A Survey of the Rate of the Electronic Journal Usage by Payame Noor University Faculty Members and the Factors Affecting Their Usage

IntroductionToday, the most current scientific findings are accessible through scientific journals. Based on the findings of several citation studies, scholarly journals constitute a major part of references in theses, research projects and journal articles. In other words, researches and scientific findings rely a great deal on scholarly journals, the most important channel for dissemination of scientific findings. Scholarly journals are the official scientific communication medium for scientific institutions and associations such as universities, colleges, and scientific and professional societies. (Fattahi, 18: 1381)By the advent of information technologies and their potential for storage and dissemination of information and since the introduction of Internet, electronic journals have become increasingly widespread which in turn could be a threat to their print counterparts. Based on their formats, electronic journals are two types: 1) Offline: such as floppy discs, CDs, DVDs and 2) Online: that is the kind of journals that all the processes of its production, distribution and acess are conducted through Internet. Therefore, online journals are named as Internet journals, net journals and electronic journals as well. (Mohseni, 78: 1385)Problems such as lack of access to electronic journals, low speed of Internet transmission and download problems have led libraries to become hesitant to choose between electronic and print journals. In addition to that, advantages of electronic journals such as ease of use, speed and saving time, result in the popularity of electronic journals among scientists; therefore, subscription of them should become one of the priorities of libraries. Many of the electronic journals are free while many others, especially those which are originally printed, should be subscribed and libraries should take access to both into consideration. Regarding what mentioned, the main purposes of this research is to verify the rate of use of electronic journals among Payame Noor University faculty members and study factors influencing in order to determine the necessity of subscription to electronic journals. The questions addressed in this research are:1. To what extent Payame Noor University faculty members use electronic and print journals?2. To what factors does the use of electronic journals depend on?Research methodThe research method was survey conducted through a written questionnaire which included parts addressing faculty’s access ways to computer and Internet, faculty’s home and office computer uses, faculty’s skills to use computer, Internet and databases. The latter was rated on a five point scale.Reliability of the questionnaire was determined by face reliability method. To determine the validity, split half and cronbach’s alpha methods were administered. The population for this survey was all of the 585 faculty members, out of which 169 responded to the questionnaires. Based on the official records of Payame Noor University, faculty members fall into two fields: humanities and basic sciences.ResultsThe main purpose of this study was to examine the extent to which Payeme Noor faculty members use electronic journals. In addition to that, this study aimed at determining factors influencing the use of electronic journals. Independent variables which examined the relation to dependent variable, the extent of use of electronic journals are: the extent of familiarity with full text databases, the amount of skills in using computer and Internet, the extent of access to electronic journals, the extent of Internet and computer problems and the extent of electronic journals acceptance.Results demonstrate the low rate of familiarity of faculty members with subscribed databases. It is also found that, the mean score (mean value: 7.5) of respondents’ rated skills (computer skills, information retrieval skills and database skills) is more than the average (6). As pertains to computer and Internet problems, results show that the mean score (15.4) is above the average (14).Results also demonstrate that access to electronic journals is low, in that the mean score of access scale is 1.06. It is also found that, 60.4 percent of the respondents have access to electronic journals through free databases, 11.1 percent of them have access through subscribed databases and only 7.7 percent have access to electronic journal through both mentioned ways.DiscussionAnswering the questions:1. To what extent do Payame Noor University faculty members use electronic and print journals?Results show that the mean score value of use of electronic jouanrls is 2.89 which is lower than the average (4). This result is an indication of faculty’s low use rate of electronic journals, be it free or subscribed. Meanwhile, the extent of faculty’s use of free journals is higher than that of subscribed ones.2. To what factors does the use of electronic journals depend on?Results indicate that access to electronic journals has the strongest positive relationship (R=0.4513) with dependent variable, the extent of use, following with the extent of familiarity and the amount of skills. Meanwhile, computer and Internet problems have a negative relation (R=0.3737) with the extent of use of electronic journals.Based on the multivariable regression test and B and ß co-efficiencies, extent of access has the strongest influence on the use of electronic journals, whereas the results from evaluation of direct and indirect influences of independent variables on dependent variable show that the extent of familiarity of faculty members with databases (R=0.32) has the strongest influence on the determination of dependant variable, followed by “access” variable (R=0.3).Results also demonstrate that the weakest meaningful relation is between the extent of acceptance and the extent of use. As Koltz put it, attitudes are complicated systems of beliefs that encourage people to behave in a certain way. However, in this research, the weak relation between acceptance (attitude) and behavior (use) could be resulted from inappropriate environmental conditions, namely internet and computer problems, lack of access, lack of skills and unfamiliarity.Findings also demonstrate that there is no meaningful relationship among age and experience and the extent of use. It is also found that Payame Noor University faculty members have a strong demand for subscription of databases. They suggest that relevant databases be subscribed, workshops be held, and Internet and computer problems be solved. They believe that workshops are conducive in the increase of their skills.