ICT-readiness for E-library (a case study of institution of higher learning)

Abstract

Many countries in Africa are now struggling with the changing political, social and economic environment. It is evident from developed countries that the modern successful industrial economy is IT driven. This underscores the need for African countries to have an effective public sector. Key institutions like education need to formulate and implement strategies and policies that will facilitate the achievement of education for All (EFA) and the Millennium Development Goals (MDG's). These strategies and policies must embrace information and Communication Technology (lCT). There is a great need for institutions to have methods and framework for assessing their readiness and progress in adopting and embracing new technology. This study was aimed at finding out the ICT readiness for institution of higher learning in Kenya with a view of developing e-readiness assessment framework and a tool (program) for testing lCT readiness for e-library. The study has established parameters that can be used to measure ICT indexes that will help the administrators to make appropriate decisions regarding ICT readiness in their institutional Libraries. With a request through the project supervisor KENET grated the researcher permission to use raw data from their research on e-readines survey of higher education institutions in Kenya(2007). SPSS software was used for data analysis; where the Chi square Asymptotic significance was used to measure the existence of relationships across variables and the Crammers V was used to gauge the strength of the relationship. A LRI model was developed and it's composed of 5 factors and a total of 28 indicators. The model was able to measure ICT readiness for e-libraries for 3 institutions. As an integrated part of the model a tool/program was also developed and is able to compute both the subindices and the overall final index for a given library. The tool is also capable of generating several reports whose format may either be in tabular and/or graphical form.