Utilization of Information & Communication Technologies (ICT) on Scholarly Communication Process of Medical Academics in Sri Lanka

Abstract

Sri Lankan Universities of this day and age have entered a phase of radical transformation that is characterized by globalizing with Information and Computer Technologies. This has resulted in bringing up new global issues for scholarly communication processes for academics. However, in this cyber age of ICT, the role of academics should revolutionize towards rapid espousal of them. Especially medical academics, who are at the frontiers of so much new medical technologies and information, should be frontward in integrating the best possible utilization of ICT. This study is an attempt made to investigate how far medical academics utilize ICT in terms of specific scholarly activities for scholarly communication process. The study is compiled with data from questionnaires, supplemented by interviews of 125 medical academics in five universities of Sri Lanka. The final results revealed that the World Wide Web, e-mailing, word processing and presentation packages are the mostly used ICT applications by medical academics. ICT has a significant effect on most scholarly activities and many academics have identified it as a smart facilitator of their work. In this study, recommendations are made to improve infrastructure facilities at the university level.Keywords: scholarly communication; ICT; university academics; ICT utilization doi: 10.4038/jula.v14i1.2689Journal of the University Librarians Association of Sri Lanka. Vol.14 (Issue 1). 2010 77-88