Information resource preference of postgraduate students . at Sokoine University of Agriculture: a citation analysis

Journal of Continuing Education and Extension, 2014; 5(2):641-655A study was conducted to understand the nature of information resources used by postgraduate students in the course of their research at Sokoine University of Agriculture (SUA) in Tanzania. This was achieved through a citation analysis of master dissertations and doctoral theses that were deposited at Sokoine National Agricultural Library between 2002 and 2012. Specifically, the study identified the type and form of information resources cited by postgraduate students, established the obsolescence of the literature cited, and examined the students' preference for e-resources. A total of 118 master degree dissertations and 74 doctoral theses were included in the study. Theses and dissertations were manually examined to extract citations and collect the required data, which were then analyzed using Microsoft Excel. The findings revealed that postgraduate students at SUA prefer journal articles to other resources. E-resources and e-journals in particular were poorly cited in postgraduate students' works. The . findings also revealed that most cited resources were old although many cited e-resources were relatively newer. Based on these findings, it is recommended that universities should sensitize postgraduate students to use quality scholarly e-resources particularly ejournals. Libraries should take steps to overcome factors that constrain effective access and retrieval of e-resources. Emphasis should also be placed to ensure that students adhere to using correct citation methods and equipping instructors with skills to detect incorrect citations. It is important that information literacy courses are incorporated in the universities' curricula

Information resource preference of postgraduate students . at Sokoine University of Agriculture: a citation analysis

Journal of Continuing Education and Extension, 2014; 5(2):641-655A study was conducted to understand the nature of information resources used by postgraduate students in the course of their research at Sokoine University of Agriculture (SUA) in Tanzania. This was achieved through a citation analysis of master dissertations and doctoral theses that were deposited at Sokoine National Agricultural Library between 2002 and 2012. Specifically, the study identified the type and form of information resources cited by postgraduate students, established the obsolescence of the literature cited, and examined the students' preference for e-resources. A total of 118 master degree dissertations and 74 doctoral theses were included in the study. Theses and dissertations were manually examined to extract citations and collect the required data, which were then analyzed using Microsoft Excel. The findings revealed that postgraduate students at SUA prefer journal articles to other resources. E-resources and e-journals in particular were poorly cited in postgraduate students' works. The . findings also revealed that most cited resources were old although many cited e-resources were relatively newer. Based on these findings, it is recommended that universities should sensitize postgraduate students to use quality scholarly e-resources particularly ejournals. Libraries should take steps to overcome factors that constrain effective access and retrieval of e-resources. Emphasis should also be placed to ensure that students adhere to using correct citation methods and equipping instructors with skills to detect incorrect citations. It is important that information literacy courses are incorporated in the universities' curricula

Gendered analysis in academic career advancement: fifteen years’ trend at Sokoine University of Agriculture, Tanzania

Journal of Education, Society and Behavioural Science, 33(2): 1-8, 2020; Article no.JESBS.54847Aims: Despite notable success in reducing gender disparity in some sectors, the problem still persists in many higher learning institutions in Tanzania. Using fifteen years data of staff employment from Sokoine University of Agriculture (SUA), this study assessed gender disparity in employment and career advancement among academic staff. Study Design: The study adopted the descriptive research design by describing the current situation using SUA as a case study. Place and Duration of Study: The study was conducted at Sokoine University of Agriculture between March and May 2017 using data of academic staff. Methodology: The Publish or Perish software was used to retrieve data on scholarly publications of individual academic staff between 1985 to 2017 for cohorts employed between 1985 and 2011. Descriptive analysis was employed to establish gender disparity in staffing and publication productivity.Results: The findings show female academic staff increased from 5.3% to 20.78% only between the academic year 2000/2001 to 2015/2016. Likewise, gender gaps are observed across all academic ranks since the majority of staff are at the lower academic ranks where women were less in each aspect. Age-wise, the university is composed of aging senior academic staff where among 33.22% of all professors almost 15% (13.5% M & 1.1%F) were above 60 years old. On scientific publications, findings reveal female staff to be below the cohort/ group average for almost all years against their counterparts. Conclusion: There is a clear disparity between male and female staff based on age, academic qualifications, ranks and publication productivity that implies the existence of some obstacles

Empowering rural women through Microfinance in Pucheng County, China

A study was conducted to understand whether and in what ways microfinance services had empowered rural women in China using the Pucheng County Women's Sustainable Development Association (PCWSDA) as a case study. The study focused in the role of microfinance in women's decision making power, their ability to contribute to household income, ownership and control of resources and assets, and their sense of worth and recognition. The study employed qualitative methods including interviews, focus group discussions and observations. A total of 21 women borrowers, five loan officers and a PCWSDA leader comprised the study sample. The findings revealed that microfinance services had empowered rural women in the study area by improving their household incomes, and enhancing their abilities to own and control resources and assets. This in turn had improved their decision making power in the households and given them self-confidence, self-worth and recognition. Lessons learnt from this study include the importance of providing microfinance along with other services such as trainings and expert support in order to build borrowers' capacities to run their income generating activities. Another key lesson is the need to involve male partners and considering other gender characteristics in providing loans to poor women

Uses of mobile phones in agriculture-based small and medium enterprises in Ulanga district, Tanzania

Journal of continuing Education and Extension, 2015; 6 (1):869-881This study examined the uses of mobile telephony in agriculture-based Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) in Ulanga district, Tanzania. Specifically, the study examined the innovative uses of mobile telephony and established the contribution of mobile phones to the performance of agriculture-based SMEs. A multi-stage sampling technique was employed to obtain a sample of 104 SME owners for a questionnaire-based survey and 40 focus group participants. Quantitative and qualitative data were analyzed using SPSS programme and content analysis respectively. The study ,findings indicate that most SME owners were 40 years or younger with almost an equal number of males and females. Nearly all SME owners had formal education with about half having primary education. Expenditure on mobile phones per day was generally high for rural settings. Innovative uses of mobile phones included beeping and usage of applications such as loudspeakers, cameras and voice recording. The use of mobile phones in agriculture-based SMEs had enhanced customer and managerial satisfaction; increased revenue, number of customers, access to markets and sales volume: and improved operation efficiency. It is concluded that the use of mobile phones had enhanced the performance of agriculture-based SAIE.c. While beeping is used to cut down communication costs, mobile phone applications such as loudspeaker, voice recording and cameras are used innovaiively. for decision making and record of events. It is recommended that mobile service providers continue devising more useful applications' and services that can enhance the performance of businesses. Meanwhile, entrepreneurs' should he proactive in using mobile telephony services to enhance their business

Analysis of gender stereotypes in Tanzania’s television commercial advertisements

This study analysed gender stereotypes in Tanzania’s television commercial advertisements. In all, 71 advertisements were recorded from nine television channels—TBC1, ITV, Azam One, Azam Two, Sinema Zetu, Channel 10, Clouds TV, Star TV and East Africa TV. The units of analysis were television commercials that contained at least one adult female or male character. The recorded advertisements were then subjected to content analysis. Quantitative data was analysed with the help of SPSS. The study findings indicate that there was an equal distribution of male and female characters in television adverts and that the majority of central figures were aged between 18 and 35 years. A central figure in this study was an adult person playing a major role by virtue of either speaking or having an exposure on a screen. Women in television commercials were younger than their male counterparts, were portrayed mostly in home settings and as non-professionals, with their primary occupation being homemakers. Women were also primarily associated with the promotion of household products and they frequently appeared wearing non-formal attire. The findings also indicate that men dominated the ad voiceovers and that they often provided scientific arguments in television commercials. The findings of the study imply that, despite many efforts made to address gender inequalities in the country, Tanzania’s televisions continue to perpetuate such inequalities through stereotypical portrayal of men and women. Thus more efforts are necessary to make the media broadcast gender-sensitive and gender-responsive content

Gendered analysis in academic career advancement: fifteen years’ trend at Sokoine University of Agriculture, Tanzania

Journal of Education, Society and Behavioural Science, 33(2): 1-8, 2020; Article no.JESBS.54847Aims: Despite notable success in reducing gender disparity in some sectors, the problem still persists in many higher learning institutions in Tanzania. Using fifteen years data of staff employment from Sokoine University of Agriculture (SUA), this study assessed gender disparity in employment and career advancement among academic staff. Study Design: The study adopted the descriptive research design by describing the current situation using SUA as a case study. Place and Duration of Study: The study was conducted at Sokoine University of Agriculture between March and May 2017 using data of academic staff. Methodology: The Publish or Perish software was used to retrieve data on scholarly publications of individual academic staff between 1985 to 2017 for cohorts employed between 1985 and 2011. Descriptive analysis was employed to establish gender disparity in staffing and publication productivity.Results: The findings show female academic staff increased from 5.3% to 20.78% only between the academic year 2000/2001 to 2015/2016. Likewise, gender gaps are observed across all academic ranks since the majority of staff are at the lower academic ranks where women were less in each aspect. Age-wise, the university is composed of aging senior academic staff where among 33.22% of all professors almost 15% (13.5% M & 1.1%F) were above 60 years old. On scientific publications, findings reveal female staff to be below the cohort/ group average for almost all years against their counterparts. Conclusion: There is a clear disparity between male and female staff based on age, academic qualifications, ranks and publication productivity that implies the existence of some obstacles

Africa's contribution to the global open access literature

International Research: Journal of Library & Information Science 2018, Vol.8(2)This study was conducted to determine the contribution of Africa to the global open access literature. Data were extracted from the Directory of Open Access Repository (OpenDOAR). The findings indicate that only 22 (40.74%) African countries contributed 155 OA repositories in the OpenDOAR. Most of these repositories were from South Africa (33; 21.29%), Kenya (28; 18.06%) and Nigeria (21; 13.55%). Africa contributed 1,024,851 documents in the OpenDOAR, with Egypt and South Africa contributing nearly two thirds (634,025; 61.2%) of these documents. Despite its large size, the African continent had only 4.52% of the OA repositories and 0.14% of documents in the OpenDOAR. The average number of documents per repository in Africa was only 6,611.94 as compared to other continents such as Australasia (752,094.80 documents), Europe (342,896.64 documents) and North America (201,997.12 documents). The top 25 OA repositories in Africa contributed 820,574 documents, which is over 80% of the total African contribution to the OpenDOAR. Most OA repositories in Africa contained journal articles (74.84%) and they were multidisciplinary (61.73%). Overall, Africa’s contribution to the global open access literature is still very low. Efforts should be strengthened to increase the level of research and publication productivity as well as increase the capacity of institutions to develop OA repositories

Empowering rural women through Microfinance in Pucheng County, China

A study was conducted to understand whether and in what ways microfinance services had empowered rural women in China using the Pucheng County Women's Sustainable Development Association (PCWSDA) as a case study. The study focused in the role of microfinance in women's decision making power, their ability to contribute to household income, ownership and control of resources and assets, and their sense of worth and recognition. The study employed qualitative methods including interviews, focus group discussions and observations. A total of 21 women borrowers, five loan officers and a PCWSDA leader comprised the study sample. The findings revealed that microfinance services had empowered rural women in the study area by improving their household incomes, and enhancing their abilities to own and control resources and assets. This in turn had improved their decision making power in the households and given them self-confidence, self-worth and recognition. Lessons learnt from this study include the importance of providing microfinance along with other services such as trainings and expert support in order to build borrowers' capacities to run their income generating activities. Another key lesson is the need to involve male partners and considering other gender characteristics in providing loans to poor women