Preserving the digital heritage of public institutions in Ghana in the wake of electronic government

Ezeani

2021

PurposeThis study examined the state of digital records management in Nigerian university libraries. It investigated the extent university libraries have captured/created, utilized, planned, organized and developed the skills of librarians, etc. for effective management of electronic records.Design/methodology/approachDescriptive survey design was adopted. The area of the study was Nigeria. The population of the study was 231 academic librarians and senior technical and administrative staff drawn from 12 federal university libraries. Data were collected and analyzed using questionnaire, checklist and version 20 of Statistical Packages for Social Sciences (SPSS). Information obtained through oral interviews was analyzed qualitatively and incorporated in the discussions. The analytical framework was the Readiness Assessment Guide developed by the International Records Management Trust/World Bank in 2004. The criterion of judgment was that any item or statement of the research instruments that obtains a mean value of 2.50+ was rated high, and low if less than 2.50.FindingsThe results revealed that ICT facilities were available in Nigerian federal university libraries but the manner and extent of utilization, planning, organizing, re-skilling the staff, budgetary provisions and adoption of international best practices, etc. for e-records was low. Adequate funding, steady power supply, full internet services and adoption of global best practices for e-records management were some of the recommendations.Practical implicationsThis study has established that the status of ICT facilities and current digital records management in Nigerian university libraries have not been properly managed and therefore are likely to become vulnerable or inaccessible for future transactions.Originality/valueThe gap in the literature about the dart of empirical studies on the status of e-RM in Nigerian university libraries has been bridged.

Section: Factors Hindering Effective Management Of E-records In Fulsnmentioning

confidence: 60%

Status of electronic records management (e-RM) in African university libraries: experience from Nigerian universities

Ezeani

2021

“…Title Citations [34] Creating value through managing knowledge in an e-government to constituency (G2C) environment 65 [28] Information Sharing in and Across Government Agencies: The Role and Influence of Scientist, Politician, and Bureaucrat Subcultures 40 [44] Integrating knowledge management tools for government information 25 [27] Public sector readiness for digital preservation in New Zealand: The rate of adoption of an innovation in records management practices 13 [29] Technology as a tool of transformation: e-Cities and the rule of law 11 [43] Digital records keeping to information governance in Estonian local governments 9 [32] Archivists 2.0: Redefining the archivist's profession in the digital age 8 [45] Case studies on digital government 6 [31] Digital government and public management research: finding the crossroads 4 [24] What lessons can be learned from the US archivist's digital mandate for 2019 and is there potential for applying them in lower resource countries? 3 [23] Preserving the digital heritage of public institutions in Ghana in the wake of electronic government 3 [25] The Issues and Considerations Associated with BIM Integration 2 Regarding the analysis of authors, as shown in Table 2, in 30 articles, there are a total of 61 authors/coauthors, showing a significant number of authors who participated in the digital government literature. However, according to Table 1, only two of these authors have more than one publication, showing few dominant authors in the digital government research.…”

Section: Papermentioning

confidence: 99%

Digital Transformation and Knowledge Management in the Public Sector

et al. 2020

Digitizing public services is, at the moment, an essential necessity for numerous governments around the world. An improved government through digitization will not only have a growing effect on businesses, but it will also be able to intensify citizen engagement and push for economic growth. During the last 10 years more countries have progressively begun to provide digital services to their citizens. Therefore, in order to address this development, the purpose of this paper is to analyze the evolution of the digital government literature in order to describe the aspects of digital transformation in the public sector and how it is related to knowledge management. In this study the methodology is quantitative and it is based on a review and a survey made with the main goal being the estimation from several collected data on how the digital transformation process in the Public Administration takes place and what its relationship is with knowledge management. The review study is based on articles found on Scopus database and it addresses the role that digital government research plays in the theory and practice of knowledge management. In the survey study, 54 employees working for the services of the two governmental areas of the Portuguese Ministry of the Environment were surveyed. The results show that the research on the theme is still at an exploratory stage due to the lack of studies relating digital government to knowledge management effectiveness in the public sector. The results also show that the success of digital government seems to be related with the quality of the organizations’ knowledge management, complementing each other for significant improvements in the public sector. In terms of originality, this study aims to contribute and stimulate data-driven discussions regarding the impacts of the digital transformation in the public sector and their relation with the implementation of knowledge management practices. The results offer insights into future research needs.

SA Journal of Information Management

“…Some of the studies reviewed in this study, such as Gbaje ( 2011), Kalusopa and Zulu (2009), Kanyengo (2006) and Keakopa (2006), revealed that there were no policies and guidelines on the preservation of electronic records in most of the African institutions and organisations and this differs from the findings of this study. Also, Adu and Ngulube (2016) observed that although preservation policies attempt to address the issue of accessibility to information and recognise the potential role of ICT on national development, very little has been done on digital preservation infrastructure in public institutions in countries like Ghana. The differences in the results may be accounted for by the fact that the academic library environment may differ from archival institutions in the way they treat preservation issues.…”

Section: Management Supportmentioning

confidence: 99%

Digital preservation practices in academic libraries in South Africa in the wake of the digital revolution

Masenya

Ngulube

2019

Self Cite

Background:The preservation of digital resources in academic institutions in South Africa is an imperative because of the proliferation of digital resources and the realities of the digital revolution. The study focused on digital preservation practices within academic libraries in South Africa. A number of studies were undertaken in the field of preservation in South Africa and they focused on the preservation of cultural heritage, preservation of electronic government and preservation of public digital information. The major gap in the literature reinforces the need to closely examine digital preservation practices in academic libraries in South Africa. There is a need to understand the extent of preservation of digital resources in various contexts in order to guarantee access to them for future generations. This will improve our understanding of the preservation of digital resources in academic libraries in the wake of the digital revolution. Objectives:The purpose of this study was to investigate digital preservation practices in academic libraries in South Africa in order to suggest solutions for effective digital preservation. Method:The survey research method was used for data collection. Twenty-seven academic institutions in South Africa were surveyed. Data were analysed through the Statistical Package for the Social Sciences. Results:The findings revealed that academic libraries experienced difficulties in preserving and sustaining their digital resources because of the absence of established standards, policies and procedures, inadequate resources, as well as a lack of skills and training. They also had difficulties with limited funding and collaboration efforts, and the threat of technological obsolescence because of the constantly changing software and hardware, poor technology infrastructure and legal issues. Conclusion:All these challenges have created the need for best practices and solutions to facilitate the long-term preservation of digital resources in the academic libraries. Recommendations were made on the basis of the results.