Research practices of academics in an African university setting : the case of the University of Zambia

[摘要] ENGLISH SUMMARY : The thesis investigates the research practices of academics and how they are supported by the academic library in an African university setting by specifically focusing on the University of Zambia. The information age has opened up new ways for conducting research that involves changing the approach of academics to the whole research process, necessitating a degree of information management and a changed role for library involvement. However, these changes brought with it increases in cost of access and infrastructure which put institutions indeveloping countries under significant pressure. In light of these challenges, the thesis seeks to establish how successful researchers in an African university setting are conducting their research and navigate these challenges. The research design is qualitative and collected data using a quota system random samplingmethod to select participants meeting certain minimum criteria for the interviews. The narrative interview section was used to explore the views of the people with deeper insight into their specific needs and problems. The findings indicate that researchers at UNZA use their own resources to fund their research activities (apart from a few cases where projectfunding was available). The research activities are conducted without regard or in some cases even awareness of the formulated research policy of UNZA that is supposed to direct research activities. The respondents mainly conduct research based on personal interest, experience and for perceived promotional gains. Researchers at UNZA share knowledge and information through conferences, workshops, research publications and social platforms such as LinkedIn. The knowledge sharing is exhibited through research collaboration mostly atdepartmental level. Collaboration in research at UNZA takes place for reasons that include mentoring, sharing expertise, and authenticity. Researchers use both print and electronic resources, but struggle with print resources becoming obsolete, whilst the electronic resources are often unavailable due to inadequate subscription by the institution. Theuniversity library subscribes to database information for at least 50000 electronic journals, but a very small number of those are available full-text. In fact full-text access is limited to Science Direct, JSTOR, and Cambridge Journals databases. This highlights the discrepancies that exist in research practices globally between researchers from the developing nations andthose of developed countries. Notwithstanding these challenges, UNZA has not fully utilized its knowledge management strategies to create a favourable research environment in spite of funding difficulties. ICT infrastructure is not fully deployed, but the processes are in place. It is recommended that UNZA establish a research division that can enforce the research policy and support the research activities at the university.

[发布机构] Stellenbosch University