ENHANCING KNOWLEDGE SHARING THROUGH SELF-ARCHIVING IN INSTITUTIONAL REPOSITORIES BY FACULTY IN SELECTED PRIVATE UNIVERSITIES IN KENYA

Abstract

ABSTRACT Knowledge sharing is a tool for competitive advantage in every organization. Academic institutions have embraced and adopted this practice especially amongst academicians by creating a conducive environment for knowledge exchange. One of the practices adopted to make knowledge sharing successful is through self-archiving in institutional repositories in Kenya. Despite having an open access policy in place, statistics indicate that there is a low or no report of activities of self-archiving in most institutional repositories. The aim of this study was to investigate knowledge sharing through self-archiving by faculty in selected private universities in Kenya, and to propose strategies to maximize self-archiving in institutional repositories. The objectives of the study were to: investigate full-time faculty members’ awareness on self-archiving; establish how often full-time faculty publish or self-archive; explore motivators for self-archiving by the full-time faculty in the selected private Universities; establish the impeding factors affecting self-archiving by faculty in the institutional repositories; and propose strategies to maximize self-archiving in institutional repositories. This study was informed by Social Exchange Theory and was a qualitative multicase study. The population of the study was drawn from fulltime faculty and librarians from Strathmore University and United States International University Africa. This study employed purposive sampling to come up with a sample size of 26. Semi structured interviews were conducted on all the respondents from both Strathmore University and United States International University-Africa. Desk research was performed on the virtual documents from both Universities as well. A Pilot study was conducted at Strathmore University. Data was analyzed thematically and presented in thick description. The findings indicated that selfarchiving in the institutional repository is not practiced by the faculty and concluded that the faculty views self-archiving as a practice with no benefits attached to it. The study recommends self-archiving mandate as one of the key factors of success to this practice. The findings of this study are useful to academic institutions by proposing strategies to maximize knowledge sharing through self-archiving in institutional repositories.