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The use of electronic resources by postgraduate students and academics at the Graduate School of Business and Leadership, Westville Campus, University of KwaZulu-Natal.
| Content Provider | Semantic Scholar |
|---|---|
| Author | Somers, Anita. |
| Copyright Year | 2015 |
| Abstract | Advancements in technology have altered the way information is accessed and have forced academic libraries to shift to digital information. With this rapid pace of change, comes the need for academic libraries to meet the demands of researchers for better access to library resources by providing an effective way to retrieve, store and consume information. This involves harnessing information technologies to the process of teaching, learning and research to enable users to access information beyond the walls of the library. The purpose of this study was to understand academics’ and postgraduate students’ awareness of e-resources, which e-resources were mainly used, how they are accessed and the barriers faced in accessing them. The study further investigated whether academics utilise e-resources in the process of teaching, learning and research. The Graduate School of Business and Leadership (GSB&L) is based at the Westville Campus, UKZN and many of their users consist mainly of part-time students and contract staff. Together with part-time study emerges the concept of convenience and time constraints which are critical factors for users who have limited time to find resources. The study population consisted of 20 academics and 700 postgraduates from the GSB&L. All academics were included in the study and with the postgraduate students stratified random sampling was used to obtain a sample size of 250. A questionnaire was employed as the data collection instrument and distributed to 20 academics, 25 postgraduate diploma, 190 masters and 35 doctoral students. Sixteen academics responded giving a response rate of 80% while 140 questionnaires were returned from the students giving a response rate of 56%. The findings of the study revealed that the vast majority of academics (87.5%) and postgraduate students (84.3%) used e-resources and were aware of the existence of these resources. The study indicated the problems respondents encountered when using e-resources. These problems included “Limited off-campus access”, “Not sure which database to choose”, “Password requirements”, “Slow internet connection” and the need for training in the use of e-resources. Respondents also indicated some main advantage of accessing e-resources such as “Easy/fas ter access”, “Currency of information” and “Emailing, saving and printing results”. |
| File Format | PDF HTM / HTML |
| Alternate Webpage(s) | http://researchspace.ukzn.ac.za/xmlui/bitstream/handle/10413/13728/Somers_Anita_2015.pdf?isAllowed=y&sequence=1 |
| Language | English |
| Access Restriction | Open |
| Content Type | Text |
| Resource Type | Article |
