Open-Access Electronic-Resources and Extent of Accessibility by Postgraduate Students of Federal Universities in South-South, Nigeria

Abstract

Access to scholarly literature oils the machine of academics knowledge flow. The barrier of hoarding and economic restriction of information resources has been greatly displaced by Open Access. This allows corpus of scholarly literature to be freely accessible, accelerated with the expansion of the availability of the Internet. Giving the availability Open Access, this study examines the accessibility of Open-Access electronic-resources by Postgraduate students of Federal Universities in South-South, Nigeria. The study adopted descriptive survey design. Purposive sampling was used to select four (4) universities from south south, Nigeria. The population for the study was 1401, consisting of all registered 330 Doctoral (PhD) and 1,071 Masters of Education (M.Ed) students of the faculty of education of the institutions. This study which is on accessibility of Open-Access e-resources by Postgraduate students of Federal Universities in South-South, Nigeria, had shown that postgraduate students access Open-Access e-resources for academic purposes. This paper emphasised postgraduate student's access to Open Access e-resources and highlights the extent which was high, with no significant difference to both Med and PhD. This prompt the recommendations that adequate library ICT infrastructures be provided in the universities for postgraduate use as well as stable power supply to power the facilities.