ITMS Masters Minor Thesis
Research Proposal
Student ID: 110176896
Student Name: Herath Mudiyanselage Dilani Gunarathna
Supervisor: Dr. Diana Hodge
Provisional title:
The need to provide off-campus access to e-resources and services: A comparative analysis of the usability of the main Library website of the University of Colombo
Table of Contents
01 Abstract...... 03
02 Introduction...... 04
2.1 Research background...... 04
2.2 Background of the University of Colombo (UOC)...... 04
2.2.1 Library of UOC……………………………………… 05
2.2.2 South Australian University library websites………... 06
2.3 Research Question...... 06
2.4 Research Objectives...... 07
03 Literature Review...... 08
3.1 Australian academic libraries…………………………………… 08
3.1.1 Transition from print to electronic …………………… 08
3.1.2 Online Information literacy framework………………. 09
3.1.3 Information seeking behavior of off campus students.. 10
3.1.4 Remote access mechanisms…………………………... 11
04 Methodology...... 12
05 Discussion...... 12
06 Timeline...... 15
07 References...... 16
ABSTRACT
There have been few studies focusing on off-campus access to academic libraries in Sri Lanka. This is because the Sri Lankan universities do not hold large amounts of electronic resources. The Library of University of Colombo provides greater access to physical resources and access to only a limited number of online resources. The Library of University of Colombo subscribes to several popular online databases and provides access to these databases only through the on campus computers connected to the University network. The off-campus access to these online databases and electronic journals has been denied. Among 13 Universities established in Sri Lanka, none of the other universities have provided access to these online databases except the University of Moratuwa. Therefore, this research aims to compare the access that is provided to library resources, services and support through the website of University of Colombo with three South Australian academic libraries and suggest enhancement to the off-campus access to the library resources and services of the University of Colombo. This research investigates how the Australian academic libraries transformed from physical to digital over time and increased remote access for their students. The Sri Lankan universities are in the initial process of digitising physical resources and providing access to online services. The history of the digital transition in Australia will provide an overview of the problems Australian academic libraries faced in the transition period, and what decisions were taken to overcome those issues. It is essential for universities and their libraries to understand the information seeking behaviour of university students in the digital era and provide resources and services as per their expectations. This research aims to identify the user expectations and behaviour accessing information via online and suggest solutions to build the bridge between the Library and its users.
INTRODUCTION
2.1 Research Background
In the digital era, the information discovery landscape has been shaped by new technologies such as digital networks, mobile devices, search engines and the quick availability of digital information (Fisch, Parnell & Educause 2009, p. 1). These evolutions have changed expectations and information seeking behaviour of people in different ways. Digital revolution provides faster services to access information regardless of the location, time and device. A well established academic library is a focal point in teaching, learning and research. Libraries need to provide easy and equitable access to library resources to meet user needs and expectations. The number of journals available electronically has rapidly increased over time. Academic libraries spend a high percentage of their annual budgets on subscriptions to electronic resources such as online databases, electronic journals and books. On the other hand, the other online content providers like Google and Amazon challenge the libraries’ information monopoly (Kim 2011, p. 9). As a result, academic libraries face the challenge of redesigning their library websites to increase the utilisation of web based resources and services catering to both internal and external users equally. This study aims to examine what electronic resources are currently being provided by Australian academic libraries in comparison to University of Colombo. Then, this research will examine what self-learning programs and services have been implemented by the libraries to enhance off campus students’ information literacy and answer their common problems. Finally, this paper will investigate technologies that have been used in Australian academic libraries to provide remote access to those resources but will not be discussing the implementation of these technologies as it is beyond the scope.
2.2 Background of the University of Colombo (UOC)
The University of Colombo is the oldest university in Sri Lanka; it is located in the heart of the capital city of Colombo. The University of Colombo has 7 Faculties that handle undergraduate courses and the Faculty of Graduate Studies provides diploma and postgraduate courses involving different academic disciplines for post graduate students (University of Colombo 2016).
Tertiary education in Sri Lanka is funded and controlled by the government. In 2012, the government had allocated 1627million LKR (AUD 14 million) for the University of Colombo as recurrent and capital grants and 1 million LKR (AUD 8950) as Information Technology grants for the library (University of Colombo 2016b, p. 27). Sri Lankan universities are non-profit organisations and the tertiary education is provided free for selected number of students based on results of a competitive examination (Advanced Level examination).
In accordance with the merit on District basis, 2050 students were selected to enter the undergraduate courses in 2015. The same year the intake of students for postgraduate degree programs was 5692 (University of Colombo 2016). The University provides internal full time courses for undergraduate students and external full time/part time courses for postgraduate students. ‘External’ in relation to postgraduate students, refers to funding rather than study mode; the postgraduate students pay their own fees while undergraduate students places are government funded. Both undergraduate and postgraduate students should attend the lectures that are scheduled in the University premises in weekdays or weekends.
2.2.1 Library of UOC
The University of Colombo Library collection consists of about 500,000 books, periodicals, audio-visual (AV) materials and electronic resources in the disciplines of Arts, Education, Humanities, Law, Management, Commerce, Medicine, Pure Science and Social Sciences. Resource collections grow rapidly with the addition of about 5000 to 6000 materials annually.
The Library subscribes to JSTOR and Hein Online databases, which can be accessed from any terminal in the university premises. The Library also has access to SAGE, Emerald, Taylor & Francis Online, Oxford journals, Wiley Online Library, and Research for Life through National Digital Library Consortium. Apart from that the Library provides access to some free electronic books and journals.
Copies of intellectual outputs of the University such as research papers, conference papers, theses, books, presentations and technical report of UOC community are stored in the ‘Institutional Repository’ database and the access is provided through the home page of the Library website. Similarly, digitised past examination papers also could be accessed through the website home page.
The Library website is a dynamic website, which has been developed in WordPress. The content is stored in a server which is located in the library. The home page of the website includes the Library catalogue, which allows students to search only printed and AV materials. Subscribed online databases can be searched through the federated search bar that is available on the home page of the Library website separately from the catalogue.
2.2.2 South Australian University library websites
Library websites of University of South Australia, University of Adelaide and Flinders University include the library catalogue which integrates resources such as electronic books, journals, online databases, conference proceedings and theses. Therefore, students can search all these resources by one click through the library catalogue.
In order to enhance off campus students learning experience libraries provide resources such as information literacy videos, resource guides and training such as online tutorials and virtual training sessions. Apart from these services, students can request physical books and renew them through the library website.
2.3 Research Question
How could the Library of University of Colombo enhance the accessibility to range of electronic resources and web-based services through the library website for off-campus students?
In order to enhance the accessibility to library resources for off-campus students, the study splits the given research question into four main sub questions and will investigate each area. These questions are,
What electronic resources the UOC already has and what e-resources need to be introduced?
How can the library enhance self-learning skills of on and off-campus students through the library website?
What other services the library could be implemented to ensure equality of services for students on and off campus?
What technologies have been used to implement off-campus access to electronic resources?
Mainly, this research will look for solutions to providing access to a range of resources and services through the Library website of University of Colombo. It is essential to understand the extent to which the Library meets the user needs and promotes Library resources and services via the Library website. It is also important to understand why the Library is not providing these resources and services for students and issues they face in providing access to these resources and services. This research is done by comparing the library website of the University of Colombo (LWUOC) with library websites of three South Australian academic libraries namely University of South Australia, Adelaide and Flinders University. Firstly, the data is gathered through primary and secondary data gathering methods. Then the gathered data is analysed to understand the gaps between resources and services provided by the University of Colombo with regard to South Australian universities. Then this study will investigate how the LWUOC should be changed to increase accessibility to those resources and services.
2.4 Research Objectives
Key points to address in this Research include,
Literature review to identify how South Australian university libraries changed over time from physical to digital overcoming challenges in this process and how libraries support distance learners providing access to electronic resources and services
Identification of resources and services provided by the library of UOC and how far the LWUOC supports access to resources and services to students off-campus
Identify resources and services that are not provided by the Library of University of Colombo compared to South Australian (SA) academic library websites
Recognise key issues that emerge in providing online resources and services through the LWUOC and to propose suitable technologies to overcome the technological issues identified in the LWUOC.
LITERATURE REVIEW
3.1 Australian academic libraries
3.1.1 Transition from print to electronic
Up until the late 20th century, Australian academic libraries acquired the largest amount of print and paper materials that their budgets could afford (Woodberry & Richardson 2000, p. 20); the same as the Sri Lankan universities are doing now. As a start-up, this was the traditional method of increasing the collection for a newly built university library. In order to become an economic player in the Asia Pacific region, Australian Universities aimed to be leaders in the field of distance education and open learning (Austen, Schmidt & Calvert 2002, p. 64). The distance education is still an important element, as many Australians live outside the metropolitan area (Austen, Schmidt & Calvert 2002, p. 64). For many years, the distance education was an essential part of the Australian University teaching. Nevertheless, the distance education was completely print-based in the past (Austen, Schmidt & Calvert 2002, p. 64). The role of the library was to support this mode by posting books or photocopied articles as per students’ requests, responding to students’ calls regarding library enquiries and assisting them with library resources and services (Austen, Schmidt & Calvert 2002, p. 64).
By the early 1990s, the term ‘electronic library’ was used to introduce collections of digital objects that could be stored, organized and retrieved in electronic formats (Carr 2009, p. 57). In the mid 1990s the term ‘digital library’ was a general usage in the United States, but organizations everywhere were struggling to face the challenge of moving print to electronic due to high costs in digitizing materials and perceptions regarding the importance of maintaining historic physical collections (Carr 2009, p. 58). Similarly, Sri Lankan universities are currently facing several challenges of transitioning from physical to digital and these challenges will be discussed in the section 5.0. Same as the other organizations, Australian universities met the challenge of transitioning from physical to electronic and teaching large heterogeneous groups with fewer resources. In 1995, many of the Australian universities including the University of South Australia (UniSA) located most of physical resources at their physical libraries as students and staff could discover them through the library catalogue (Fisch, Parnell & Educause 2009, p. 2). By 2007, the UniSA Library used electronic collections heavily with little reliance on physical collections. A survey conducted by the UniSA Library of both on and off campus students found that in the same year 61% of users looked for online books and 33.6% electronic journals (Fisch, Parnell & Educause 2009, p. 4). Similarly, 65.9% of them looked for physical books and 19.5% printed journals. According to a survey carried out by La Trobe University 51.9% of respondents had searched online books and 34.2% online journals among 85.8% of on campus students and 14.2% of off campus students (Fisch, Parnell & Educause 2009, p. 4). These statistics indicate that soon after the introduction of electronic resources both on and off campus students selected electronic books as often as they selected printed books.
The UniSA extended their survey focusing on Google Scholar, library catalogue, library online databases and other internet sites investigated what source students used most to find electronic resources and papers. Then they researched whether users found what they searched for and if not what were the reasons. 771 students had used the library catalogue and122 used online database to search online resources; where 48 used Google scholar and 20 used other internet sites (Fisch, Parnell & Educause 2009, p. 6). This means that students are highly relying on the library catalogue to search online resources. Among users who searched for online resources through the library catalogue 14% of them failed to find the expected results (Fisch, Parnell & Educause 2009, p. 7). Collection failures such as searched item is not subscribed or user failures such as inadequate searching techniques were identified by Fisch, Parnell & Educause (2009, p. 7) for these failures.