Purpose The purpose of this paper is to explore the perceptions, attitudes and experiences of undergraduate students related to the use of YouTube as an information resource to support their learning. The use of YouTube by professors for course activities is also examined. Design/methodology/approach Quantitative research design based on a survey method was used by using a questionnaire tool. The collected data were analyzed using frequency and simple percentage. The sample comprises undergraduate students from the College of Computer and Information. Findings The general results reveal that the use of YouTube in the classroom influences student engagement. Students’ understanding of the importance of YouTube was determined in this study. However, professors do not seem to have positive attitudes towards incorporating YouTube into course activities. Originality/value The application of social media tools in Saudi Arabia is unclear because of the lack of studies that focus on the use of video-sharing websites by university students. This paper is the first of its kind conducted to explore the use of YouTube in the academic environment as an information resource to support university courses.

Reading and learning about religious information is a habit that Saudis practice to increase their understanding of Islamic rules. It is common now for people to learn about religion from social media. Therefore, the study reports on a survey that was distributed to people in Saudi Arabia to investigate the use of social media technologies for religious information seeking. The objective is to determine if Saudis utilize social media to search for religious information and to understand their information-seeking behaviors when using such a resource. In addition, the study is an attempt to investigate how religious information on social media changes and influences people, and what obstacles and difficulties Saudis encounter when they use social media to obtain religious information.

The intellectual output of students may receive insufficient attention in terms of preservation and distribution. The present study focuses on the perceptions of students toward a digital repository for collecting the works of students awarded scholarships. The study found that majority of participants have the desire to archive or publish in a digital repository because they appreciate the quality of students’ research and trust it when writing projects and study reports. However, only a small proportion of participants understood about digital repositories and a few of them had previous experience in publishing their works online. The findings indicated that copyright infringement is the biggest concern that prevents participants from depositing their work, followed by the unawareness about a university repository or appropriate digital repositories that accept students’ work.

Reading and learning about religious information is a habit that Saudis practice to increase their understanding of Islamic rules. It is common now for people to learn about religion from social media. Therefore, the study reports on a survey that was distributed to people in Saudi Arabia to investigate the use of social media technologies for religious information seeking. The objective is to determine if Saudis utilize social media to search for religious information and to understand their information-seeking behaviors when using such a resource. In addition, the study is an attempt to investigate how religious information on social media changes and influences people, and what obstacles and difficulties Saudis encounter when they use social media to obtain religious information.

The desire to improve health services provided to citizens in Saudi Arabia increases the need to encourage health practitioners to share their knowledge with peers. Unfortunately, there is no evidence that information and knowledge are shared in healthcare sectors. This study thus investigates the practice of knowledge sharing by workers and practitioners in primary healthcare centers. The influence of technology and management support in dissemination of the culture of knowledge sharing is also studied. The findings revealed that the staff in healthcare centers has a positive perception towards the importance of knowledge sharing in the work environment Workers have the desire to exploit all available potentials to transfer, exchange, and provide new knowledge within these centers. However, some factors were found to be barriers to sharing knowledge. Such factors include discouragement by top management as well as a lack of technology that supports knowledge management and sharing. Therefore, employees depend on their own efforts to share knowledge and apply it in the work place.