Siviwe Bangani | North-West University (original) (raw)

Papers by Siviwe Bangani

<i>This data depicts the data sharing practices of researchers in South African universitie... more <i>This data depicts the data sharing practices of researchers in South African universities. It further highlights the level of collaboration of researchers in sharing data in the country. <br></i>

International Information & Library Review, 2018

Recites Rudyard Kipling's "If" to Inspire Scholars The CoB's own Stephen Bushardt (professor of m... more Recites Rudyard Kipling's "If" to Inspire Scholars The CoB's own Stephen Bushardt (professor of management) spoke at the Spring 2007 BCT Banquet at Jones County Junior College. Bushardt took the dais and recited Rudyard Kipling's famous "If" to the assembled group. As the caption accompanying the photo of Bushardt below states, the former CoB Graduate Programs Director "encouraged Laurel scholars to believe in themselves." 1 Submitted by Devon Sellers of Ellisville Stephen Bushardt, a professor with the College of Business at Southern Miss who also serves on Devon Sellers' BCT craft committee reads a poem recently at the spring BCT banquet at JCJC. The poem was "If" by Rudyard Kipling. Bushardt encourages Laurel scholars to believe in themselves.

Global Knowledge, Memory and Communication, 2018

Collaboration on LibGuides in public universities in South Africa ...Show all authors This paper ... more Collaboration on LibGuides in public universities in South Africa ...Show all authors This paper uses co-ownership as a proxy for determining the extent of collaboration on LibGuides in public universities in South Africa.

Social media is fast becoming a regular part of our everyday lives. It is a powerful voice by whi... more Social media is fast becoming a regular part of our everyday lives. It is a powerful voice by which librarians inform, educate and communicate with library users about the products and services of the library. Over the past few years, most academic libraries have realised the important role social media can play as an information, education and communication resource through which they reach the users. Being actively involved on social media offer the library a platform to disseminate and share information with its users who can either respond or initiate conversations with the librarians. Guided by the Library Director’s theme to Inform, Educate, and Communicate, in 2014 and beyond, the North West University Library- Mafikeng Campus adopted two platforms of social media: Facebook and Twitter. The purpose of this paper is to highlight how NWU Libraries is using Facebook and Twitter to inform, educate and communicate with library users. Further, the pros and cons of using social me...

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to determine the use of library spaces by postgraduate stude... more Purpose The purpose of this paper is to determine the use of library spaces by postgraduate students at the North-West University in South Africa. Design/methodology/approach A survey research methodology was used in which both online and print questionnaires were used to gather data. Findings The major findings of the study were that postgraduate students frequently visited the libraries to make use of the quite study spaces, which include the research commons and the study carrels. The study further found out that postgraduate students rarely visited the libraries for the purpose of consulting librarians regarding their studies. Challenges expressed by the students include insufficient workstations, poor internet and Wi-Fi connectivity and limited seating capacity. The benefit of the study is that it will help librarians and the university administrators to better understand the postgraduate students space needs, as well as the challenges being encountered. Research limitations/implications This biggest limitation of this study was a lack or low response rate by certain faculties, which mitigated against comparing the use of spaces by faculty. Practical implications The results of this study re-affirm the need for postgraduate spaces. University libraries that seek to build postgraduate spaces in the future need to ensure that an adequate number of computer workstations are supplied and Wi-Fi and bandwidth are improved. University libraries that already have postgraduate spaces should consider adding more workstations and improving bandwidth and Wi-Fi connectivity in those spaces. These results further point to a need for libraries in Africa and elsewhere to consider having more quiet study spaces for postgraduate students while reducing the number of group study spaces. Social implications The results of this study point to a need for libraries and university authorities to periodically review library spaces as a way to ensure their continued optimal usage. They also point to a need for more funds to further enhance the library spaces for postgraduate students’ use. Originality/value South African libraries are faced with challenges including the addition of 15 per cent value added tax to print and online resources. In this environment, libraries are expected by university authorities to demonstrate return on investment. This study, therefore, is located within the realm of determining return on investment for the funds spent by universities to build dedicated postgraduate library spaces. This study will further benefit librarians and the university administrators by helping them to better understand the postgraduate students space needs, as well as the challenges being encountered.

Adding pearls onto the string" a case study of collaboration Adding pearls onto the string" a cas... more Adding pearls onto the string" a case study of collaboration Adding pearls onto the string" a case study of collaboration providing library services to nursing students at the Cape providing library services to nursing students at the

The library’s role has changed from being confined to a physical place where informationresources... more The library’s role has changed from being confined to a physical place where informationresources are located to include online resources. In the case of academic libraries, librarianswere expected to design a website within which library resources can be accessed from theonline catalogue to the subscription databases. However, these websites were one dimensionalwithout any form of interaction between the user and the librarian. These platforms allowed forthe transfer of print to online even without any input from the user. They were platforms createdfor the user and not with the user.With the explosion of Web 2.0 applications and tools in the past 10 years and the popularizationof the concept of collaboration, academic libraries were forced to rethink the one dimensionalnature of their websites and embrace some applications or tools that would complement theirsites while also offering features of Web 2.0 sites. Thus, the LibGuides, described as contentmanagement systems, were ident...

It is a constitutional right of all South Africans to have access to information held by the stat... more It is a constitutional right of all South Africans to have access to information held by the state or any other person especially if the information is required to protect a right (South Africa 1996). With this right comes the obligation on the state to ensure that whatever information it has in its possession, and can be reasonably shared, is distributed widely, openly, freely and fairly to the citizenry. Since the adoption of the Constitution in 1996, the Internet’s reach in South Africa has increased significantly. The Internet has therefore become an attractive platform to distribute legal information. The South African legal system has embraced open access to legal information such as case law, legal documents, parliamentary bills, statutes, parliamentary debates, government gazettes, electronic books, theses, authoritative blogs and other Social Media. This study argues that Open Access to legal resources is beneficial for the country, its citizens, researchers and students of...

The study employed bibliometrics methods to analyse the scattering of 596 journals cited in legal... more The study employed bibliometrics methods to analyse the scattering of 596 journals cited in legal master’s theses and doctoral dissertations in three South African law schools from 2014 to 2018. In addition, the study included an analysis of the extent of citation of different sources and examined the effect of use of non-legal journals by law students. It was found that students used 449.2 documents on average in writing a doctoral dissertation and 110.9 references per master’s thesis. Journals received more citations than any other document formats although 16 master’s theses were completed without citing a single journal. Generally, the journals cited in legal theses and dissertations conform to Bradford’s Law but they differ in their level of conformity by law school. There was a high degree of overlaps between Zone 1 journals in the three law schools. All journals in the core lists were available in all the law schools which was attributed to the strength of collections in thes...

Academic Social Media (ASM) provides researchers with limitless opportunities to promote, share, ... more Academic Social Media (ASM) provides researchers with limitless opportunities to promote, share, preserve, and evaluate research. ASM includes ResearchGate, Mendeley, Academia.edu, Zotero. This study seeks to determine the visibility and impact of South African Universities’ research output and researchers in ASM platforms and bibliographic databases, specifically Academia.edu, ORCiD, Scopus and Google Scholar. This study was motivated by the existence of an academic lacuna on the visibility and impact of SA researchers in ASM.

The aim of this study was to establish the impact of the North-West University’s language policy ... more The aim of this study was to establish the impact of the North-West University’s language policy on its library’s print collections. It analyses the languages represented by books held by the North-West University Library and Information Services. The article further established the strategies used by the libraries to develop, preserve and promote African languages in support of the university’s language policy. The paper employed bibliometrics and focus group interviews to gather data. The findings revealed that books in African languages that were recognised by the university were difficult to get on the market. As a result, the majority of books accessioned by the libraries were in English, followed by Afrikaans, and relatively few books in Setswana, and Sesotho. The study is the first of its kind focusing on language policy and academic libraries in South Africa. It is valuable to both policy makers and librarians in their endeavours to develop sizeable African language collecti...

The Journal of Academic Librarianship

Mousaion: South African Journal of Information Studies

Various international organisations such as the United Nations and the African Union recognise th... more Various international organisations such as the United Nations and the African Union recognise the value of language in development, peacebuilding and reconciliation. Language is also recognised in planning policies of countries such as South Africa where the National Development Plan of the country seeks to ensure that every citizen learns at least one African language by 2030. This paper sought to determine the availability, impact and visibility of African language material hosted by institutional repositories (IRs) at public universities in South Africa. Informetrics methods were applied using data obtained from DSpace, Google Scholar and ResearchGate to determine the impact and visibility. The most important findings were that 65.2 per cent of public university IRs had at least one African language document in their IRs. Overall, only 0.16 per cent of documents in public university IRs were in African languages. A total of 16 per cent of African language documents hosted by the...

The Electronic Library

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to determine academic librarians’ awareness and application ... more Purpose The purpose of this paper is to determine academic librarians’ awareness and application of multimedia content for information literacy (IL) instruction at the North-West University in South Africa. Design/methodology/approach This study used both the survey and focus group interviews to gather data from the university's faculty librarians. Findings The results of this study show that despite the majority of librarians being aware of the existence and benefits of multimedia tools that can complement their traditional instructional practices, very few actually apply the tools for IL instructional practices. Among the multimedia tools that the librarians often use for the IL instruction, LibGuides were the most favourable because of their ease of use. The main reasons for not using the multimedia tools cited by librarians include the lack of infrastructure and insufficient skills. Practical implications This study recommends the reskilling of librarians by training them in...

Global Knowledge, Memory and Communication

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to establish the research impact of the National Research Fo... more Purpose The purpose of this paper is to establish the research impact of the National Research Foundation (NRF)-rated researchers’ output at the North-West University (NWU), South Africa, from 2006 to 2017. Design/methodology/approach The study used bibliometrics and altmetrics methods to determine the production of research outputs and the impact of NWU’s NRF-rated researchers’ publications. Various tools including Google Scholar (GS), Web of Science (WoS), Scopus, ResearchGate (RG) and Mendeley were used to collect data. The citations in the three bibliographic databases were used as proxy for academic impact, while reads and readerships in RG and Mendeley were used to determine societal impact of the researchers. The Statistical Package for the Social Sciences (SPSS) was used to test the relationship between citations in the three bibliographic databases and reads and readerships in RG and Mendeley. Findings The main findings were that the majority of NWU’s NRF-rated researchers’...

<i>This data depicts the data sharing practices of researchers in South African universitie... more <i>This data depicts the data sharing practices of researchers in South African universities. It further highlights the level of collaboration of researchers in sharing data in the country. <br></i>

International Information & Library Review, 2018

Recites Rudyard Kipling's "If" to Inspire Scholars The CoB's own Stephen Bushardt (professor of m... more Recites Rudyard Kipling's "If" to Inspire Scholars The CoB's own Stephen Bushardt (professor of management) spoke at the Spring 2007 BCT Banquet at Jones County Junior College. Bushardt took the dais and recited Rudyard Kipling's famous "If" to the assembled group. As the caption accompanying the photo of Bushardt below states, the former CoB Graduate Programs Director "encouraged Laurel scholars to believe in themselves." 1 Submitted by Devon Sellers of Ellisville Stephen Bushardt, a professor with the College of Business at Southern Miss who also serves on Devon Sellers' BCT craft committee reads a poem recently at the spring BCT banquet at JCJC. The poem was "If" by Rudyard Kipling. Bushardt encourages Laurel scholars to believe in themselves.

Global Knowledge, Memory and Communication, 2018

Collaboration on LibGuides in public universities in South Africa ...Show all authors This paper ... more Collaboration on LibGuides in public universities in South Africa ...Show all authors This paper uses co-ownership as a proxy for determining the extent of collaboration on LibGuides in public universities in South Africa.

Social media is fast becoming a regular part of our everyday lives. It is a powerful voice by whi... more Social media is fast becoming a regular part of our everyday lives. It is a powerful voice by which librarians inform, educate and communicate with library users about the products and services of the library. Over the past few years, most academic libraries have realised the important role social media can play as an information, education and communication resource through which they reach the users. Being actively involved on social media offer the library a platform to disseminate and share information with its users who can either respond or initiate conversations with the librarians. Guided by the Library Director’s theme to Inform, Educate, and Communicate, in 2014 and beyond, the North West University Library- Mafikeng Campus adopted two platforms of social media: Facebook and Twitter. The purpose of this paper is to highlight how NWU Libraries is using Facebook and Twitter to inform, educate and communicate with library users. Further, the pros and cons of using social me...

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to determine the use of library spaces by postgraduate stude... more Purpose The purpose of this paper is to determine the use of library spaces by postgraduate students at the North-West University in South Africa. Design/methodology/approach A survey research methodology was used in which both online and print questionnaires were used to gather data. Findings The major findings of the study were that postgraduate students frequently visited the libraries to make use of the quite study spaces, which include the research commons and the study carrels. The study further found out that postgraduate students rarely visited the libraries for the purpose of consulting librarians regarding their studies. Challenges expressed by the students include insufficient workstations, poor internet and Wi-Fi connectivity and limited seating capacity. The benefit of the study is that it will help librarians and the university administrators to better understand the postgraduate students space needs, as well as the challenges being encountered. Research limitations/implications This biggest limitation of this study was a lack or low response rate by certain faculties, which mitigated against comparing the use of spaces by faculty. Practical implications The results of this study re-affirm the need for postgraduate spaces. University libraries that seek to build postgraduate spaces in the future need to ensure that an adequate number of computer workstations are supplied and Wi-Fi and bandwidth are improved. University libraries that already have postgraduate spaces should consider adding more workstations and improving bandwidth and Wi-Fi connectivity in those spaces. These results further point to a need for libraries in Africa and elsewhere to consider having more quiet study spaces for postgraduate students while reducing the number of group study spaces. Social implications The results of this study point to a need for libraries and university authorities to periodically review library spaces as a way to ensure their continued optimal usage. They also point to a need for more funds to further enhance the library spaces for postgraduate students’ use. Originality/value South African libraries are faced with challenges including the addition of 15 per cent value added tax to print and online resources. In this environment, libraries are expected by university authorities to demonstrate return on investment. This study, therefore, is located within the realm of determining return on investment for the funds spent by universities to build dedicated postgraduate library spaces. This study will further benefit librarians and the university administrators by helping them to better understand the postgraduate students space needs, as well as the challenges being encountered.

Adding pearls onto the string" a case study of collaboration Adding pearls onto the string" a cas... more Adding pearls onto the string" a case study of collaboration Adding pearls onto the string" a case study of collaboration providing library services to nursing students at the Cape providing library services to nursing students at the

The library’s role has changed from being confined to a physical place where informationresources... more The library’s role has changed from being confined to a physical place where informationresources are located to include online resources. In the case of academic libraries, librarianswere expected to design a website within which library resources can be accessed from theonline catalogue to the subscription databases. However, these websites were one dimensionalwithout any form of interaction between the user and the librarian. These platforms allowed forthe transfer of print to online even without any input from the user. They were platforms createdfor the user and not with the user.With the explosion of Web 2.0 applications and tools in the past 10 years and the popularizationof the concept of collaboration, academic libraries were forced to rethink the one dimensionalnature of their websites and embrace some applications or tools that would complement theirsites while also offering features of Web 2.0 sites. Thus, the LibGuides, described as contentmanagement systems, were ident...

It is a constitutional right of all South Africans to have access to information held by the stat... more It is a constitutional right of all South Africans to have access to information held by the state or any other person especially if the information is required to protect a right (South Africa 1996). With this right comes the obligation on the state to ensure that whatever information it has in its possession, and can be reasonably shared, is distributed widely, openly, freely and fairly to the citizenry. Since the adoption of the Constitution in 1996, the Internet’s reach in South Africa has increased significantly. The Internet has therefore become an attractive platform to distribute legal information. The South African legal system has embraced open access to legal information such as case law, legal documents, parliamentary bills, statutes, parliamentary debates, government gazettes, electronic books, theses, authoritative blogs and other Social Media. This study argues that Open Access to legal resources is beneficial for the country, its citizens, researchers and students of...

The study employed bibliometrics methods to analyse the scattering of 596 journals cited in legal... more The study employed bibliometrics methods to analyse the scattering of 596 journals cited in legal master’s theses and doctoral dissertations in three South African law schools from 2014 to 2018. In addition, the study included an analysis of the extent of citation of different sources and examined the effect of use of non-legal journals by law students. It was found that students used 449.2 documents on average in writing a doctoral dissertation and 110.9 references per master’s thesis. Journals received more citations than any other document formats although 16 master’s theses were completed without citing a single journal. Generally, the journals cited in legal theses and dissertations conform to Bradford’s Law but they differ in their level of conformity by law school. There was a high degree of overlaps between Zone 1 journals in the three law schools. All journals in the core lists were available in all the law schools which was attributed to the strength of collections in thes...

Academic Social Media (ASM) provides researchers with limitless opportunities to promote, share, ... more Academic Social Media (ASM) provides researchers with limitless opportunities to promote, share, preserve, and evaluate research. ASM includes ResearchGate, Mendeley, Academia.edu, Zotero. This study seeks to determine the visibility and impact of South African Universities’ research output and researchers in ASM platforms and bibliographic databases, specifically Academia.edu, ORCiD, Scopus and Google Scholar. This study was motivated by the existence of an academic lacuna on the visibility and impact of SA researchers in ASM.

The aim of this study was to establish the impact of the North-West University’s language policy ... more The aim of this study was to establish the impact of the North-West University’s language policy on its library’s print collections. It analyses the languages represented by books held by the North-West University Library and Information Services. The article further established the strategies used by the libraries to develop, preserve and promote African languages in support of the university’s language policy. The paper employed bibliometrics and focus group interviews to gather data. The findings revealed that books in African languages that were recognised by the university were difficult to get on the market. As a result, the majority of books accessioned by the libraries were in English, followed by Afrikaans, and relatively few books in Setswana, and Sesotho. The study is the first of its kind focusing on language policy and academic libraries in South Africa. It is valuable to both policy makers and librarians in their endeavours to develop sizeable African language collecti...

The Journal of Academic Librarianship

Mousaion: South African Journal of Information Studies

Various international organisations such as the United Nations and the African Union recognise th... more Various international organisations such as the United Nations and the African Union recognise the value of language in development, peacebuilding and reconciliation. Language is also recognised in planning policies of countries such as South Africa where the National Development Plan of the country seeks to ensure that every citizen learns at least one African language by 2030. This paper sought to determine the availability, impact and visibility of African language material hosted by institutional repositories (IRs) at public universities in South Africa. Informetrics methods were applied using data obtained from DSpace, Google Scholar and ResearchGate to determine the impact and visibility. The most important findings were that 65.2 per cent of public university IRs had at least one African language document in their IRs. Overall, only 0.16 per cent of documents in public university IRs were in African languages. A total of 16 per cent of African language documents hosted by the...

The Electronic Library

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to determine academic librarians’ awareness and application ... more Purpose The purpose of this paper is to determine academic librarians’ awareness and application of multimedia content for information literacy (IL) instruction at the North-West University in South Africa. Design/methodology/approach This study used both the survey and focus group interviews to gather data from the university's faculty librarians. Findings The results of this study show that despite the majority of librarians being aware of the existence and benefits of multimedia tools that can complement their traditional instructional practices, very few actually apply the tools for IL instructional practices. Among the multimedia tools that the librarians often use for the IL instruction, LibGuides were the most favourable because of their ease of use. The main reasons for not using the multimedia tools cited by librarians include the lack of infrastructure and insufficient skills. Practical implications This study recommends the reskilling of librarians by training them in...

Global Knowledge, Memory and Communication

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to establish the research impact of the National Research Fo... more Purpose The purpose of this paper is to establish the research impact of the National Research Foundation (NRF)-rated researchers’ output at the North-West University (NWU), South Africa, from 2006 to 2017. Design/methodology/approach The study used bibliometrics and altmetrics methods to determine the production of research outputs and the impact of NWU’s NRF-rated researchers’ publications. Various tools including Google Scholar (GS), Web of Science (WoS), Scopus, ResearchGate (RG) and Mendeley were used to collect data. The citations in the three bibliographic databases were used as proxy for academic impact, while reads and readerships in RG and Mendeley were used to determine societal impact of the researchers. The Statistical Package for the Social Sciences (SPSS) was used to test the relationship between citations in the three bibliographic databases and reads and readerships in RG and Mendeley. Findings The main findings were that the majority of NWU’s NRF-rated researchers’...