Information literacy, research, scholarship and publication: Comparative of PhD students in Nigerian and South African universities

Abstract

Public university libraries and ICTs are crucial in teaching, learning and research activities of both Universities and PhD students. PhD student’s research matters for academic growth and university ranking. Unfortunately, PhD student’s access to ICTs and library facilities in developing countries like Nigeria, is not encouraging, while universities libraries and ICTs are still struggling to fulfill their mandate unlike what is obtainable in developing countries. Plausible reasons include erratic power supply, librarian’s attitude and poor ICT skills, inadequate computerization, inadequate infrastructure and human capacity. The resultant effect of this is on student research, access to information for scholarship and publishing opportunities. The paper examines the level information Literacy in terms of ICTs, and library facilities use by PhD students, and its implication on their research, scholarship and publication opportunities.The research was carried out by qualitative research method in public universities in Nigeria and South Africa. A random sampling technique was used to select 40 Nigerian students enrolled at the University of Lagos, Nigeria and University of Kwazulu-Natal, South Africa. The study however, adopts descriptive method of data analysis. Preliminary data reveals that Nigeria students enrolled at the University of KwaZulu-Natal had upper hand in terms of information literacy, research, scholarship and publication than students at the University of Lagos, because of availability and accessibility to ICTs and efficient University library.

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