Browsing by Author "Bonsu, Frank Mensah"

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    ADOPTING A LOGIC FRAMEWORK FOR THE EVALUATION OF THE OPERATIONAL PROCESSES AND OUTCOMES OF KNUSTSpace ON RESEARCH, LEARNING AND TEACHING: A CASE OF EMPIRICAL RESEARCH OUTPUT BY ACADEMIC STAFFS AND STUDENTS
    (University of Nebraska - Lincoln, 2019-08) Essel, Harry Barton; Lamptey, Richard Bruce; Tachie-Menson, Akosua; Bonsu, Frank Mensah; 0000-0002-9431-5294
    In recent years, there is an expansive consensus on the significance of openness and dissemination of information resources globally. Information and Communications Technology (ICT) keeps on changing the creation, storage, distribution, preservation and management of empirical scholarly output which has brought numerous products and services to users of this digital resources (Essel, 2010). ICT is changing the face of libraries by making them more competitive to meet the complex and divergent needs of its clients with the introduction of Open Access Institutional Repositories (OA-IRs) with free and unending online access to full content of electronic scholarly outputs of an institution, irrespective of geographical location of users (Osei-Poku & Essel, 2011). Presently, higher education institutions have gradually acknowledged that institutional repositories (IR) are essential and very powerful infrastructure that can serve as an engine of change (Verma and Shukla, 2014; Budu, 2015; Mostofa, Begum and Mezbah-ul-Islam, 2015). The concept of Institutional Repository (IR) has set a new dimension in managing information and intellectual resources which have helped in research, learning and teaching in the Internet era. As research, learning and teaching remain the main ingredients for attaining a higher educational growth and development, there is the need to constantly develop and upgrade digital infrastructure in order to allow scholars gain access to outlets of intellectual resources. Inspired by the open access movement, KNUST has implemented an open access institutional repository called “KNUSTSpace” which store, distribute, preserve and manage KNUST academic scholarly outputs. It was the first open access institutional repository in Ghana and was set up in July 2009 (Lamptey & Corletey, 2011; Essel, 2010; Essel & Osei-Poku, 2011). According to Oliver and Swain (2006), there are numerous challenges relating to the advent of a new publishing model which IR fall within. Monitoring and supporting the growth of IRs to detect and address significant issues linked to its development is one challenge. Considering the focus on the development and implementation of IRs, little has been done to evaluate them (Davis & Connolly, 2007) of which KNUSTSpace is no exception. Since the inception (9 years ago) of KNUSTSpace, no evaluation has been conducted to assess the inputs and outputs of the repository, and how users (students and lecturers) are benefiting from the IR in terms of research, learning and teaching activities (Lamptey, personal communication, April 20, 2016). Hence, the need to consider the input, output and outcome of KNUSTSpace towards improving its quality and further developments in research, learning and teaching, with respect to KNUST academic user experience and gains. Voorbij and Ongering (2006) opine that only user studies can reveal the reasons, gains, outcomes and problems experienced by IR users.