Abstract
Electronic Publishing offers many opportunities to today’s users and scholars that were not available to their predecessors. Because of the multidimensional features of e-Journals, they are becoming the choice of academic as well as public library users. Technology, and particularly the Internet, has great potential for altering scholarly communication and research inhumanities, sciences, social sciences, and health sciences disciplines. Results of scholarly surveys show that there is a significant interest in e-Publication of research. Thus, this research paper investigates the attitudes and perceptions of faculty members at the University of Jordan (UJ) of current issues associated with the use of electronic publishing and perceived obstacles to their extended use for scholarly communication and publication. Specifically, the primary focus of this study is to examine and perceive how faculty members’ use of electronic publications might affect their interest in publishing their own research in electronic formats; as well as to determine the contribution of scholars towards publishing in e-Journals. In order to achieve the research objectives, a questionnaire method was adopted to elicit the opinions of the faculty members; whereas personal interviews were conducted to fill in the gaps. The results of the study reveal that the majority of the faculty members prefer to publish in electronic formats refereed journals, due to the advantages of publishing in e-Journals. Furthermore, the findings show that faculty members are also concerned about the disadvantages of e-Publishing. On the basis of the findings, some suggestions have been recommended to make publishing in e-Journals more acceptable to those scholars at UJ who still do not use it, as well as to maximize the use of e-Publishing because of the advantages that it may offer.
Highlights
Research from many studies has shown that journals are the most frequently used sources of valued information for researchers
The strategy is that, the surveys and interviews will identify answers to the foremost research question: “What are the key factors that may affect the successful implementation of e-Journals at The University of Jordan?” As mentioned earlier in the introduction section of the study, several reviewed studies seem to fail to focus on the unique factors that influence the successful implementation of e-Journals at higher education institutions in Jordan
The research questions are: (a) What are the attitudes and perceptions of faculty members towards e-Publishing/e-Journals (OJS) at The University of Jordan? (b) Are there significant differences in faculty members’ attitudes and perceptions towards e-Publishing/e-Journals attributed to their gender, academic rank, and academic discipline? And (c) What do faculty members believe their academic institution can do to improve the utilization of Online Journal Submission system (OJS) at its campus?
Summary
Research from many studies has shown that journals are the most frequently used sources of valued information for researchers. Manda [2] studied the use of electronic resources by academics in Tanzania; he found that the use was low, due to several major problems such as inadequate end-user training, slow connectivity, limited access to PCs, poor search skills, lack of bandwidth, and lack of funds to subscribe to scholarly and research journals. These constraints and more have hindered scholars in developing countries from fully enjoying the benefits of the Internet and e-Publishing. According to Okiki [3], e-Journals and e-Publishing have enhanced accessibility, increased usability, enhanced effectiveness, and established new ways for users in using information for more productivity in their endeavors and offer a multitude of advantages to the researchers as well as to the knowledge seekers, enabling them to get satisfied with thirst of information needs
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