Impact and User Observation of Online Journals in Periyar University (PU): An Empirical Study

Abstract

This paper has made an attempt to investigate the usage and impact of electronic journals or online journals among the users such as post-graduate students, MPhil scholars, and Ph.D. research candidates from the department of School of Social Sciences at Periyar University, Salem, Tamilnadu, India. It found for the analysis the filled questionnaires rate was 83% and also found among the four departments, Journalism and Mass Communication department has got ranked first with 24% to fill the questionnaire. The main purpose of this research is to analyze the impact and the utilization of electronic journals which are provided by the University Library to the user community. For data analysis, a total of two hundred questionnaires were distributed among the four departments to fill the questionnaire. Out of 200, we received only 166 dully filled questionnaires at the rate of 83%. The result shows that the majority of respondents were female with 61.55% whereas the remaining was male with 38.45% and a huge number of 73 (43.97%) respondents were postgraduate students. The majority of 83 (50.0%) respondents were preferred to use the pdf format out of 166 users of the department of the School of Social Sciences. 73 (43.96%) user communities were using the electronic journals weekly. Among the 166 respondents, 77 (46.39%) respondents were using the Internet to access electronic journals.