Research Publications
Permanent URI for this collectionhttp://repository.kln.ac.lk/handle/123456789/22276
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Item Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs) as Catalysts of Educational Transformation in the Higher Education Sector of Sri Lanka: A Systematic Literature Review(Journal of the University Librarians Association of Sri Lanka, 2024-10-16) Munasinghe, M. A. K. S.; Suraweera, S. A. D. N.; Weerasinghe, K. G. H. D.This systematic literature review evaluates the transformative effects of Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs) in Sri Lanka’s higher education and library services. It explores how MOOCs democratize education by broadening access to previously costly and limited educational infrastructure and integrating them into library practices for enhanced access and professional development. The review synthesizes various sources to assess MOOC utilization, challenges like low completion rates, inconsistent quality, and digital divides. Strategic improvements are proposed to align MOOCs with educational and socio-economic goals in Sri Lanka. The findings highlight MOOCs’ current uses, barriers, and potential as supplements to traditional education, aiming to optimize learning outcomes and support educational transformation in both academic and library environments.Item Library service enhancement for differently abled undergraduates at University of Kelaniya, Sri Lanka: A review of project(University of Jaffna, 2022) Warnasooriya, Thrishala; Munasinghe, M.A.K.S.The library, University of Kelaniya, has given special attention to ensuring the equal provision of facilities for differently abled undergraduates. Accordingly, a service enhancement project was initiated to encourage them to visit the library, access the physical collection and gain a first-hand experience. Accordingly, audio-visual cubicles were established to encourage the library usage of differently abled under- graduates. The users were facilitated with a braille book collection, together with a management system, CD and cassette collection, and on-demand reading service, which consisted of 568 items, both lending and reference materials. The collections were searched from the access points of author, title, ISBN, and subject headings. Further, a bilingual searching facility was enabled. CD and cassettes can be played at the given cubicles during library opening hours. A trained library staff member was available for on-demand reading service. The printed books were issued from the lending or reference section. Further, e-resources were read for the users’ requests. In the project’s next phase, the selected recommended readings authored by the University Academics will be converted into a braille document. The project enabled the library to play the role of facilitator to provide equal provision for all users.Item Adoption of electronic books in a higher education setting: an exploratory case study based on Diffusion of Innovation and Garner’s Hype Cycle paradigms(Annals of Library and Information Studies, 2021) Jayasundara, C.C.The purpose of this research was to examine the status of library users' adoption of e-books in line with Rogers's Diffusion of Innovation (DOI) theory and Gartner’s Hype Cycle (GHC) Model in the context of Fiji National University (FNU). The FNU Library introduced e-books to its user community in 2014. Purposively chosen 40 undergraduate students from the College of Business, Hospitality and Tourism Studies were selected as the sample to conduct in-depth interviews. The study revealed that the participants' e-book adoption habits were primarily divided among early adopters, early majority, and late majority. The results disclosed many factors that influence the adoption of e-books, such as familiarity with the technology, personal taste, exposure to trial access, use of preferred access devices and enthusiasm for reading. Findings indicate that e-books adoption of university undergraduates in line with the DOI and GHC paradigms has substantiated how the underpinning theories could help interpret the adoption of e-books in teaching and learning environment. Thus, this research will help librarians and educators develop a robust mechanism for better understanding the inherent status-quo of e-book usage in higher education institutions. These research findings will also help develop strategies that can significantly enhance universities' traditional teaching and learning performance with emerging technologies.Item Development and validation of a tool to predict information seeking behavior of medical undergraduates, Sri Lanka.(Proceedings of 11th International Conference of University Librarians Association of Sri Lanka- 2021, 2021-09-22) Marasinghe, M. P. L. R.; Chandratilake, M. N.; Kasturiratne, K. T. A. A.Information seeking behaviour is a set of actions expressing information needs, searching, evaluating, selecting, and utilization of information. The study aimed to develop and validate a tool to measure the information seeking behaviour of medical undergraduates in Sri Lanka. Final and penultimate year students in medical faculties in universities of Kelaniya, Peradeniya and Colombo, and Eastern University in Sri Lanka were invited for the study. The elements of information seeking behaviour were defined by thematically analyzing the content of focus group nine discussions with medical undergraduates. The scale was developed based on the Integrated Behavioural Model. The preliminary scale with 60 items was developed and pretested. The responses of a field test with the participation of 436 medical undergraduates were subjected to confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) and psychometric analysis. The tool was refined to include 40 items and the revised version was administered to 645 of medical undergraduates. The sub-components of the 40-item tool partially matched with the theoretical framework and the reliabilities of overall and sub components demonstrated high to moderate reliabilities. The tool can be used to evaluate the information seeking behaviour of medical undergraduates effectivelyItem Information seeking behavior of medical undergraduates, Sri Lanka. Annual scientific meeting,(Association for the study of medical education (ASME, 2019), 2019-07) Marasinghe, M. P. L. R.; Chandratilake, M. N.; Kasturiratne, K. T. A. A.The themes identified varied from conceptualization of information seeking behaviours to needs, strategies, barriers and facilitators. Students use limited sources of information in classroom-based learning and they confine mainly to material provided by teachers, i.e. teacher-directed behaviour (“Lecturers guide us and give reference materials to refer. We tend to seek information based on their recommendations.”). This was primarily driven by exam-orientation and the belief of learning (“We seek information to target our exams and we do not go beyond that.”). They seek information external sources, e.g. web, while they learn in clinical environment, i.e. self-directed behaviour, as they face with more uncertainty in learning. Web sources used ranged from informal sources (“Most instances I use Wikipedia for convenience sake.”) to standard sources (“We find information from Medscape, otherwise we refer Radiopaedia or Up To Date.”). Although the participants were millennials some tend to prefer printed material which gives them a higher sense of ‘confidence’ (“Personally I prefer to have printed materials and use textbooks because I can understand better from textbooks.”). The role of a traditional library seems to be weaning-off with smart phones and tablets gaining popularity (“We normally use mobile phones and tablets for seeking information, not the library.”)Item The Impact of Gender Differences on Job Satisfaction of University Library Professionals.(Journal of the University Librarians Association of Sri Lanka,, 2018) Marasinghe, M.P.L.R.; Wijayaratne, A.This study examined the influence of gender on job satisfaction among university library professionals in Sri Lanka. The survey design was adopted for the study. The general objective of the study was to evaluate the effect of gender differences on the level of job satisfaction among the professional staff of the university libraries in Sri Lanka. Five parameters were considered, namely; work, co-workers, compensation, promotion and supervision. The population of the current study consisted of 125 library professionals of 15 universities under the University Grants Commission in Sri Lanka. All members of the population were given the opportunity to participate in the study. A semi-structured questionnaire was used as the main data collection instrument. The response rate was 64%. Cronbach's alpha values of all variables are above 0.6 (work: 0.764, co-workers: 0.864, compensation: 0.661, promotion: 0.614 and supervision: 0.963). The instrument used to measure each variable in the current study is reliable and all the items are positively correlated to one another. the mean of job satisfaction of all aspects; work, co-workers, compensation, promotion and supervision is higher in Females (0.9200, 0.8021, 0.6521, 0.6667, 0.7243) than males (0.7277, 0.6406, 0.5250, 0.3854, -0.0052). The results indicated that there is a significant difference of job satisfaction between male and female university library professionals only in the "supervision" parameter. The overall job satisfaction of both male and female (3.77) university library professionals is equal. However, equal treatment to both genders will help to achieve higher satisfaction levels. The findings of the study will be helpful for librarians and administrators to develop a motivated and productive workforce for organizational success.Item Generational differences and job satisfaction in university library professionals(Universal Journal of Managemant,, 2016) Marasinghe, M. P. L. R.; Wijayaratne, A.This paper discusses findings of a study that has been launched to identify the level of job satisfaction of library professionals by generational cohorts. The aim of this study is to evaluate the level of job satisfaction among three generations (i.e. Baby Boomers, Generation X and Generation Y) of the professional staff of the university libraries of Sri Lanka in terms of five job satisfaction parameters namely; work, coworkers, compensation, promotion and supervision. The population of the current study consisted of 125 library professionals of 15 universities under University Grants Commission in Sri Lanka. A semi structured questionnaire was used as the main data collection instrument. The results of the study indicated that there are some differences and similarities of job satisfaction of university library professionals in perceptions associated with three generations. There is a significant difference of job satisfaction in perception of both "work" and "supervision" among three generations. Guidelines have been developed to enhance the level of job satisfaction of university library professionals. Job satisfaction of library professionals is essential and a fundamental determinant of the development and organization of the service.Item Gender differences in job satisfaction among University library professionals in Sri Lanka(International Conference in Information Science (ICIS 2015)., 2015-11-13) Marasinghe, M. P. L. R.; Wijayaratne, A.This paper examined the influence of gender on job satisfaction among university library professionals in Sri Lanka. Survey design was adopted for the study. The general objective of the study was to evaluate the effect of gender differences on the level of job satisfaction among the professional staff of the University libraries in Sri Lanka. Five parameters were considered, namely; work, co-workers, compensation, promotion and supervision.Item A. Job satisfaction among the multigenerational professional librarian workforce of Sri Lankan Universities(Proceedings of the NILIS Research Symposium 2014 (NILIS14)., 2014-11-21) Marasinghe, M. P. L. R.; Wijayaratne, A..Item Providing access to public health information via the institutional repository, Faculty of Medicine: A feasibility study based on medical undergraduates.(University of Kelaniya, 2013) Abeygunasekera, C.M.; Marasinghe, M.P.L.R.Community Medicine Clerkship and Community Attachment programs provide opportunity for medical undergraduates to learn how public health services are provided to the community. Their knowledge on health promotion, disease prevention, healthcare planning and management, demography and understanding epidemiology of diseases in the Sri Lankan context are very important. They are expected to read from diverse information sources to gain this knowledge, in addition to field based learning. As most of the recommended reading materials are considered grey literature sources, students are in a difficulty to access those resources within the library. Students face difficulties in accessing available online materials too, as some of the websites do not provide the information in a user friendly manner. With the understanding of possible barriers to access information, the Medical Library, University of Kelaniya, has developed a repository collection on ‘Public Health Information Resources,’ which are recommended as student reading materials for Community Medicine Clerkship and Attachment programs. This is under its online Institutional Repository (IR), developed using DSpace Software. This repository provides links to access a collection of resources published by different institutes. This is in addition to university libraries, which develop online digital repositories to preserve and distribute the intellectual scholarly information of the parent institute. A questionnaire and the User Guide to access the repository were given to a sample of fifty (50) students from Batch 21, who completed the Clerkship programme. Response rate to the questionnaire was 82% and more than 80% of students who were among the respondents ranked the collection as a useful resource which fulfilled their public health information needs. Barriers to information access were also assessed. Respondents have identified a list of difficulties they had in the past. Based on the feedback received, a resource collection inclusive of students’ suggestions is being planned to be introduced to the next batch of students.