VISIBILITY AND ACCESSIBILITY OF SCHOLARLY JOURNALS IN BAYERO UNIVERSITY, KANO

Abstract

The study investigates the current status of scholarly journals in Bayero University, Kano, Nigeria their visibility, accessibility via traditional and digital means and the challenges encountered by the university scholarly journals. The online survey, using Google Forms, was developed by the researcher to solicit data for the study. All Editors-in- Chief of fifty (50) scholarly journals in the university were purposively selected as research respondents. The survey link was sent, between January and February 2022, to individual respondent through WhatsApp platform and email contact in few cases as requested. The online response rate was very interesting as all Editors-in-Chief of the existing journals participated and the data collected were analyzed using frequency and percentage. The findings revealed that majority of the university scholarly journals were active, visible and accessible through the Serials sections of the University libraries. Few active journals were reported visible and accessible through online platforms, like African Journals Online (AJOL), Web of Science and journal websites with open access mode. Inadequate infrastructure for digital visibility and accessibility and insufficient source of funding among few others were the challenges encountered by the scholarly journals in the University. The study concludes that the university has many current and active scholarly journals but with a limited digital visibility and accessibility. It is recommended that provision of adequate digital facilities and sufficient source of funding will facilitate the online visibility and accessibility of the university scholarly journals.