An analysis of open access scholarly communication 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.