Use Of Academic Social Networking Sites Among Lecturers In State Universities

Abstract

The study investigated the use of Academic Social Networking Sites among Lecturers in State Universities in South East, Nigeria. The study adopted the descriptive survey design. Four (4) research questions guided the study. The population of the study comprised 200 Lecturers in the five State Universities spread across the five States of South-East, Nigeria. The entire 200 questionnaires were administered to the respondents; all were filled, returned and used for the study because the entire population size was manageable. The major findings of the study were that Google Scholar and ResearchGate were mostly used by the Lecturer. Findings showed that the purpose of using Academic Social Networking Sites is for Knowledge Sharing and Downloading of Articles. The reason Lecturers upload publications in the Academic Social Networking Sites are for Citations, Information sharing and increasing of Views/Reads. The finding also revealed that majority of Lecturers access Academic Social Networking Sites Multiple times a day and also Daily. Based on the findings, it was recommended that Lecturers should explore other Academic Social Networking Sites due to their potentials in facilitating research activities, information sharing, collaboration among researchers, knowledge updates and so on.