’ Attitudes toward the Utilization of Institutional Repositories in Nigerian Universities22
librarians and 4,906 academics from Nigerian universities that have institutional reposi-tories. The Directory of Open Access Repository (OpenDOAR), a worldwide directory of academic open access repositories, shows that of the 126 universities in the country, 5 have institutional repositories. Though other universities have started IR projects, they are not fully online and have not been listed by OpenDOAR.
The five universities with IRs, according to OpenDOAR, are (1) the University of Jos; (2) Covenant University in Ota; (3) the University of Nigeria Nsukka; (4) the Fed-eral University of Technology Akure; and (5) Ahmadu Bello University in Zaria.28 The University of Jos has 950 faculty members, Covenant University has 400, the University of Nigeria Nsukka 1,515, the Federal University of Technology Akure 635, and Ahmadu Bello University in Zaria 1,405. These academic staff range in rank from senior (profes-sors, associate professors, and senior lecturers) to junior (lecturer I, lecturer II, assistant lecturers, and graduate assistants). The repository librarians were chosen because they are involved in the management of the institutional repository.
The researcher sampled 10 percent of the population, using multistage sampling to arrive at a total number of participants of 491 academics and 5 repository librarians, or 496 in all. The multistage sampling procedure was to first sample 10 percent of the total population from each institution. Subsequently, 10 percent of the academics from each faculty, such as the Faculty of Arts or the Faculty of Sciences, were sampled to get a proportionate sample. Rank was taken into consideration to ensure that the different ranks were covered proportionately.
Questionnaires and interviews were the instruments for data collection. Of 491 questionnaires distributed to the five universities, 396 were correctly filled out and used for the analysis. The data were analyzed by calculating the mean for the two research questions. Hypothesis 1 was examined using the t-test, a statistical technique employed to indicate whether the difference between averages reflects a “real” difference rather than a difference that occurred because of random chance in the sample selection. Hy-potheses 2 and 3 were tested using ANOVA (analysis of variance), a method used to determine whether a significant relation exists between variables.
Results and Discussion of Findings
Answers to research question 1— “For what purposes do academics use institutional repositories in Nigerian universities?”—are displayed in Figure 2, which shows the mean responses of the participants on the purpose of using an IR. The academics indicated that institutional repositories are used to create a forum to collaborate with colleagues (3.50) and for long-term preservation (3.37). Other purposes were to provide free access to research output of a university (3.34); to serve as a platform for archiving academic works (3.32); to access information for teaching students (3.32); and to get information on relevant research areas (3.28).
The findings of this study on the purposes of using an IR agree with the conclusions of Balasubramani Jeyapragash and K. S. Sivakumaren and of Stephen Akintunde. These findings differ, however, from those of Olorunsaye Olubunmi, who determined that an IR is used to get current information, for self-development, and for coursework.29 The repository librarians explained that their universities established IRs to harvest the
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Scholastica C. Ukwoma and V. W. Dike 23
research and scholarly output of the university community; to promote the visibility of the institution; and to improve the ranking of the university. In addition, the repository librarians highlighted that their IRs are accessed by patrons both within and outside their university community. The librarians emphasized the impact of their advocacy program and reiterated that IR develop-ment was a modern approach to deliver-ing library services. Carol Hixson made a similar point, stressing that capturing this wealth of literature is a unique service that the library can provide for a university.30
In answer to research question 2—“What attitude do the academics have toward the submission of their content for archiving in the institutional reposi-tory?”—Table 1 shows the willingness of academics to submit their publications for ar-chiving in IR. Academics readily submit their publications to institutional repositories when the administration requests them to do so (3.08) and when depositing works in an institutional repository is acceptable to them (3.08). They believe that publishing works on an institutional repository will improve accessibility to scholarly literature more than would publishing in printed journals (3.09), that the institutional repository will increase the citation impact of their work (3.05), and that it helps increase the ranking of
Figure 2. Mean responses on the purpose of institutional repositories in Nigerian universities
The repository librarians explained that their universities established IRs to harvest the research and scholarly output of the university community; to promote the visibili-ty of the institution; and to improve the ranking of the university.
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Academics’ Attitudes toward the Utilization of Institutional Repositories in Nigerian Universities24
Tabl
e 1.
At
titud
es o
f aca
dem
ics t
owar
d su
bmis
sion
of c
onte
nt to
thei
r ins
titut
iona
l rep
osito
ry
Item
stat
emen
t
1. P
ublis
hing
my
wor
ks o
n th
e in
stitu
tiona
l rep
osito
ry w
ill
impr
ove
acce
ssib
ility
to sc
hola
rly li
tera
ture
ove
r tho
se in
pr
inte
d jo
urna
ls.
3.14
3.
09
3.23
2.
94
2.72
3.
09
0.73
2 A
2. I
will
ingl
y su
bmit
my
publ
icat
ions
to th
e in
stitu
tiona
l re
posi
tory
whe
n th
e ad
min
istr
atio
n re
ques
ts m
e to
do
so.
3.11
3.
08
2.99
3.
11
3.12
3.
08
0.80
0 A
3. D
epos
iting
my
wor
k in
an
inst
itutio
nal r
epos
itory
is
acce
ptab
le to
me.
3.
03
3.08
3.
19
3.03
3.
08
3.08
0.
742
A4.
I th
ink
the
inst
itutio
nal r
epos
itory
will
incr
ease
the
cita
tion
im
pact
to m
y w
ork.
3.
07
3.02
3.
20
2.92
2.
80
3.05
0.
716
A5.
I a
lway
s sub
mit
my
wor
k to
the
inst
itutio
nal r
epos
itory
be
caus
e it
help
s to
incr
ease
the
rank
ing
of m
y un
iver
sity
3.
05
2.89
2.
96
2.97
2.
84
2.96
0.
811
A6.
Sub
mitt
ing
the
full
text
of m
y w
orks
to th
e in
stitu
tiona
l r e
posi
tory
enc
oura
ges p
lagi
aris
m.
2.52
2.
26
2.01
2.
28
2.40
2.
32
0.91
3 D
7. I
subm
it m
y w
ork
to th
e in
stitu
tiona
l rep
osito
ry o
nly
if m
y
rese
arch
fund
ers m
anda
te m
e to
do
so.
2.40
2.
19
2.19
2.
42
2.48
2.
31
0.89
9 D
8. I
subm
it m
y w
ork
to th
e in
stitu
tiona
l rep
osito
ry b
ecau
se it
is
one
of t
he cr
iteria
for m
y pr
omot
ion
or a
ppra
isal
. 1.
99
2.30
2.
12
2.14
2.
64
2.16
0.
834
D9.
I d
o no
t sub
mit
my
publ
icat
ions
to th
e in
stitu
tiona
l r e
posi
tory
bec
ause
of f
ear o
f inf
ringi
ng co
pyrig
ht la
w.
2.01
1.
93
2.12
1.
94
2.68
2.
05
0.83
9 D
10.
Subm
ittin
g m
y w
ork
to th
e in
stitu
tiona
l rep
osito
ry w
ill
impe
de th
e vi
sibi
lity
of m
y re
sear
ch o
utpu
t.
1.98
2.
07
1.75
2.
03
2.52
2.
00
0.82
0 D
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Scholastica C. Ukwoma and V. W. Dike 25
11.
I fee
l tha
t if I
dep
osit
my
wor
k in
an
inst
itutio
nal
repo
sito
ry I
may
not
be
able
to p
ublis
h it
else
whe
re.
2.02
1.
82
1.93
2.
00
2.28
1.
96
0.80
8 D
12.
I fee
l tha
t I d
o no
t hav
e th
e ne
cess
ary
tech
nica
l ski
lls to
su
bmit
my
wor
ks o
n th
e in
stitu
tiona
l rep
osito
ry.
1.80
2.
13
1.96
1.
89
2.04
1.
95
0.83
8 D
13.
I wou
ld p
refe
r to
mak
e m
y w
ork
avai
labl
e on
ly o
n m
y
pers
onal
web
site
. 1.
87
1.85
1.
86
2.03
2.
60
1.93
0.
758
D14
. I d
on’t
wan
t my
wor
k to
be
mad
e fr
eely
ava
ilabl
e fo
r pe
ople
to a
cces
s. 1.
97
1.84
1.
75
1.86
2.
08
1.89
0.
789
D
A =
agr
ee.
D =
dis
agre
e.
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Academics’ Attitudes toward the Utilization of Institutional Repositories in Nigerian Universities26
their university (2.96). The fact that academics disagree with the negative statements in the null hypotheses shows that they have a positive attitude toward submission of their publications. The repository librarians theorized that this positive attitude could result from the purpose for establishing IRs in these universities or from advocacy programs carried out by librarians to acquaint staff with the benefits of IRs. In addition, they reported that academics sometimes receive awards based on work submitted to the IR.
Table 2 shows the results of a t-test analysis of the mean difference between senior and junior academics in their attitudes toward submitting their content for archiving on institutional repositories. The t-test analysis was used to examine hypothesis 1: “There is no significant difference in the mean rating of senior and junior academics and their attitude toward submitting their content for archiving on the institutional repository.” The results indicate a significant difference, with the mean ratings of senior faculty higher than those of junior faculty on their attitude toward submitting their content. The faculty members were asked how much they agreed or disagreed with three statements: (1) I don’t want my work to be made freely available for people to access; (2) Depositing my work in an institutional repository is acceptable to me; and (3) Depositing content for archiving helps to increase the ranking of my university. The cluster t-value of 0.63 with a degree of freedom (how many values can vary) of 367 and a probability value (likeli-hood that the results were caused by chance alone) of 0.53 showed that there was no significant difference (p > 0.05) in the mean response of senior and junior academics on their attitude toward submitting their content for archiving on institutional repository. Thus the null hypothesis was not rejected—in other words, it was accepted.
Table 3 shows the ANOVA result of the difference between the mean responses of respondents in the faculties of arts, sciences, social sciences, and medicine and pharma-ceutical sciences in their attitude toward submitting their content to their institutional repository. The null hypothesis designated as hypothesis 2— “There is no significant difference in the mean rating of attitudes of academics from the faculties of arts, sciences, social sciences, and medicine and pharmaceutical sciences toward submitting their con-tent for archiving in institutional repositories”—was not rejected. In other words, it was accepted. There was no significant difference between the mean ratings of respondents in the four faculties in their attitude toward submitting their content for archiving in their institutional repository.
Table 4 displays the ANOVA result of the difference between the mean responses of the respondents among the universities on their attitude toward submitting their content to their institutional repository. Data analysis obtained an F-ratio, a measure of the size of the effects, of 2.08, with a probability value of 0.08. Since the probability value of 0.08 is greater than the 0.05 set as the level of significance, the null hypothesis stating that there is no significant difference in the mean rating among the universities in their attitude toward submitting their content to their institutional repository was accepted.
The results indicating that academics have a positive attitude toward submitting their content to their IR aligns with the finding of Esoswo Ogbomo that academics in the Faculty of Arts and Education have a positive attitude toward institutional repositories and the similar conclusion of Muluken Alemayehu.31 The academics’ positive attitude toward IRs indicates that they support the concept of IRs; any inability or reluctance to submit their content may result from lack of awareness or from not being convinced of
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Scholastica C. Ukwoma and V. W. Dike 27
Tabl
e 2.
t–te
st a
naly
sis o
f the
diff
eren
ce b
etw
een
seni
or a
nd ju
nior
aca
dem
ics i
n th
eir a
ttitu
de to
war
d su
bmitt
ing
cont
ent t
o th
eir i
nstit
utio
nal r
epos
itory
Item
stat
emen
t
Sta
tus
Mea
n
S
tand
ard
t-v
alue
†
d
f‡
Sign
ifica
nce§
D
ecis
ion#
dev
iati
on*
1 I w
illin
gly
subm
it m
y pu
blic
atio
ns to
the
se
nior
3.
09
0.82
0.
35
367
0.73
N
S
inst
itutio
nal r
epos
itory
whe
n th
e ad
min
istr
atio
n ju
nior
3.
07
0.79
re
ques
ts m
e to
do
so.
2 Su
bmitt
ing
the
full
text
of m
y w
orks
to a
n in
stitu
tiona
l se
nior
2.
29
0.86
–0
.58
367
0.56
N
S
repo
sito
ry e
ncou
rage
s pla
giar
ism
. ju
nior
2.
34
0.96
3 Su
bmitt
ing
my
wor
k to
an
inst
itutio
nal r
epos
itory
se
nior
1.
92
0.81
–0
.85
367
0.07
N
S
will
impe
de th
e vi
sibi
lity
of m
y re
sear
ch o
utpu
t. ju
nior
2.
08
0.82
4 I d
o no
t sub
mit
my
publ
icat
ions
to a
n in
stitu
tiona
l se
nior
2.
02
0.87
–0
.60
367
0.55
N
S re
posi
tory
bec
ause
of f
ear o
f inf
ringi
ng co
pyrig
ht la
w.
juni
or
2.07
0.
815
I sub
mit
my
wor
k to
the
inst
itutio
nal r
epos
itory
se
nior
2.
18
0.84
0.
36
367
0.72
N
S be
caus
e it
is o
ne o
f the
crite
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r my
prom
otio
n
juni
or
2.15
0.
83
or a
ppra
isal
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ant m
y w
ork
to b
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ade
free
ly a
vaila
ble
for
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or
1.80
0.
81
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2 36
7 0.
04
S pe
ople
to a
cces
s. ju
nior
1.
96
0.76
7 I s
ubm
it m
y w
ork
to th
e in
stitu
tiona
l rep
osito
ry o
nly
se
nior
2.
35
0.92
0.
83
367
0.41
N
S if
my
rese
arch
fund
ers m
anda
te m
e to
do
so.
juni
or
2.27
0.
87
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Academics’ Attitudes toward the Utilization of Institutional Repositories in Nigerian Universities28
Item
stat
emen
t
Sta
tus
Mea
n
S
tand
ard
t-v
alue
†
d
f‡
Sign
ifica
nce§
D
ecis
ion#
dev
iati
on*
8 D
epos
iting
my
wor
k in
an
inst
itutio
nal r
epos
itory
se
nior
3.
16
0.68
2.
00
367
0.05
S
is a
ccep
tabl
e to
me.
ju
nior
3.
01
0.79
9 Pu
blis
hing
my
wor
ks o
n an
inst
itutio
nal r
epos
itory
se
nior
3.
15
0.70
1.
49
367
0.14
N
S w
ill im
prov
e ac
cess
ibili
ty to
scho
larly
lite
ratu
re b
ette
r ju
nior
3.
04
0.78
th
an p
ublis
hing
in p
rinte
d jo
urna
ls.
10
I fee
l tha
t I d
o no
t hav
e th
e ne
cess
ary
tech
nica
l ski
lls
seni
or
2.02
0.
85
1.59
36
7 0.
11
NS
to su
bmit
my
wor
ks o
n an
inst
itutio
nal r
epos
itory
. ju
nior
1.
88
0.83
11
I thi
nk a
n in
stitu
tiona
l rep
osito
ry w
ill in
crea
se th
e
seni
or
3.07
0.
69
0.61
36
7 0.
54
NS
cita
tion
impa
ct to
my
wor
k.
juni
or
3.03
0.
7412
I a
lway
s sub
mit
my
wor
k on
the
inst
itutio
nal
seni
or
3.05
0.
80
1.99
36
7 0.
05
S re
posi
tory
bec
ause
it h
elps
to in
crea
se th
e ra
nkin
g
juni
or
2.88
0.
81
of m
y un
iver
sity
.13
I w
ould
pre
fer t
o m
ake
my
wor
k av
aila
ble
only
on
se
nior
1.
95
0.79
0.
47
367
0.64
N
S m
y pe
rson
al w
ebsi
te.
juni
or
1.91
0.
7314
I f
eel t
hat i
f I d
epos
it m
y w
ork
on a
n in
stitu
tiona
l se
nior
1.
93
0.80
–0
.59
367
0.56
N
S re
posi
tory
I m
ay n
ot b
e ab
le to
pub
lish
it el
sew
here
. ju
nior
1.
98
0.81
C
lust
er t
seni
or
2.42
0.
3 0.
63
367
0.53
N
S
ju
nior
2.
40
0.35
Tabl
e 2,
Con
tinue
d.
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Scholastica C. Ukwoma and V. W. Dike 29
Table 3.ANOVA (analysis of variance) showing no significant difference among academics of different faculties in attitude toward submitting content to their institutional repository
Sum of squares df* Mean square F-ratio† Significance (p)‡
Between groups 0.98 3 0.33 2.82 0.09Within groups 42.38 365 0.12 Total 43.37 368
*df (degree of freedom) is a measure of how many values can vary in the calculation.† F-ratio is a measure of the size of the effects. The larger the F-ratio, the greater the likelihood that the differences between the means are due to something other than chance alone.‡ Significance expresses the probability that the result could have occurred purely by chance;p > 0.05 means not significant.
the benefits of using the IR. Though the study at the University of Jos sampled academics from natural science, which is only a small percentage of the studied population, it shows that faculty at some universities may be more willing than faculty at other institutions.
The three null hypotheses on attitudes of academics toward submitting content were accepted. This implies that academics from the different faculties, ranks, and universi-ties have a positive attitude toward IRs and are willing to submit their work. This result differs from a study by Ibironke Lawal, who found that academics in the sciences contribute at a higher rate to IRs than scholars in other fields.32 On the other hand, Esoswo Ogbomo discovered that academics in the Faculty of Ed-ucation and Arts had a more positive attitude than those in the sciences and social sciences.33 Alemayehu found no significant difference in the attitude of academics based on status.34 Since academics have a positive attitude, it implies that, with encouragement and motivation from university management, their potential content submission will be significant. Alemayehu also observed that rewards and incentives impact researchers’ attitudes toward IRs.35
In a study of this nature, one would have expected different views and perceptions from academics, considering the different faculties and ranks studied. On the contrary, all participants demonstrated positive attitudes, a promising step toward the development and utilization of IRs in Nigeria. Attitude is an important variable in the development of
academics from the different faculties, ranks, and universi-ties have a positive attitude toward IRs and are willing to submit their work.
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Academics’ Attitudes toward the Utilization of Institutional Repositories in Nigerian Universities30
an IR project. As highlighted in the technology acceptance model, attitude is influenced by the perceived ease of use and usefulness of a system.36 Therefore, it is important that the university administration sustains this zeal among academics through encourage-ment and support in their research and publications.
Recommendations
The intellectual property rules for the content of an IR should be specified in the repository policy. The policy should state that the IR is for preservation, and that staff can archive articles published in journals that support self-archiving and in open access journals. In addition, authors can seek permission from publishers to archive their works on their university IR.
It is important for university management to encourage self-archiving because it will help to ensure sustainability of the institutional repository. As the repository librarians reported, the library staff currently archives many faculty publications. If academics
become more involved in archiving, it will not only lead to an increase in the IR content but also create more awareness of which journals support self-archiving.
More campaigns to create awareness and sensitization on the existence and benefits of IRs in universities should be encouraged. Seminars and training can keep academics abreast of the management and development stages of their IR and the roles they should play. Much effort
will be needed for proper management of IRs and to ensure viable IRs in Nigerian uni-versities, including planning and organization of the content and making the facilities available for users.
Conclusion
The study looked at the purpose of developing an institutional repository and the at-titude of academics toward the submission of content on their IRs. The study discovered that IRs were established to archive research publications, to enhance collaboration, to ensure visibility, and to increase the ranking of the universities. It was also discovered that academics have positive attitudes. This means that the development of IRs in Nigerian universities will thrive if properly managed. To achieve this, training for aca-demics, librarians, and repository managers is necessary to equip them with the skills to organize the content for easy accessibility and retrieval of documents. At every stage, the university community should be carried along in the development of the IR project.
Scholastica C. Ukwoma is a senior librarian at the Nnamdi Azikiwe Library, University of Nigeria Nsukka; she may be reached by e-mail at: [email protected].
V. W. Dike is a professor in the Department of Library Science at the University of Nigeria Nsukka; her e-mail address is: [email protected].
It is important for university management to encourage self-archiving because it will help to ensure sustainability of the institutional repository.
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Notes
1. Michelle Armstrong, “Institutional Repository Management Models That Support Faculty Research Dissemination,” OCLC Systems & Services 30, 1 (2014): 43–51, http://dx.doi.org/10.1108/OCLC-07-2013-0028.
2. Ebele J. Egwunyenga, “Dystrophies and Associated Crises in Research and Academic Publications in Nigerian Universities,” Anthropologist 10, 4 (2008): 245–50.
3. Meghan Banach and Yuan Li, “Institutional Repository and Digital Preservation: Assessing Current Practices at Research Libraries,” D-Lib Magazine 17, 5–6 (2011): 1–11.
4. Juha Hakala, “Long-Term Preservation of Electronic Documents,” accessed on December 1, 2015, ftp://ftp.cordis.europa.eu/pub/cris2000/docs/hakala_fulltext.pdf.
5. Ibid. 6. Tyler O. Walters, “The New Academic Library—Building Institutional Repositories to
Support Changing Scholarly and Research Processes,” presentation at ACRL (Association of College and Research Libraries) Thirteenth National Conference, Baltimore, Maryland, March 29–April 1, 2007, http://www.ala.org/acrl/sites/ala.org.acrl/files/content/conferences/confsandpreconfs/national/baltimore/papers/56.pdf.
7. Ibid. 8. Chinwe V. Anunobi and Ifeyinwa B. Okoye, “The Role of Academic Libraries in Universal
Access to Print and Electronic Resources in the Developing Countries,” Library Philosophy and Practice (2008), accessed September 23, 2012, http://www.webpages.uidaho.edu/mlib/anunobi-okoye.html.
9. Gideon Emcee Christian, “Issues and Challenges to the Development of Open Access Institutional Repositories in Academic and Research Institutions in Nigeria,” SSRN [Social Science Research Network] Electronic Journal (January 5, 2009), doi:10.2139/ssrn.1323387.
10. B. K. Vishala and M. K. Bhandi, “Building Institutional Repository (IR): Role of the Library,” presentation at 5th International CALIBER (Convention on Automation of Libraries and Research Institutions), Panjab University, Chandigarh, India, February 8–10, 2007, http://ir.inflibnet.ac.in/bitstream/1944/1438/1/631-640.pdf.
11. Stephen A. Akintunde, “Institutional Repository: The University of Jos Experience,” Nigerian Libraries 43 (2010): 1–19.
12. Younghee Noh, “The Impact of University Library Resources on University Research Achievement Outputs,” Aslib [Association for Information Management] Proceedings 64, 2 (2012): 109–33.
13. Ibid.14. Nader Ale Ebrahim, Hadi Salehi, Mohamed Amin Embi, Farid Habibi, Hossein
Gholizadeh, and Seyed Mohammad Motahar, “Visibility and Citation Impact,” International Education Studies 7, 4 (2014): 120–25, accessed October 24, 2014, www.ccsenet.org/ies.
15. David Shotton, “Publishing: Open Citations,” Nature 502, 7471 (2013): 295–97, http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/502295a; Jason Priem, “Scholarship: Beyond the Paper,” Nature 495, 7441 (2013): 437–40, http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/495437a; cited in Ebrahim, Salehi, Embi, Habibi, Gholizadeh, and Motahar, “Visibility and Citation Impact.”
16. Felix Ubogu and Maryna Van den Heever, “Collaboration on Academic Research Support among Five African Universities,” Qualitative and Quantitative Methods in Libraries 2 (2013): 207–19.
17. Raym Crow, “The Case for Institutional Repositories: A SPARC (Scholarly Publishing and Academic Resources Coalition) Position Paper,” ARL (Association of Research Libraries) 223 (2002): 1–4, http://www.sparc.arl.org/resources/papers-guides/the-case-for-institutional-repositories.
18. Fred D. Davis, “Perceived Usefulness, Perceived Ease of Use, and User Acceptance of Information Technology,” MIS [Management Information Systems] Quarterly 13, 3 (1989): 319–40.
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Academics’ Attitudes toward the Utilization of Institutional Repositories in Nigerian Universities32
19. Fred D. Davis, Richard P. Bagozzi, and Paul R. Warshaw, “Extrinsic and Intrinsic Motivation to Use Computers in the Workplace,” Journal of Applied Social Psychology 22, 14 (1992): 1111–32.
20. Paul Genoni, “Content in Institutional Repositories: A Collection Management Issue,” Library Management 25, 6–7 (2004): 300–306.
21. V. C. Nwokedi, “Nigerian University Academics and Institutional Repository: A Case Study of University of Jos, Faculty of Natural Sciences Lecturers,” Information Technologist 7, 2 (2010): 137–46.
22. Jennifer I. Papin-Ramcharan and Richard A. Dawe, “Open Access Publishing: A Developing Country View,” First Monday 11, 6 (2006), accessed May 19, 2012, http://firstmonday.org/issues/issue11_6/papin/index.html.
23. Esoswo Francisca Ogbomo, “Awareness and Attitude of Lecturers in South-South Federal Universities in Nigeria towards the Establishment of Institutional Repositories,” PhD diss., Nnamdi Azikiwe University, Awka, Nigeria, 2013.
24. Ibid.25. Ismail Sahin, “Detailed Review of [Everett] Rogers’ Diffusion of Innovations Theory and
Educational Technology-Related Studies Based on Rogers’ Theory,” Turkish Online Journal of Educational Technology 5, 2 (2006): 14–23.
26. Ibironke Lawal, “Scholarly Communication: The Use and Non-Use of E-Print Archives for the Dissemination of Scientific Information,” Issues in Science and Technology Librarianship 36 (2002), accessed May 19, 2012, http://www.istl.org/02-fall/article3.html.
27. Muluken Wubayehu Alemayehu, “Researchers’ Attitude to Using Institutional Repositories: A Case Study of the Oslo University Institutional Repository (DUO),” master’s thesis, Oslo University, Norway, 2010, ODA Open Digital Archive, accessed May 24, 2013, https://oda.hio.no/jspui/bitstream/10642/426/2/Alemayehu_MulukenWubayehu.pdf.
28. OpenDOAR: Directory of Open Access Repositories, accessed February 18, 2013, http://www.opendoar.org/about.html.
29. Balasubramani Jeyapragash and K. S. Sivakumaren, “Building an Institutional Repository in Libraries as a Means to Users Expectations,” presentation at National Seminar on Library Users’ Expectations in ICT (Information and Communications Technology) Environment, Madras Institute of Technology, Chennai, India, September 7–8, 2007; Akintunde, “Institutional Repository”; O. J. Olubunmi, “Utilization of Web-Based Resources for Medical Research and Education by Health Professionals at the College of Medicine, Ibadan, Nigeria,” Samaru Journal of Information Studies 8, 2 (2008).
30. Carol G. Hixson, “First We Build Them, Then What? The Future of Institutional Repositories,” BiD (Biblioteconomia i Documentació [library and information science]), 15 (2005), accessed May 24, 2013, http://bid.ub.edu/15hixso2.htm.
31. Ogbomo, “Awareness and Attitude of Lecturers in South-South Federal Universities in Nigeria”; Alemayehu, “Researchers’ Attitude to Using Institutional Repositories.”
32. Lawal, “Scholarly Communication.” 33. Ogbomo, “Awareness and Attitude of Lecturers in South-South Federal Universities in
Nigeria.”34. Alemayehu, “Researchers’ Attitude to Using Institutional Repositories.”35. Ibid.36. Richard P. Bagozzi, and Warshaw, “Extrinsic and Intrinsic Motivation to Use Computers in
