Academics Perceptions of Electronic Resources at the University of Venda, South Africa

Abstract

This study examined the perceptions of academic researchers regarding electronic resources (e-resources) provided by the library at the University of Venda (UNIVEN), South Africa. The quantitative research approach and survey research design were adopted to conduct the investigation. Data was collected using a self-administered structured questionnaire randomly distributed to 45 UNIVEN academics. The findings of this study revealed that although academics at UNIVEN find e-resources easy to use, believe the resources improve academic performance, and frequently encouraged postgraduate students to use them, the majority of them had plagiarism concerns and were only moderately satisfied with available e-resources at UNIVEN. This study recommends that the university library should train academics on plagiarism detection. In addition, the library should adopt innovative ways of improving e-resource services, such as providing an Online Public Access Catalogue (OPAC) with advanced and federated search capabilities.