ABSTRACT

The study was carried out to ascertain the awareness and utilization of open-access institutional repositories (OAIRs) for research by academic staff of universities in South-east Nigeria. Descriptive survey research design was adopted in carrying out the study. Six research questions were answered, while six hypotheses were tested at 0.05 level of significance. The population of this study consisted of 1,100 academic staff of faculties of education in all federal and state universities in south east Nigeria. The sample for the study was 220 academic staff representing 20% of the population. The instruments for data collection were structured questionnaire and interview schedule. The instruments were content and face-validated by experts. The reliability of the instrument was realized using Cronbach’s Alpha Reliability technique which yielded reliability coefficient of 0.80. Out of the 220 copies of the questionnaire administered, 180 copies were completely filled and returned representing 81.8% rate of return. Data collected for this study were analyzed using frequency, percentages, charts and mean for answering the research questions, while the hypotheses were tested using t-test statistics at 0.05 level of significance. Based on the data collected and analysed, the study found that the level of awareness of OAIRs among academic staff in universities in South-east Nigeria is considerably low and that the channels through which the academic staff becomes aware of OAIRs ranges from self-exploration o the internet, discussions with colleagues, attendance to conferences, participating in workshops/seminars to through the libraries/librarians. In addition, the study identified ten purposes of utilizing OAIRs for research which includes greater access to literature for research works, permanent archiving of research output, research publications, increase in the impact of research works, general knowledge update among others. The study also revealed that the extent to which OAIRs are being utilized for research by academic staff in universities in South-east Nigeria is considerably low. The study also identified thirteen factors affecting the utilization of OAIRs for research to include but not limited to low level of awareness of OAIRs, poor ICT infrastructure, lack of advocacy and sensitization to adopt OAIRs, inadequate funding, lack of ICT skills and high cost of internet subscription charge. Twelve strategies for improving the utilization of OAIRs for research by the academic staff in universities in South-east Nigeria were also discovered to include creation of awareness, adequate funding for building and upgrading ICT infrastructure by the institution, training and retraining of academic staff, provision of advocacy and sensitization of the academic staff to adopt OAIRs, provision of adequate ICT infrastructure among others. Findings on the hypotheses tested revealed that there were no significant differences in the mean ratings of the responses of academic staff in Federal and State universities on the six hypotheses tested in the study. Based on the findings, the study therefore reccomended that: there should be increased awareness creation on the benefits and significance of OAIRs for research purposes in Nigerian tertiary institutions through provision of adequate facilities and capacity building to train and retain academic staff of universities.