Internet and Sub Saharan African Academics With Particular Reference to Makerere University Kampala
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Date
1998-05
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Addis Ababa University
Abstract
The objective of this study was to examine the way Sub Saharan African Academics
make use of the Internet as a means of solving professional problems, to identify the
problems they encounter, and to propose guidelines that may be adopted with
modifications where necessary to improve the use of the Internet by Academics in Sub
Saharan Africa. The term "Academics" was used to refer to the teaching staff in Sub
Saharan African universities. A questionnaire survey, supplemented by interviews, was
conducted. The survey covered Academics at Makerere University main campus. Effort
was made to browse the World Wide Web in order to identify the Sub Saharan African
universities having Web Pages and the kind of information there is . Results indicated
that most of the Academics were not using the Internet. Reasons given for not using the
Internet included: lack of awareness , lack of access and very high cost. Academics
using the Internet use it mainly for research purposes and personal communication and a
big number of these users (45 %) get 50% to 74% level of satisfaction from the services
they use. Information about research in Sub Saharan African universities, which was
given first priority by respondents to the questionnaire, was found to be missing on all
the Sub Saharan African university Web Pages that were browsed. The findings of this
study called for the need to co-ordinate Internet services in Sub Saharan African
universities , infrastructure development, creation of awareness, encouraging use among
female Academics and Professors, user training, repatriation of useful information,
reduction in the cost of Internet services to the Academics and involving Academics in
content generation for the World Wide Web.
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Information Science