An Analysis Of Open Access Scholarly Communication In Tanzanian Public Universities

ABSTRACT

The aim of this study was to investigate factors affecting the adoption of open access

in research activities within Tanzanian public universities in order to device

mechanisms of enhancing the use of this mode of scholarly communication. The study

adopted the UTAUT model to formulate an open access research model comprising of

six constructs and five moderators for guidance of this investigation. A triangulation

approach for data gathering was adopted. In the first instance, a semi-structured

questionnaire was used to collect data from 398 respondents selected using the

stratified random sampling from a population of 1088 university researchers from six

public universities in Tanzania. The interview involving 63 policy makers and

structured records review were also conducted to complement the questionnaire

survey. The descriptive and binary logistic regression statistics of the Statistical

Package for Social Sciences (SPSS) were used for data analysis.

The study established that majority of the policy makers (90.5%) and researchers

(72.1%) were aware of open access. Attitude, awareness, effort expectancy, and

performance expectancy were established as the key determinants for researchers’

behavioural intention of open access usage while age, awareness, behavioural

intention, facilitating conditions and social influence were found to significantly affect

researchers’ actual usage of open access. It was concluded that researchers’ and

policy makers’ general perceptions about open access were very positive signifying

the acceptance of this mode of scholarly communication in the study area. Current

poor research conditions and researchers’ low Internet self-efficacy such as

inadequate information search and online publishing skills were cited as the main

hindrances for researchers to use open access in scholarly communication. The study

recommends institutionalisation of open access publishing in Tanzanian public

universities and other similar research institutions so as to improve the dissemination

of research output emanating from such institutions. Six areas for further research to

establish more insights regarding the feasibility for open access development in the

country are also recommended.

Key Words: Institutional repositories, open access publishing, public universities,

scholarly communication, Tanzania, UTAUT model.