scholarly journals How Engaging Are You? Empirical Evidence from Malaysian Research Universities

Author(s):  
Mohamad Rahimi Mohamad Rosman ◽  
Mohd Nasir Ismail ◽  
Mohamad Noorman Masrek

Digital library engagement is the extensive use of digital library features and services. Contrary to the traditional concept of usage, DL engagement evaluates the use of an information system based on multiple dimensions; affective, cognitive, and behavioural. Presently, there is scarce evidence and research on the level of DL engagement. Lack of such evidence caused under-utilization of DL resources. Therefore, the purpose of this study is to investigate the level of DL engagement in the context of Malaysian research universities. A quantitative study was conducted; an instrument was distributed to postgraduate students at five Malaysian research universities. A total of 492 responses were recorded and descriptively analyses using Statistical Package for Social Sciences version 24. Frequency, Independent sample t-test, and Analysis of Variance (ANOVA) were performed to identify significance difference and mean distribution of data among the participating universities. Results show that respondent’s age and research domain showed a significant effect on DL engagement, while gender, study mode, level of study, semester, and the university did not show any significant effect on DL engagement.

2020 ◽  
Vol 6 (2) ◽  
pp. 104-107
Author(s):  
MOHAMAD RAHIMI MOHAMAD ROSMAN ◽  
Mohd Nasir Ismail ◽  
Mohamad Noorman Masrek

Digital library engagement is the extensive use of digital library features and services. Contrary to the traditional concept of usage, DL engagement evaluates the use of an information system based on multiple dimensions; affective, cognitive, and behavioural. Presently, there is scarce evidence and research on the level of DL engagement. Lack of such evidence caused under-utilization of DL resources. Therefore, the purpose of this study is to investigate the level of DL engagement in the context of Malaysian research universities. A quantitative study was conducted; an instrument was distributed to postgraduate students at five Malaysian research universities. A total of 492 responses were recorded and descriptively analyses using Statistical Package for Social Sciences version 24. Frequency, Independent sample t-test, and Analysis of Variance (ANOVA) were performed to identify significance difference and mean distribution of data among the participating universities. Results show that respondent’s age and research domain showed a significant effect on DL engagement, while gender, study mode, level of study, semester, and the university did not show any significant effect on DL engagement.


Webology ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 18 (2) ◽  
pp. 105-115
Author(s):  
Othman Abdulkader Obeidat ◽  
- -

This study aims to evaluating the pattern of digital library utilization in the time of COVID-19 by the postgraduate students in Yarmouk University - Jordan, in addition to helping the university library’s staff and decision makers to identify the role that the digital library play as a response to the closure due to the COVID-19 pandemic and its effectiveness, Moreover, to examine availability of the ICT infrastructure and support modality the distance teaching and learning which took place due to the university closure since the start of the pandemic. A was used to collect data on how the needs of the postgraduate students and their use of the digital library resources during the period of COVID-19 pandemic. The sample consisted of (180) postgraduate students selected by using simple random sampling technique through (GoogleDocs) in order to represent the study population which is (759) postgraduate students. The findings indicated the poor utilization of digital information resources since students depended on the internet to obtain free digital resources. As a conclusion, the students’ skills have overcome the digital gap as their generation depends on the use of all forms of smart devices.


Author(s):  
Mohamad Rahimi Mohamad Rosman ◽  
Mohd Nasir Ismail ◽  
Mohamad Noorman Masrek

Digital library is no longer considered a lavish use of technology but rather a mandatory need for users, especially postgraduate students. Each year, public and academic libraries invest a lot of money to subscribe to various digital resources, such as online databases, electronic books, electronic journals, and electronic magazines. However, many of these organizations have difficulties justifying their digital library investment due to lack of usage among the users. This underutilization of digital libraries is credited to the lack of digital library engagement among the users. Digital library engagement is defined as a deep and long-time use of digital library resources. Some researchers equate engagement to usage; however, engagement goes beyond the generic term of usage and may include multiple dimensions such as affective, cognitive, and behavioral. Previous works on the digital library have mostly focused on the generic definition of use instead of engagement. Researchers believe that the lack of study on digital library engagement causes the underutilization of digital libraries' resources. Despite the rising interest in the digital library, no research has studied digital library engagement predictors. Therefore, this paper aims to discuss the predictors of digital library engagement at the conceptual level. A structured literature review methodology was adopted; a total of 135 pieces of literature were included in this study. In total, 30 predictors of digital library engagement were identified, and these predictors were grouped into four factors: technological, individual, organizational, and contextual factors. Grounded on the previous literature on the digital library, the contributions of this paper are as follows: first, this paper identified a list of predictors of digital library engagement from past digital library literature, second, this paper categorized the predictors into four factors, and finally, this paper proposed a conceptual model for further validation of the predictors.


2020 ◽  
Vol 23 (2) ◽  
pp. 71-74
Author(s):  
Md Faizus Sazzad ◽  
Mohammed Moniruzzaman ◽  
Dewan Iftakher Raza Choudhury ◽  
Arif Ahmed Mohiuddin ◽  
Raafi Rahman ◽  
...  

Background: The number of postgraduate students in Cardiac surgical discipline is increasing day by day with incremental proportion are measurably suffering from the unnecessary lingering of the present course curriculum. The primary objective of this study was to find out the last 5 years’ of results of Masters in Surgery course under the University of Dhaka from a student room survey. A secondary objective was to find out positive changes that could show us the way of a step toward up-gradation. Methods: It is a retrospective analysis of all examination results of Cardio-vascular & Thoracic Surgery published since January 2008 to January 2013 from the University of Dhaka with in depth interview of 11 participants. Results: 85.24% students failed to pass part-I of Masters in Surgery for Cardio-vascular & Thoracic Surgery course while, 82.18% in part-II and 71.28% failed to pass the final part. Average 2.51 attempts needed to complete each part of the designed course resulted into lingering of course duration for 42.18 months/student. In the thoracic surgery discipline the number of students alarmingly reduced up to 0% in the recent academic sessions. Conclusions: Masters in Surgery is resulting in unnecessary prolongation of the course. We should step forward to meet the next generation challenge. Journal of Surgical Sciences (2019) Vol. 23(2): 71-74


2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
FRANCISCO CARLOS PALETTA

This work aims to presents partial results on the research project conducted at the Observatory of the Labor Market in Information and Documentation, School of Communications and Arts of the University of São Paulo on Information Science and Digital Humanities. Discusses Digital Humanities and informational literacy. Highlights the evolution of the Web, the digital library and its connections with Digital Humanities. Reflects on the challenges of the Digital Humanities transdisciplinarity and its connections with the Information Science. This is an exploratory study, mainly due to the current and emergence of the theme and the incipient bibliography existing both in Brazil and abroad.Keywords: Digital Humanities; Information Science; Transcisciplinrity; Information Literacy; Web of Data; Digital Age.


2021 ◽  
pp. 096100062199641
Author(s):  
Ilias Nitsos ◽  
Afrodite Malliari ◽  
Rodopi Chamouroudi

The use of reference management software in the context of academic work and research is the main subject of this study. The study focuses on the extent to which postgraduate students at the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, one of the largest Greek universities, make use of – or avoid using – reference management software tools to organize their bibliographic databases and to automate the process of creating references and citations. The study also tries to find out which are the key factors for their choices and whether certain background characteristics affect their behavior. It should be mentioned that no previous studies have been conducted in Greece regarding the use of reference management software in the academic environment. An online questionnaire was sent to the postgraduate students at the University and a result set of 545 responses was collected and analyzed. The majority (almost two-thirds) of the respondents identified themselves as non-users and one-third identified themselves as reference management software users. Among the latter, Mendeley was found to be the software used by more than two-thirds of the users and was followed by EndNote and Zotero. It is worth mentioning that Mendeley is the software officially recommended by the University’s central library to its users but most of the students (more than 60%) were not aware of this fact. In terms of background characteristics, the analysis revealed, among other things, statistically significant relationships between degree level, student discipline and preferences, reference management software features, and potential future use of reference management software.


2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (9) ◽  
pp. 4943
Author(s):  
Yi Zhang ◽  
Fugui Ye ◽  
Xiumei Liu

Though professional development of language teachers has received increasing attention over the past decade, there is a lack of research on development of language teachers’ teaching competencies in research universities. Informed by the institutional perspective and the framework of Scholarship of Teaching, this study investigates the development of 16 language teachers’ teaching competencies in Beijing research universities. The findings show that language teachers’ teaching competencies include English proficiency, professional ethics, pedagogical content knowledge, reflective thinking, and research-informed teaching. Factors influencing language teachers’ teaching competencies range from the department level to the university level and the academia level. Pathways are proposed from the cultural-cognitive perspective, the normative perspective, and the regulative perspective to develop teaching competencies of language teachers.


2021 ◽  
Vol 8 ◽  
pp. 91-107
Author(s):  
Teoh Sian Hoon ◽  
Geethanjali Narayanan ◽  
Raja Normi Raja Mohamad ◽  
Gurnam Kaur Sidhu

This study was conducted to investigate the postgraduate students’ perceptions towards their experiences of completion of their studies. The population of this study consisted of postgraduate students in a public university in Selangor. The sample comprised 104 randomly selected postgraduate students from the university. A 5-point Likert scale questionnaire was administered to the samples. The questionnaire consisted of four domains, namely student factor, supervisor factor, institutional factor and challenges faced by the students. This study discovered that (1) the postgraduate students perceived supervisors as a determinant factor that contributes toward conducting research. (2) they perceived their academic competencies in research writing as moderate and (3) the supervisor factor has a significant and inverse relationship on challenges faced by the postgraduate students, i.e. the efforts and competencies of supervisors reduced challenges of the postgraduate students to complete their research. Based on the findings, it was suggested that higher learning institutions should highlight on the construction of knowledge through active interaction between lecturers and students. This type of assistance has become a platform for the students to cope up with the learning challenges they were facing in higher education.


2013 ◽  
Vol 3 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Elizabeth Henning

In a search for ways to capture foundation phase children’s competence in mathematics, a small research team was put together at a South African university four years ago. At first, working only in a single school where the objective was to model 80 learners’ growth in competence over four years, the team transformed into a very different entity. This article narrates the founding and development of a community of research practice, which eventually included undergraduate- and postgraduate students, researchers from institutions in Germany, Switzerland and South Africa, teachers at local schools close to the university, and an educational research and survey company. Supported by funding from four different sources, the project is fairly close to reaching the goal of delivering a standardised mathematics competence test for 4-8 year-olds, which is a first of its kind for the country where educational measurement seems to be at a crossroads. In the story line of this community of practice, it is evident that progress can be assessed best by the learning that has been taking place in a community with a notable diversity of people and interests, but with the shared goal of investigating children’s mathematical behaviour on a measure that can be trusted.


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