Accessibility and Usage of Digital Technologies among Academics for Research: A Case of Selected Humanities and Social Sciences Faculties in Sri Lankan Universities

Abstract

The Humanities and Social Sciences (HSS) involve understanding the human experience and the relationships between individuals and groups in society. The adoption of digital technologies has challenged the discipline of HSS, creating an entirely new environment for the study of human activities. This research aims to explore the employment of digital tools, resources and services in HSS research. Further, the use of digital methods (DM) throughout the research process; the impact of COVID-19 on the use of DM in research; the constraints of using DM in research were tested. Both quantitative and qualitative data were collected from Colombo, Kelaniya and Sri Jayewardenepura universities targeting academics in Economics, English, English Language Teaching, Geography, History and Archeology, Buddhist Studies, Political Science, Sinhala, and Sociology. Considering the digital infrastructure facilities, most of the academics rated email (45.6%) and LMS services (46.7%) as excellent but maintenance provided by the institute was not adequate. Most academics rated good on access to data storage (37.9%); reference management software (27.5%); plagiarism detection software (29.1%); institutional repository (35.2%); and support to online publications (39.6%) provided by their institutes. 55.7% of surveyed academics in SS often use digital data collection methods while in the Humanities it was 43.4%. Online publishing was most often used by SS (50.9%) and only 39.5% by the Humanities. 53.8% of SS academics and 43.4% of humanities academics often use cloud storage. Findings confirmed the expansion of using digital research methods during the pandemic compared to the early pandemic situation. Collaborative research works, virtual conferences, citation databases and digital indexing were identified as popular trends.