Institutional Repository (IR) Awareness and Willingness of Faculty Staff to Deposit Research Work: A Study of Faculty Staff in Selected Public and Private University in Nigeria

Abstract

This study appraised the awareness and willingness of faculty staff in Nigerian universities to deposit their pre and post research publications in open access institutional repository. Two universities (one private and one public) were systematically selected for the study. Nigeria has a total of 129 universities; 79 are public universities, while 50 are private universities. The researcher purposefully selected two universities from the public and private for convenience and easy analysis. The population of study cut across all faculty staff in the selected universities given a total number of 179 academic staff. Findings reveal that the majority of the respondents (52% and 36% from private and public universities respectively) are aware of IR. Findings also show that the majority (62% and 44% of the respondents in the private and public universities respectively) have published 1 - 10 research publications using materials from IR. While 22% and 26% of the respondents have also published up to 11 - 20 publications using materials published in IR. Unfortunately, despite benefitting from IR, findings reveal that 88% and 96% of the respondents from private and public universities have not deposited any publication in IR. The researcher, therefore, recommend that awareness of IR in institutions of higher learning must be prioritized and that faculty staff should be encouraged to contribute to IR project as a means of increasing their relevance, visibility and ranking and that of their affiliated university.