Evaluating academic staff awareness and use of open access resources in polytechnics in Lagos State, Nigeria

Abstract

Open access resources have the potential of increasing academic staff productivity and output in higher institutions of learning. The study investigated academic staff awareness on the use of open towards open access resources in higher institutions in Lagos State, Nigeria. The descriptive survey was used for the study. The population consisted of 1,826 academic staff of Yaba College of Technology (YABATECH) and Lagos State Polytechnic (LASPOTECH) in Lagos State. The multistage random sampling technique was used to arrive at a sample size of 555 respondents via Slovin’s formula for the determination of sample size; while the questionnaire was the instrument used for data collection. Analysis was done using descriptive and inferential statistics. Academic staff level of awareness of open access resources is high. Furthermore, several challenges still confront academic staff in the use of open access resources, such as: low quality of publications, lack of search skills and slow network access. The findings shows that there is a positive relationship between awareness and use of open access resources (r=0.829, n=349, p<0.05). The study recommends that institution’s or library management wishing to succeed in promoting the use of open access resources must work toward removing the challenges that confront academic staff.