Digital library readiness in Africa: A strategic human resource perspective

The success of any digital library endeavour significantly depends on the human capital of the implementing organisation. Many African institutions and academic libraries in developing countries are focusing and channeling significant resources into planning and setting up digital libraries. However, the main hurdle for many of these efforts is the human resource capacity of staff expected to implement these projects as several studies show a considerable skills gap in many digital library projects leading to sustainability challenges. The aim of this paper is to propose the application of the Balanced Scorecard (BSC) in evaluating digital library resources and services in Ghana to determine the readiness of academic libraries in implementing sustainable digital library services. As a result, the study examines the strategic plan of a multi-campus public university in Ghana with a view to aligning it to the same university’s library digital strategy using the BSC. The study proposes to academic libraries involved in digital initiatives to be mindful of the digital, financial and societal contexts in which they operate. The study is expected to contribute to efforts at finding strategic measures to drive the vision of the digital library African institutions

Awareness and Use of Serials in an African University Library: Faculty and Students’ Perspective

The purpose of this study was to examine the use of print serials by students and faculty members of a satellite campus of the University of Education, Winneba. Specifically, this study sought to determine the level of awareness and use of serials among faculty and graduate students, and how this affect their perception of the value of print serials in teaching and learning. The study made use of survey research methods through the use of questionnaires. The population of the study consisted of 165 faculty members and 97 graduate students, with an eventual return rate of 66% each, respectively. The findings of the study revealed that both faculty and graduate students were, relatively, aware of the print serial collection in the library. However, despite this awareness, they used print serials, relatively, less frequently. Again, the study established that both faculty and students have significant positive perceptions on the usefulness of print serials in their teaching, learning and research roles. We recommend to librarians to create awareness of print serial collections while updating the collection, and enhance the positive perception of print serials by demonstrating, through outcome measures, how the use of print serials can be beneficial to the academic and research community

The Impact of demographic factors on pre-service teachers’ perception of Educational Research: Findings from a private university

The current study sought to identify the effects of democratic factors on the perception of pre-service teachers (with diploma as their highest level of education) on the teaching and learning of the Educational Research course during the fall 2017 semester in one of the private universities in Ghana. With a survey research design, three hundred and twenty (320) pre-service teachers, who were enrolled in the fall 2017 sandwich programme, were randomly sampled to participate in the study. The findings revealed significant differences between male and female pre-service teachers perception of the teaching of research, relevance of research and their statistics anxiety. Also, the age independent variable indicated a significant difference on the statistics anxiety construct only whereas the other two constructs were not significant. There were significant correlations among age, years of teaching, and statistics anxiety. The implication of the study for practice is discussed

Applications of social media and web 2.0 for research support in selected African academic institutions

This study examined the use of Social Media/Web 2.0 for research support and it is guided by three objectives namely: a) to ascertain the uses of social media in academic institutions; b) to identify the challenges associated with social media use for research purposes and c) to provide experiences of social media application in selected African academic institutions. The study makes use of literature analysis in combination with personal and professional work experiences on the use of social media from librarians in four different countries. Institutional experiences of the four librarians showed that it is only Rhodes University Library that uses social media in its library, which is as a result of a formal social media strategy. For the other three universities, University of Education, Winneba Library in Ghana, Makerere University Library in Uganda and the University of Nigeria Library, the use of social media is not encouraging. They use it mostly for communication and interaction with colleagues. It was also discovered that there is no social media strategy available in these university libraries. Based on these findings, the study recommended the implementation of a social media strategy, appointment of social media librarians in these libraries, and continuing professional development of librarians to keep abreast with current trends. Web 2.0/Social Media is a new technology offering new options for African academic librarians in their research support rol

Implications of Knowledge Management Processes for Project Performance:Systematic Review, Gap Analysis and Scientometric Analysis

The purpose of this study is to review the current Knowledge Management (KM) trends and make inference for future directions of KM in project-based organizations and project performance through a Systematic Literature Review (SRL) and Scientometric analysis. First a Google advanced search was conducted and produced five hundred and seventy six (576) papers    A SLR of 38 articles from 2000 – 2022 was conducted to narrow the study.  Key stages in the systematic review included the formulation of the research questions, the identification of relevant research, data extraction and assessment of the risk of bias, data synthesis, summary and interpretation of the findings. Further, 981 academic documents on the topic were retrieved from Publish or Perish database. Then, co-occurrence and co-citation analysis were performed along with network visualization to examine research interconnections’ patterns. As a result, relevant key words, network of terms co-occurrences with 68 keywords, 793 links, and total link strength of 1,486 was revealed. The most popular keywords within the period, together with their frequency, mean year of publication, links, and total link strength were identified. Keywords:Knowledge Management, Systematic Literature Review, Scientometric Analysis, Project Performance, Bibliometric DOI: 10.7176/IKM/13-6-01 Publication date:September 30th 202

Effect of Removing Direct Payment for Health Care on Utilisation and Health Outcomes in Ghanaian Children: A Randomised Controlled Trial

Evelyn Ansah and colleagues report on whether removing user fees has an impact on health care-seeking behavior and health outcomes in households with children in Ghana

Digital Library Readiness of Distance Learners: The Access and Skills Imperative

Digital libraries play an integral role in the success of any distance education programme and as a result, must be adopted by distance learners. At the same time, digital skills and access are instrumental in achieving digital library readiness. This study investigates the digital library readiness of distance learners in a large public multi-mode university in Ghana. The study adopts a survey design through the use of a questionnaire to ascertain the perspectives of distance learners on their computer and digital access and consequent digital and information skills and how this improves their perception of their digital library readiness. The population of the study consisted of 1,834 distance education students who were students of three distance education centres of a public university in Ghana. Stratified purposive sampling was applied to select three distance education centres and a total of 247, 276, and 118 distance learners from centres A, B, and C respectively to participate in the study. The results indicate that distance learners generally lacked advanced ICT skills to effectively use digital libraries. Furthermore, while most of the respondents indicated that they possessed above average ICT skills, this did not translate into skills in the formation of search queries and the use of electronic library tools. However, their basic ICT skills constituted a solid ground to consolidate their digital library readiness. Libraries in multi-mode universities must design tailor-made training programmes for all classes of students including distance learners to enhance their use of digital library resources

Information access and evaluation skills of secondary school students in Ghana

Information Literacy (IL) is a necessary skill needed by students to survive in the dynamic information environment of the 21st century. This study explored the IL skills of secondary school students in Ghana with specific focus on students’ abilities in finding and evaluating information. The study was conducted in two “first-class” secondary schools in the Kumasi Metropolis of the Ashanti Region of Ghana; Opoku Ware Senior High School and Yaa Asantewaa Girls’ Senior High School. A survey instrument was developed to assess the skills of the students in that regard. Questionnaires were distributed to an overall sample size of one hundred and seventy (170) students in the two schools. In addition, four teaching staff of the schools were also interviewed to corroborate the findings from the students. The findings revealed that students in the two schools lack the ability to effectively access information for their academic work. The study also discovered that students in the participating schools lack the basic skills to differentiate good information from bad ones. The study recommends, among others, the integration of IL into the secondary school curriculum in Ghana; and collaboration between librarians, teaching staff and the Ghana Education Service to promote IL among students to promote lifelong learning