The impact of internet use on teaching, learning and research activities in Nigerian universities

Abstract

Purpose -The purpose of this paper is to assess the impact of internet resources and the evaluation of their usefulness on teaching, learning and research in Nigerian universities with particular emphasis on Obafemi Awolowo University (OAU), Ile-Ife, Osun State, Nigeria. Design/methodology/approach -The paper is based on a descriptive survey using questionnaires for data collection. The respondents constitute students (750) and academic staff (115) from OAU. Descriptive statistics (frequency counts and percentages) were used to analyze the data. Findings -The results from the paper reveal that a majority of the surveyed academic staff and the students found the internet to be very useful. Internet resources mostly used by both groups were e-mail and the world wide web (WWW). Search interfaces were used for looking for research information. It was discovered that the users were not given adequate user education to enable them make use of the internet resources available. Originality/value -That the internet is widely used is not a surprise, but the paper points to the fact that more conscious efforts must be made in the introduction of user education and information literacy programmes, as well as in staff training on information and communication technology resources in the library.

Perceived Effect of Accessibility and Utilization of Electronic Resources on Productivity of Academic Staff in Selected Nigerian Universities

“…In the Nigerian context, the finding of the study affirms recent research findings by Ajala et al (2010), Nwezeh (2010, and Popoola (2008) but contradicts results of some studies that were conducted in the early 2000s (Ehikhamenor, 2003a(Ehikhamenor, , 2003bJimba & Atinmo, 2000). The current finding of the study, which aligns with global literature, is attributed to a relative increase in the level of awareness of the potential effect of electronic resources on research productivity in Nigeria (compared with the early 2000s when electronic resources were just being introduced in Nigerian universities).…”

Evaluating the Impact of IT on University Students of Bahawalpur with Special Reference to Free laptop Distribution by Govt. of Punjab

“…learning, grades and participation in class and co-curricular activities. ( Nwezeh, 2010)said that university education is unique because students are not only engaged in taking lectures regularly but they are also doing research work all the time. And for research internet is the best source of information as it contains the latest firsthand information and it also provides detailed knowledge about a topic from its historical background to its future horizons.…”

“…(Norzaidi & Salwani, 2009). Many researchers found that technology impacts positively on students' academic performance (Osunade, 2003;Norzaidi & Salwani, 2009;Nwezeh, 2010;Eastman et al, 2011). They found that by adopting technology, students not only participate well in classes but their grades also improve.…”

Regional differences of online learning behavior patterns

“…More people are now contributing to the generation of online applications, like movies, games, e-news, blogs, mobile phones, and e-learning (Shah et al, 2001). Academic staff frequently use the internet to receive general teaching materials, as a referral to additional lecture materials, and to improve their access to scholarly resources (Nwezeh, 2009). Teachers are more eager to perform web-reinforced teaching and are expected to use blogs and social network sites in their own class instruction (Kiyici, 2010).…”

“…Changchien et al (2004) stated that due to the diversity in individual usage behaviors, cognitive needs and personality, further research into methods of clustering users may be quite interesting and helpful. Some studies suggested sorting online use patterns by users' age (Shah et al, 2001), while others explored the length of experience, access time, and frequency of online use patterns (Akporido, 2005;Donnermeyer and Hollifield, 2003;Nwezeh, 2009). Other than taking up the descriptive statistics, researchers also surveyed using user behavior factor analysis to investigate usage patterns among various users (Teo, 2001;Torkzadeh and Dhillon, 2002).…”