An Investigation into Factors that Hinder Self-Archiving of Scholarly works among Lecturers at the University of Zambia

Abstract

In quest to improve research and access to information, Universities around the world have established Institutional Repositories that give platforms for researchers affiliated to these institutions to deposit copies of their research work. One of the benefits of an Institutional repository is to increase visibility of research output of an institution (university) which serves as a marketing tool and a basis for managing research and all scholarly works. At an individual level, institutional repositories assist researchers to Keep track of one’s publications and store unpublished works also known as grey literature. At the same time, it helps to research content both locally and globally which assists in collaboration by facilitating free exchange of scholarly information. Due to the above benefits, the University of Zambia with the support from NUFFIC, decided to train members of staff in the University Library on installation and management of Dspace which is an open source package that comprises of the institutional repository.

Over the years, UNZA has conducted a lot of research whose output has not been fully exposed to other scholars for use. Consequently, the magnitude of the University of Zambia research output is not known. As a result, this has had a negative effect on the University’s ranking. Before the institutional repository was established, it was apparent that such an important project would benefit UNZA and lecturers in self-archiving. However, from the time the Institutional repository was installed on the UNZA website in 2010, only 227 research works have been uploaded on the Institutional Repository. This statistic captures not only lecturers, but researchers in general (UNZA, 2018). This is an indication that institutional repository is not serving the intended purpose. It is imperative therefore that the study be conducted to establish factors hindering self-archiving among Lecturers at the University of Zambia.