Investigation on the Infrastructure of Library Services for Distance Education In

Investigation on the Infrastructure of Library Services for Distance Education in Payam-eNoorUniversity (P.N.U) in Relation to its Educational Structure

Hamid Dalili, PhD

P.N.U

P.O. Box, 433, Mashhad-Iran

Tel: +98 5118680904-5

Fax: +98 511 8683001

E.mail: ,

Abstract

Current research aimed at investigating the infrastructure of library services for distance education In P.N.U libraries and in relation with educational structure. Data was collected using document observation and survey (for the five-year-period, from 2002 to 2006). The statistical community consisted of 10 big centers and 10 small ones. Randomly selected centers, was distributed throughout the country, according to the branches of P.N.U. The faculty members who investigated in 2006 (belonging to the 20 centers) were 220 people of whom 176 people (80%) answered the questionnaire.

All of the statistical community of library officers in the selected centers (consisting of 20 people) answered the questionnaire. Sample number of the statistical community of students (100,962 in 20 centers) was determined 1,064 people to be selected by simple randomization. Totally 1,400 questionnaires were distributed among the students of 20 centers of which 1,112 ones were completed.

The findings of the research are as follow:

1. According to the librarians’ opinions, there is a significant difference between each of infrastructural factors (facilities, management, staff, documentation, financing, resources and services) in libraries of the centers located in metropolises and of libraries located in small cities.
2. In most cases, there isn’t a significant correlation between the amount of quantitative growth of educational structure of P.N.U (students, faculty members, field of study, staff, budget, and educational expenses) and the amount of quantitative growth of library facilities (number of librarians, printed and digital resources, audio-visual resources, physical area, etc.).
3. There is a significant difference between the ratio of usages of P.N.U students make of library and the formal educational approaches (single book-sourceless, self study-sourceless, practical-sourceless).
4. There isn’t a significant difference between the opinion of the faculty members and of the students towards facilities, resources, and appropriateness of services available in these university libraries.
5. There is a significant difference, according to the faculty members’ opinions, between the amount of accessibility of printed and digital information resources in these university libraries.
6. According to the students’ opinions, there is a significant difference between the amount of accessibility of printed and digital information resources.
7. There is a significant difference between the opinions of the faculty members, librarians, and students towards replacing the printed resources with digital ones.

Keywords: P.N.U, Libraries, Distance education, Library infrastructure & Services, Information Technology

Introduction

One of the methods of higher education development throughout the country is the application of distance education. Distance education is a system that reduces the necessity of the students’ attendance in classrooms through using educational technology, self-education textbooks and student-orientation in learning. In this type of education, the teaching classes can be changed into classes for reviewing lessons and solving the problems in group. This kind of education is more flexible compared with the traditional education system used in other conventional universities (Keegan, 1993).Payam-eNoorUniversitycovering 464,745 students is the only university in Iran that was established merely for distance education. It includes 130 centers[1] and 143 branches[2] which admit students in different programs (3, 37, 25, and 6 disciplines in associate, undergraduate, graduate and postgraduate programs respectively).

Distance education, benefiting from different media, has changed the structure of traditional education and has altered the ratio of the number of students to the faculty members which was considered as an obstacle for widespread education. On the other hand, development in using the modern communicative technologies in libraries and educational systems is a structure for bringing change in education that causes to facilitate the presentation and receiving educational programs from distances. The modern facilities and technologies along with other library services in distance education libraries may cause the quick access of users to their required resourcesand have had important influences on education.

The main objective of the present study is to demonstrate the difference between the quantitative development of library facilities and the increase in number of the students, faculty members, staffs, fields of study, educational budget and expenses of P.N.U through examining the operations and infrastructures of the services rendered by P.N.U in combination with the educational structure. This research paper also studies the attitudes of the students and faculty members about the services rendered by the libraries and the authorities' views about the problems existing in them.

Infrastructure of Library Services for Distance Education

The library services of distance education is ascribed to the library services which supports university programs and courses outside the main limits of the university and without any consideration to the place where the course is presented.A collection of infrastructures is required for effectiveness of library services in supporting the distance education which are called the infrastructures of library services of distance education. As a whole, these infrastructures contain seven main issues including facilities, management, staff, documentation, financial affairs, resources and services. If the authorities of libraries provide these issues and elements, they can have a determinant role in advancement of the educational targets of distanceeducation universities and centers.In general, those which are considered as the infrastructure factors of libraries for supporting distance education in the present study are the related and combined factors that operate as a support to distance education. Nowadays, as the communicative technologies are available everywhere and every time,therefore, the place and time of education should not be considered as a constraint.

Research Background:

Scientific background and surveying the related texts available abroad

The searches done on foreign researches indicate that many researches have been carried out about changes in organizations and libraries of distance education.

Tompson(2002) in a reportextracted from the research carried out by ACRL (Association of College and Research Libraries), which has been done through measurement for assessing the role of library in distance education, concluded that the combined institutes employ the traditional and modern technology for transferring information. The librarians emphasize on E-mail (86%) and telephone (81%) for rendering services about reference books and 57% concentrate on face-to-face method. Library education, however, is still done in a majority of centers in traditional method together with modern technologies. About 78% of the librarians have reported that they use face-to-face method for carrying out library education. E-mail(41%), Web pages(41%) and telephone(31%) have been also used simultaneously. In conclusion of the very research it has proposed that considering the increase in distance education, the methods of rendering services and library education should also directed towards using the modern technologies as much as possible.

Aretion (2002)addresses in his “Radical and Procedural Changes in the Future of Distance Education”to ICT changes affecting distance education. He reviews Technical infrastructure and mentions ways of achieving distance learning while focusing the impact of technology on it.Increased speed of Internet, fiber-optical lines, sattelites and networks, video-conferencing, Internet 2, ADSL, etc. are among the tools he names to be used for virtual learning in information and distance education. He concludes that students, teacher, and other users benefit from better information services if the present digitalgap and the other shortcomings are resolved by developing the necessary infrastructure.

Hamilton & Retha(2004) in their research entitled "Using Internet as a Tool for Changing the Traditional Management to Knowledge Management in University Libraries" have compared the rate of using Intranet in three South African universities as a tool for achieving the change relied on knowledge management. They concluded that Intranet which contains different contents is one of the most effective methods of sharing knowledge and information in organizations with different kinds of contents may be used as a reservoir of objective knowledge in libraries and protect and support information flow.They believe that if the libraries use knowledge and share it, their services will be improved and the users will be able to share their knowledge extensively.

Zheng Ye (Lan) Yang (2005) in his research entitled"Distance Education Librarians in US.ARL (United States Association of Research Libraries) and Library Services Provided for Distance Users" has studied 123 ARL libraries. The results demonstrated that the librarians use methods such as E-mail, telephone contact, newspaper and office visit for contacting the faculty members. The majority of libraries (79%) render services about delivering the documents and journals of library to their distance education users.72.6% of the libraries send the books to the distant users' houses. Many of the librarians have suggested that the library should create a comprehensive web page for distanceeducation students because such a web page is considered as the library of the distance education students which are used for promoting the library services and supplying services to the users.

Scientific background and surveying the related texts available within the country

The searches done on Persian texts indicate that many researches have been carried out about the distance education and library services in Iran.

Parsa Niaregh(2000) has described the history and the objective of creating this system in Iran and the world in his thesis for master degree entitled" Historical Survey of Distance Higher Education in Iran". He has suggested solutions for using this education system optimally, making changes in management method, using different educational media and mass media with modern technology, applying the computer network in administrative system and supplying information in different levels of P.N.U, holding educational programs necessary for the staff and faculty members for making them as familiar with characteristics of distance education system as possible, doing changes in textbooks through using the issues such as self-education, setting up technical disciplines by benefiting from the experiences of other countries.

Hassanzadeh(2002) in his research on feasibility study of distance education of LIS(Library and Information Science) in Iran through Internet, studied the matter using a quastionnaire in the form of three factors: facilities and equipment of departments, experience and skilledness of faculty members, and the future plans of departments.The results idicated that more than %50 of LIS departments lack the primary facilities and equipment necessary to hold such courses; more than %50 of faculty members have not addressed this matter yet and lack any experience in conducting such classes; and more than %91 of LIS departments have no plan for the future of LIS distance education.

Dalili(2001) in his article presented to the Korean Distance Education Conference entitled "A Design for Infrastructure of Digital Libraries in P.N.U" has offered the advantages and characteristics of digital library in distance education by using Internet and has surveyed its infrastructural disadvantages. He has reviewed the electronic books, their different types as well as the basis of digital libraries as well.

Fattahi(2004)in discussing on the changes caused by new technologies in information environmentand in distance access to Informationnetworks and databases, claims that the personal consultation of users to library and information centers have diminished. He concludes that librarians shoud take new approaches in servicing the community and make some changes in offering services to distance users.

Nasiri(2005) in her study entitled" Infrastructural Factors in Establishment of Virtual Education System" has expressed seven issues of setting up the virtual education system retold from Jafari(2002):

• Technology infrastructure
• Humaninfrastructure
• Pedagogic infrastructure
• Cultural, social and normative infrastructure
• Economical infrastructure
• Management and leadership infrastructure
• Administrative system

In another section of her study, she has described the resources and facilities necessary for establishing the virtual education system. She has expressed that the existence of the structure (network, software, and hardware), real educational space, contents and digital library, skilled manpower and specialists for rendering services and financial resources are necessary for establishing this system. Finally,she concluded that the establishment of virtual education system requires the readiness and providing digital and sufficient resources in different areas.

Main Objective of Research

The main objective of the present research is the clarification of imbalance in coexistence and correlation of the educational and library functions in P.N.U through comparing the available quantities in these two areas and opinion polling about the ability or inability of libraries in meeting the expectations of the faculty members and students. The rate of the tendency of the faculty members and students in using different methods for access to the scientific information in P.N.U, appropriate suggestions for using the libraries affiliated to distance education, which are establishing in many countries that may be applicable in P.N.U, will be presented through clarifying the factors for imbalance of coexistence relation and correlation as well as surveying the facilities for using the information technology.

Research Hypotheses:

There are seven hypothesis in this researchas follow:

I- On librarians’ point of view, there is a significant difference between any of the infrastructural factors (facilities, management, staff, documentation, financial affairs, resources and services) of the library of the P.N.U Centers located in metropolises and the libraries of the centers situated in small towns.

II- There is a significant relationship between the quantitative development of educational structure of P.N.U (student, faculty member, field of study, staff , budget, and educational expenses) and the rate of quantitative increase of facilities of libraries(librarian, printed and digital resources, audio-visual facilities, physical area and other facilities)

III- There is a significant relationship between the rates of using library by the students of P.N.U on the basis of the official educational methods (single book, self-study, practical, sourceless).

IV- There is a significant difference between the attitudes of the faculty members and students of P.N.U about the appropriateness of the available sources, facilities and services in libraries of this university.

V-There is a significant difference between the rate of accessibility of the digital information resources and printed information resourcesof P.N.Ulibraries from the faculty members' points of view.

VI- There is a significant difference between the rate of accessibility of the digital information resources and printed information resources of P.N.Ulibraries from the students' points of view.

VII- There is a significant difference between the attitudes of faculty members, librarians and students about replacing printed information resources by digital information sources.

Research Method, Statistical Universe and Samples

The type of the present research is applied and the documentary and measurement observation is used for doing this research. Statistical universe in the present research includes documents, deeds and individuals in the centers of P.N.U and headquarter of the university. The documents and deeds which were studied include mid-term development plan, by-laws of Education Council, policy of library, testing booklets for students' admission(Faragir[3] and national wideentrance exam), the collection of objectives, tasks, organizations and budget as well as different required education, research, administrative, financial and studentship statistics during 2001-05. In this research, the study centers (branches) of P.N.U were excluded from research due to the fact that they were not independent and were affiliated to the centers.

The persons who are considered as the statistical universe of research include all the faculty members, students of undergraduate program and librarians of 130 study centers of P.N.U in 2006 which were located on ten regions of the country(according to the classification of P.N.U).Firstly, the ten provincial centers were chosen from among the P.N.U Centerssituated in ten regions as the ten main and big centers. Then,ten small centers from among 120 remained centers were chosen randomly. Therefore, 20 sample centers for research were determined.Sampling was not done from among the faculty members in this centers and the whole statistical universe were studied. The total number of faculty members engaged in 20 under-study centers was 220 from among whom 135 and 41 individuals in big and small centers respectively totaling 176 individuals (80%) filled out the questionnaire.The questionnaires were distributed among 20 librarians in 20 study centers and all of them (100%) were collected.The statistical universe of students in 20 under-study centers include 100,962 students from whom 639 and 473 students from the big and small centers were selected respectively as samples(1112 individuals in total).Selecting the required samples from among the students was done on the basis of random sampling.

The Tools for Collecting Data, Validity and Stability

For being assured of the validity of measurement, the questionnaires were handed over to all the faculty members of the Library Science Department and the students of the doctorate program of library science and information Technology of Ferdowsi University as well as the faculty members of P.N.U and other scholars several times and their suggestions were employed for correcting and removing the problems and complications of the questionnaire.

Considering the view that if the measuring tool enjoys the internal stability, it is stable (Dayyani, 2003), firstly, the questionnaire was distributed among a small group of faculty members (33 persons), students (94 persons) and librarians(5 persons) in four big and small study centers for measuring the rate of the stability of the questionnaire. After collecting the questionnaire, its Alpha Coefficient of Gronbach was calculated the result of which was 80%, 78% and 83% for faculty members, students and librarians respectively indicating that the questionnaire had appropriate stability.

The Findings and Results of the Research: