Lecturers’ Awareness, Perception and Utilization of Institutional Repositories in Two Universities in Nigeria

Authors

Lawrence AKINGBADE, LIBRARY DEPARTMENT RUFUS GIWA POLYTECHNIC P.M.B. 1019, OWO, ONDO STATEFollow

Date of this Version

12-23-2022

Document Type

Article

Comments

LIBRARY DEPARTMENT RUFUS GIWA POLYTECHNIC

P.M.B. 1019, OWO, ONDO STATE

E-MAIL: BIGLAW1960@GMAIL.COM

Abstract

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to examine the lecturers awareness, perception and utilisation of institutional repositories in two universities in Nigeria. The universities include the Ahmadu Bello University, Zaria and University of Jos. The research design adopted for the study was correlational research design, while the questionnaire was the instrument used for data collection. The questionnaire was grouped into five sections and most of the questions were close ended. Also validity and reliability of the questionnaire was done in order to obtain the desired results. Out of 642 number of questionnaire distributed, 473 were completed, returned and found suitable for use. Descriptive and inferential statistics were then used to analyze the data. The findings revealed that lecturers' level of awareness of IRs was moderate, this was indicated with a weighted average of 2.58 (65%). The findings also revealed that lecturer's major sources of awareness of IRs were through University's website 417 (88.2%), library sensitizations 286 (60.5%) and through colleagues 288 (60.9%). Majority of the lecturers slightly utilized the IRs 243 (51.4%) for depositing scholarly materials. However, majority of the lecturers indicated that they did not encountered much constraint when utilizing the repositories. In the course of the study, three hypotheses were tested and the findings from the hypotheses revealed that there was a positive significant relationship between awareness and utilization of IRs, perception and utilization of IRs, awareness and perception of the importance of IRs. It was concluded that increase in the awareness and perception of IRs by lecturers increases their utilization of the IRs. Hence, recommendations were made to the library management of the two universities to intensify their advocacies, awareness campaign and sensitization excises in order to increase awareness and perception of lecturers which would in turn increase the utilization of the repositories.