Purpose The purpose of this study is to explore the COVID-19 information-seeking behavior of the students in a developing country. This study also explores how the use of information sources changes over time by the students of a public university in Bangladesh. Design/methodology/approach An e-mail was sent along with an online questionnaire to 350 students in a public university in Bangladesh. After sending a couple of follow-up e-mails in May and June 2022, we got limited responses. Later in July, we distributed the same questionnaire in the printed form to the students in the seminar library, computer laboratory and in the classroom. Finally, we got back 270 responses, and the response rate was 77.14%. Pearson’s correlation coefficient (effect size) and nonparametric test (Mann–Whitney U test) were used to see the differences in using information sources over times and overall understanding of choosing the COVID-19 information sources by the demographic variables. Findings This study found that the COVID-19 pandemic has made an increased demand for a variety of information, and the sources of information changes over time before and during the COVID-19 pandemic. The majority of the students faced challenges while seeking COVID-19 information which mostly falls under the availability of mis–disinformation. Students used more social media tools during the COVID-19 than the pre-COVID-19 time, and there are some significant relationships found between the students’ demographic variables and students’ understanding of choosing the COVID-19 information sources. Originality/value To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this study is one of the first to analyze changes in information behavior patterns of students in a developing country and understand the challenges faced by the students during the pandemic.

The goal of this research is to examine the current state of Open Access (OA) Resources in six private and public universities in Bangladesh. It also seeks to analyze students’ awareness, utilization of, and attitude towards OA resources. Findings: The study found that 60% of the students perceive their universities have enough OA resources whereas the other 40% think their universities do not possess enough. In the meantime, only 50% of them are frequent users while the other 30% know but never used and the rest 20% have no idea about OA resources. However, the awareness of OA Resources amongst students is increasing day by day. The students possess a positive perception of OA Resources. Methodology: The questionnaire, direct interviews, various documentaries, and direct observation are used for the present study. We applied interview and own observation methods as the questionnaire approach had few limitations while collecting the data that is why so that this method was used to collect the required information to supplement the questionnaire methods and to bring more clarity to the data. The questionnaires were distributed personally to the students. Then we tried to understand the knowledge, utilization, and attitude of OA resources. Data Collection: The major step of the study for data collecting was the survey data from selected universities of Bangladesh. Moreover, the discussions were held with the students of these universities to examine awareness, use, and perception of OA Resources. Various journals articles, online sources, like Google, blog sites, Google Scholars, etc. have been used in this research.