International Journal of Library and Information Studies

Vol.5 (1) Jan-Mar, 2015 ISSN: 2231-4911

In
Awareness towards Open Access Sources among Students, Researchers
and Faculty in Management Colleges in Karnataka

Prasad N. N.
Librarian
Library and Information Centre
National Institute of Mental Health and Neuro Sciences
Bengaluru- 560029
Email: nisargaprasad@gmail.com

Chandrashekara M.
Professor and Chairperson
Department of Library and Information Science
University of Mysore
Manasagangotri, Mysuru – 570006
. Email:chandra.uom@gmail.com

ABSTRACT

The present study aims at assessing awareness towards open access sources among
students, researchers and faculty in management colleges in Karnataka and compare
across them. A total of 923 respondents including 470 students, 176 researchers and
277 faculty members were selected the study sample through stratified random
sampling. They were administered a structured questionnaire on various aspects of
open access. The data is subjected to descriptive and contingency coefficient
analysis. Results revealed that, the selected sample had high awareness on sources
like Directory of Open Access Journals: Business and Economics, Directory of Open
Access Books, American Libraries through Internet Archive, arXiv, and MIT Open
Courseware. The selected sample had least awareness on OAJS. Biz/ed: Business
Studies Teaching and Education Resource, BCStats (British Colombia), Open Learn
(OU),University of Michigan Open Courseware, OAIster Digital Repository, and
CORE (Connecting Repositories). Comparison across faculty, researchers and
students revealed that in most of the aspects researchers had higher awareness.

Keywords: Open Access Sources, E-resources, User Studies, Digital Repositories,

Management Colleges, DOAB, OAJS

1. Introduction

The developments in information communication and technologies have facilitated the

availability good number of management resources through open access channels accessible
through Internet. Open access resources help the users to access information in a speedy
way. Awareness and access to the open access resources is one of the key issues faced by the
students, research scholars and faculty in most of the management institutes. In this context
the present study is designed to find out the extent of awareness towards open access sources
among students, researchers and faculties of management. The present research looks into
the user’s perception regarding the open access resources and services.

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2. Open access resources for management education

Today many open access resources are available in the field of management education for
academic practice and research. Some of the very popular resources are Directory of Open
Access Journals, Journals of Hindawi Publishing Corporation, Directory of Open Access
Books, BASE–Biefeld Academic Search Engine, Internet Archive, Biz/ed: Business Studies
Teaching and Education Resources, The WWW Virtual Library - Business and Economics,
Shodhganga-Indian National Repository of ETDs, SOSIG-Social Science Information
Gateway, Academia.edu, Academic Earth, Cross Archive Search Service for Indian
Institutional Repositories (CASSIR), MGU-PhD Theses Archive. Each of these
databases/directories provide various types of resources like e-books, e-journals, e-theses,
courseware etc. These resources vary from one another in their content and format.

3. Methodology

Sample

A total of 923 respondents-students, researchers and faculty were selected through stratified
random sampling. Out of these 923 samples 470 students, 176 researchers and 277 faculty
members were included for the study. Researcher chose colleges having post graduate,
M.Phil. and Ph.D. programmes in various branches of management colleges in Karnataka.
The study covered only the open sources and services relevant to the respondents in the field
of management sciences.

Objectives

 To find out awareness of users towards open access sources and services
 To compare awareness of students, researchers and faculties towards open access
sources and services

Tool employed

In order to study the awareness of students, researchers and faculty towards such open access
resources; the following methodology has been envisaged. The awareness is the knowledge
regarding a particular issue, in this context awareness towards open access. The awareness of
the respondents towards open sources visa - vis the commercial and traditional sources was
examined through a structured questionnaire developed by the researcher in consultation with
his guide and other experts. The questionnaire consisted of 14 items, which elicited the
response from the respondents mostly on a 5 point Likert scale-Highly, Moderately, Little,
Very little and Not at all. The awareness of the respondents towards open access, the
statements related to them was formulated. The various statements related to awareness
towards open access helps in understanding the behavior and perception about its awareness.
The questions were targeted mainly on awareness on e-journals, e-books, e-theses accessed
through institutional repositories, aggregators, databases, courseware, etc.

Procedure

Prior permission was obtained from heads of institutions to collect the data from students,
researchers and faculty members. The researcher personally visited each respondent with
prior appointment and requested them to read each question carefully and select the best
option in point scale for each statement. They were briefed about the study, informed about
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the concept and consent was obtained so that they could opt out at any stage of data
collection.

Once the data collection was over, the questionnaires were scrutinized and checked for
completeness and the responses were fed to the data sheet for statistical analysis. Descriptive
statistics and contingency table analysis were employed in the present study keeping
objectives framed initially.

To explore the extent of awareness about open access various statements related to this
domain were included in the questionnaire. The tables 1 to 5 are the results of analysis of data
related to these questions, some in particular and some as a domain score. The analysis is
conducted for three designations namely students (S), research scholars (RS) and faculty to
assess the association between these two variables, Contingency Coefficient analysis was
conducted and displayed along with the P value for its significance.

4. Results

Tables 1 to 5 provide frequency and percent responses on various types of awareness of open
access by 3 respondent groups-students, researchers and faculty members and test statistics
applied.

a. E Journals/Directories

Two of the E-journals/Directories were included in the questionnaire. They are Open Access
Journals Search Engine (OAJSE) and Directory of Open Access Journals: Business and
Economics and the responses were recorded. The designation wise responses for this are
shown below.

Table 1: Awareness towards E Journals/Directories by students, research scholars and faculty

Research
Sl. No. Statements Agreement Students Faculty Total
Scholars
1 Awareness of e- f 42 26 30 98
journals/Directories - Highly
% 8.94 14.77 10.83 10.62
OAJSE
f 33 35 24 92
Moderately
% 7.02 19.89 8.66 9.97
f 163 61 97 321
Little
% 34.68 34.66 35.02 34.78
f 87 53 65 205
Very Little
% 18.51 30.11 23.47 22.21
f 145 1 61 207
Not at all
% 30.85 0.57 22.02 22.43
CC= 0.326,P value= .001
2 Directory of Open f 96 70 107 273
access journals: Highly
% 20.43 39.77 38.63 29.58
business and
economics f 152 69 86 307
Moderately
% 32.34 39.2 31.05 33.26
f 91 5 37 133
Little
% 19.36 2.84 13.36 14.41
Very Little f 77 32 22 131

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% 16.38 18.18 7.94 14.19
f 54 0 25 79
Not at all
% 11.49 0 9.03 8.56
CC= 0.291, P value= 0.001

S1: Awareness of e-journals/Directories – OAJSE

For the statement, “Awareness of e-journals/Directories - OAJSE”, 34.78% of the

respondents indicated little, 22.21% of the respondents indicated very little, 10.62% of them
had highly awareness, 9.97% of them had moderate awareness, and the remaining 22.43% of
them did not have any awareness. Contingency coefficient analysis revealed a significant
association between respondents and responses (CC=.326; p=.001), where we found that
research scholars had higher awareness, followed by faculty and students least awareness.

S2: Directory of Open Access Journals: Business and Economics

When the statement, “Directory of Open Access Journals: Business and Economics” is
analysed, 29.58% of the respondents had high awareness, 33.26% of the respondents had
moderate awareness, 14.41% of them had little awareness, 14.19% of them very little, and
remaining 8.56% of them did not have any awareness. However, this pattern was found to be
different for students, researchers and faculty, where we find that research scholars and
faculty had higher awareness, followed by and students least. (CC=.291; p=.001).

b. E-Books

Three of the following important E-book OA resources were included in the questionnaire.
The patterns of responses among three designations for these listed e-books resources and
their test statistics are shown in the tables below.

Table 2: Awareness towards E-Books by students, research scholars and faculty

Sl. Research
Statements Agreement Students Faculty Total
No. Scholars
3 Directory of Highly f 160 73 125 358
Open Access %
Books 34.04 41.48 45.13 38.79
Moderately f 114 78 61 253
% 24.26 44.32 22.02 27.41
Little f 72 22 28 122
% 15.32 12.5 10.11 13.22
Very Little f 75 0 36 111
% 15.96 0 13 12.03
Not at all f 49 3 27 79
% 10.43 1.7 9.75 8.56
CC=0.269, P value= 0.001
4 American Highly f 155 60 98 313
Libraries % 32.98 34.09 35.38 33.91
Moderately f 145 44 84 273
% 30.85 25 30.32 29.58
Little f 96 26 28 150
% 20.43 14.77 10.11 16.25
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Very Little f 33 31 43 107
% 7.02 17.61 15.52 11.59
Not at all f 41 15 24 80
% 8.72 8.52 8.66 8.67
CC=0.236, P value=.001
5 Canadian Highly f 75 65 75 215
Libraries % 15.96 37.14 27.08 23.29
Moderately f 17 10 21 48
% 3.62 5.71 7.58 5.20
Little f 193 35 97 325
% 41.06 20 35.02 35.21
Very Little f 165 57 63 285
% 35.11 32.57 22.74 30.88
Not at all f 20 9 21 50
% 4.26 5.14 7.58 5.42
CC=0.151, P value=0.006

S3: Directory of Open Access Books

For the statement, “Directory of Open Access Books”, 38.79% of the respondents indicated
highly, 27.41% of the respondents indicated moderately, 13.22% of them had little
awareness, 12.03% of them very little, and remaining 8.56% of them had no awareness at all.
However, this pattern was found to be different for students, researchers and faculty, where
we find that research scholars had higher awareness, followed by faculty and students least.
(CC=.269; p=.001).

S4: American Libraries

On the whole we find that 33.91% of the respondents had high awareness, 29.58% of the
respondents moderate, 16.25% of them had little, 11.59% of them very little, and remaining
8.67% of them did not have any awareness for the statement, “American Libraries”.
However, this pattern was found to be different for students, researchers and faculty, where
faculty had higher awareness compared to researchers and students (CC=.236; p=.001).

S5: Canadian Libraries

In the case of statement, “Canadian Libraries”, 35.21% of the respondents indicated ‘little’,
30.88% of the respondents indicated ‘very little’, 23.79% of them had ‘highly’, 5.20% of
them ‘moderate’, and remaining 5.66% of them did not have any awareness. However, this
pattern was found to be different for students, researchers and faculty, where test statistics
indicated that researchers had significantly higher awareness than faculty and students
(CC=.151; p=.006).

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c. Aggregator Databases/Directories

The awareness among people about different Aggregator Databases/Directories like Biz/ed,
BSStats and arXIV are assessed and the results are as shown below.

Table 3: Awareness towards aggregators/databases/directories by students, research scholars

and faculty
Sl. No. Statements Agreement Students Research Faculty Total
Scholars
6 Biz/ed: Business f 14 45 37 96
Studies Teaching Highly
% 2.98 25.57 13.36 10.40
and Education
Resources f 13 26 26 65
Moderately
% 2.77 14.77 9.39 7.04
f 168 65 77 310
Little
% 35.74 36.93 27.8 33.59
f 192 31 79 302
Very Little
% 40.85 17.61 28.52 32.72
f 83 9 58 150
Not at all
% 17.66 5.11 20.94 16.25
CC=0.313, P value=.007
7 BCStats (British f 14 29 12 55
Colombia) Highly
% 2.98 16.48 4.33 5.96
f 25 18 36 79
Moderately
% 5.32 10.23 13 8.56
f 151 44 58 253
Little
% 32.13 25 20.94 27.41
f 200 55 98 353
Very Little
% 42.55 31.25 35.38 38.24
f 80 30 73 183
Not at all
% 17.02 17.05 26.35 19.83
CC=0.188, P value=.001
8 arXiv f 135 64 92 291
Highly
% 28.72 36.36 33.21 31.53
f 148 71 102 321
Moderately
% 31.49 40.34 36.82 34.78
f 52 0 28 80
Little
% 11.06 0 10.11 8.67
f 46 0 25 71
Very Little
% 9.79 0 9.03 7.69
f 89 41 30 160
Not at all
% 18.94 23.3 10.83 17.33
CC=0.265, P value=.001

S6: Biz/ed: Business studies teaching and education resources

For the statement, “Biz/ed: Business studies teaching and education resources”, 10.40% of
the respondents indicated ‘highly’, 7.04% of the respondents indicated ‘moderately’, 33.59%

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of them had little, 32.72% of them very little, and remaining 16.25% of them no awareness at
all. However, this pattern was found to be different for students, researchers and faculty,
where test statistics indicated that researchers had significantly higher awareness compared to
faculty and students (CC=.313; p=.007).

S7: BCStats (British Colombia)

When the statement, “BCStats (British Colombia)” is analysed, 5.96% of the respondents had
high awareness, 8.56% of the respondents had moderate awareness, 27.41% of them had
little, 38.24% of them very little, and remaining 19.83% of them did not have any awareness.
However, this pattern was found to be different for students, researchers and faculty, where
test statistics indicated that researchers had significantly higher awareness compared to
faculty and students (CC=.188; p=.001).

S8: arXiv

On the whole, 31.53% of the respondents indicated ‘highly’, 34.78% of the respondents
indicated ‘moderately’, 8.67% of them had little, 7.69% of them very little, and remaining
17.33% of them had no awareness for the statement “arXiv”, . However, this pattern was
found to be different for students, researchers and faculty, where test statistics indicated that
both faculty and researchers had significantly higher awareness compared to students
(CC=.265; p=.001).

d. Courseware

The frequency and percentages of responses for courseware like MITopen, OpenLearn and
University of Michigan Open Courseware are analyzed and the results are as shown below.

Table 4: Awareness towards Courseware’s by students, research scholars and faculty

Sl. No. Statements Agreement Students Research Faculty Total
Scholars
9 MIT Open f 85 38 76 199
Courseware Highly
% 18.09 21.59 27.44 21.56
f 246 92 146 484
Moderately
% 52.34 52.27 52.71 52.44
f 38 34 34 106
Little
% 8.09 19.32 12.27 11.48
f 70 9 17 96
Very Little
% 14.89 5.11 6.14 10.40
f 31 3 4 38
Not at all
% 6.6 1.7 1.44 4.12
CC= 0.136, P value= 0.03
10 Open Learn f 25 35 15 75
(OU) Highly
% 5.32 19.89 5.42 8.13
f 36 19 36 91
Moderately
% 7.66 10.8 13 9.86
f 166 56 92 314
Little
% 35.32 31.82 33.21 34.02
Very Little f 222 57 110 389

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% 47.23 32.39 39.71 42.15
f 21 19 14 54
Not at all
% 4.47 10.8 5.05 5.85
CC=0.219, P value=.001
11 University of f 18 29 31 78
Michigan Open Highly
% 3.83 16.48 11.19 8.45
Courseware
f 25 11 21 57
Moderately
% 5.32 6.25 7.58 6.18
f 138 42 47 227
Little
% 29.36 23.86 16.97 24.59
f 205 61 109 375
Very Little
% 43.62 34.66 39.35 40.63
f 84 33 69 186
Not at all
% 17.87 18.75 24.91 20.15
CC=0.232, P value=.001

S9: MIT Open Courseware

For the statement, “MIT Open Courseware”, 21.56% of the respondents indicated high
awareness, 52.44% of the respondents had moderate levels of awareness, 11.48% of them had
little, 10.40% of them very little, and remaining 4.12% of them did not have any awareness.
However, this pattern was found to be different for students, researchers and faculty, where
test statistics indicated that faculty had higher awareness compared to researchers and
students (CC=.136; p=.003).

S10: Open Learn (OU)

When the statement, “Open Learn (OU)” is analyzed, 8.13% of the respondents indicated
highly, 9.86% of the respondents indicated moderately, 34.02% of them had little, 42.15% of
them very little, and remaining 5.85% of them indicated ‘not at all’. However, this pattern
was found to be different for students, researchers and faculty, where test statistics indicated
that agreement from researchers was significantly high awareness compared to faculty and
students (CC=.219; p=.001).

S11: University of Michigan Open Courseware

On the whole we find that 8.45% of the respondents had high awareness, 6.18% of the
respondents had moderate levels of awareness, 24.59% of them had little, 40.63% of them
very little, and remaining 20.51% of them had no awareness at all for the statement,
“University of Michigan Open Courseware. However, this pattern was found to be different
for students, researchers and faculty, where test statistics indicated that researchers had
significantly high awareness compared to faculty and students (CC=.232; p=.001).

e. Institutional Repository Harvesters

The Institutional Repository Harvesters like CASSIR, OAIDR and CORE (COnnecting
REpositories) are important ones which are part of Open access. The awareness about these
harvesters is assessed among the respondents and the results are as shown below.

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Table 5: Awareness towards Institutional Repository Harvesters by students, research
scholars and faculty
SL. Statements Agreement Students Research Faculty Total
No. Scholars
12 Cross Archive Search f 18 25 18 61
Service for Indian Highly
% 3.83 14.2 6.5 6.61
Institutional
Repositories f 19 15 25 59
Moderately
(CASSIR) % 4.04 8.52 9.03 6.39
f 180 36 94 310
Little
% 38.3 20.45 33.94 33.59
f 176 49 145 370
Very Little
% 37.45 27.84 52.35 40.09
f 77 51 38 166
Not at all
% 16.38 28.98 13.72 17.98
CC=0.255, P value= .001
13 OAIster Digital f 4 18 3 25
Repository Highly
% 0.85 10.23 1.08 2.71
f 17 9 0 26
Moderately
% 3.62 5.11 0 2.82
f 203 43 84 330
Little
% 43.19 24.43 30.32 35.75
f 179 86 166 431
Very Little
% 38.09 48.86 59.93 46.70
f 67 20 24 111
Not at all
% 14.26 11.36 8.66 12.03
CC=0.307, P value=0.021
14 CORE (COnnecting f 8 9 19 36
Repositories) Highly
% 1.7 5.11 6.86 3.90
f 15 3 17 35
Moderately
% 3.19 1.7 6.14 3.79
f 144 58 84 286
Little
% 30.64 32.95 30.32 30.99
f 191 63 113 367
Very Little
% 40.64 35.8 40.79 39.76
f 112 43 44 199
Not at all
% 23.83 24.43 15.88 21.56
CC= 0.288, P value= <0.001

S12: Cross Archive Search Service for Indian Institutional Repositories (CASSIR)

For the statement, “Cross Archive Search Service for Indian Institutional Repositories
(CASSIR) ”, 6.61% of the respondents indicated highly, 6.39% of the respondents indicated
moderately, 33.59% of them indicated little, 40.09% of them indicated very little, and
remaining 17.98% of them indicated not at all. However, this pattern was found to be
different for students, researchers and faculty, where test statistics indicated that researchers
and significantly high awareness compared to faculty and students (CC=.255; p=.001).

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S13: OAIster Digital Repository

When the statement, “OAIster Digital Repository” is analysed, 2.71% of the respondents
indicated highly, 2.82% of the respondents indicated moderately, 35.75% of them indicated
little, 46.70% of them indicated very little, and remaining 12.03% of them indicated not at all.
However, this pattern was found to be different for students, researchers and faculty, where
test statistics indicated that faculty and students had significantly least awareness than
researchers (CC=.307; p=.021).

S14: CORE (COnnecting REpositories)

For the statement, “CORE (COnnecting REpositories)”, 3.90% of the respondents indicated
highly, 3.79% of the respondents indicated moderately, 30.99% of them indicated little,
39.76% of them indicated very little, and remaining 21.56% of them indicated not at all.
However, this pattern was found to be different for students, researchers and faculty, where
test statistics indicated that faculty had higher awareness than researchers and students
(CC=.288; p=.001).

5. Discussion

Main findings of the study

 The selected sample had high awareness on–, Directory of Open Access Journals:
Business and Economics, Directory of Open Access Books, American libraries,
arXiv, and MIT Open Courseware
 The selected sample had least awareness on OAJSE ,Biz/ed: Business studies teaching
and education resources, Canadian Libraries, BCStats (British Colombia), Open Learn
(OU), University of Michigan Open Courseware, OAIster Digital Repository, CORE
(Connecting Repositories) and Cross Archive Search Service for Indian Institutional
Repositories (CASSIR).
 Researchers had high awareness regarding Awareness of e-journals/Directories –
OAJSE, Directory of Open Access Journals: Business and Economics, Directory of
Open Access Books, Canadian Libraries, arXiv, Biz/ed: Business Studies Teaching
and Education Resources, BCStats (British Colombia), Open Learn (OU), University
of Michigan Open Courseware, Cross Archive Search Service for Indian Institutional
Repositories (CASSIR) and OAIster Digital Repository.
 Faculties had high awareness towards American Libraries, MIT Open Courseware
and CORE (Connecting Repositories).

As per the results most of the research scholars and faculty are highly/moderately aware
about Directory of Open Access Journals: Business and Economics. The frequency of
students among all the response categories seems to be considerable. The results related to
different e-journals/Directories/E-book/ Aggregators/Databases/Open courseware/IRs reveal
a poor level of awareness among students. The research group is better aware about these as
compared to students and faculty. From the results tabulated it can be seen that majority of
the listed institutional repository harvesters are not known to the respondents on overall basis
whereas only few of them are still known to them as indicated by the results.

The study reveals that the management sample selected in the study are not having adequate
awareness towards open access. Librarians need to consider seriously the open and free
resources available online for the benefit of management students, researchers and students.
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The findings of the present study are in agreement with the studies done elsewhere. Rolfe, [1]
and Rolfe et al. [2] in their studies found that respondents were less aware of open access
resources, its potential benefits and less likely to adopt e-learning strategies in their teaching.
It is evident that majority of the researchers are familiar with usage of Scholarly Content of
Open Access resources [3].

Though the users of libraries in management are eager to know about such resources, their
source of such information is largely casual, with hardly any methodical attempt to seek
information. The librarians, therefore, can play a crucial role in spreading awareness of these
resources through a well-defined and creative approach. Most users tend to resort to Google
searches to seek information and perhaps believe that Google leads them to the information
that they seek. Such users need to be attracted to the library portal of Open and Free Web
resources by providing links to the numerous Open and free websites. The library website can
thus become the gateway to the Internet [4].

6. Conclusion

There are so many resources available for management professionals through open access
channels. There is need for continuous orientation programmes and advertisements to
increase usage of open access resources among management professionals. The usage of
access differs from one to another category of users. So institutions and government bodies
have to take appropriate steps to increase familiarity about open access resources.

References

1. Rolfe, Vivien (2012). Open educational resources: staff attitudes and awareness,
Research in Learning Technology, 20:14395 - DOI: 10.3402/rlt.v20i0/14395.

2. Rolfe, V., Alcocer, M., Bentley, E., Milne, D. & Meyer-Sahling, J. (2008). Academic
staff attitudes towards electronic learning in Arts and Sciences, European Journal of
Distance Learning, [online]. Available from
http://www.eurodl.org/index.php?article_313.

3. Manjunath, G.A., Joshi, A.N. & Lata. R. P. (2015). Use and awareness of scholarly
information resources by doctoral students of karnataka university: a case study.
Journal of International Academic Research for Multidisciplinary, 2(12), 1-7.

4. Baradol, Gopakumar & Baradol, (2011). Awareness and use of open access and free
resources on the internet: A case study at bits pilani, 8th International CALIBER -
2011, Goa University, Goa, March 02-04,320-329.

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