Research Publications

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    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..
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    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.
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    An Analysis on Trends in Using Pali Thripitaka as an Electronic Source
    (University of Kelaniya, 2015) Munasinghe, M.A.K.S.
    Research question of this study is to identify whether Pali Thripitaka has been prepared formally for using as an electronic source. Objective of this study is to identify the obstacles encountered in using Thripitaka as an electronic source. A formal survey was carried out to implement a suitable method as a solution for the issues. The study was carried out with primary and secondary data. As the online survey does not support to identify the user related issues, interviews were conducted for collecting data during the research. Sthirawadaya or Therawadaya, one of the branches of Buddhism is based on the teachings of Thripitaka. The Pali term Pitaka defines the basket or the container. There are three Thripitaka in Lord Buddha’s teaching and it is known as Thripitaka. Dharmaya and Vinaya were divided into Thripitaka during the first Dharma Sangayana. Thripitaka was transmitted for generation to generation through the process memorizing by the Rahath Thero. For the first time in 80 AC during the reign of King Walagambahu, the Thripitaka was written in books at Aluwiharaya Temple, Mathale. When Thripitaka become an electronic source via internet, there were advantages such as user friendliness and cost effectiveness. This electronic version of Thripitaka was much supportive for opening Buddhist philosophy to the world. Thus, there are various issues and obstacles encountered by the users in referring Thripitaka as an electronic source. It was identified during the research that the E-book method should be used instead of PDF version in both internal and external programs. Few selected sections of Thripitaka were referred as a case study during the study in order to introduce the Thripitaka as an E-book that can be read page by page with accurate pronunciation, with automatic page system. Attention is focused onto create internet extensions for searching more details. Several software applications were used in creating this E-book. User friendliness and creating interesting in readers are the other expected objectives of this research.
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    Asian Elephants in Sri Lanka: A Selective Annotated Bibliography
    (Centre for Asian Studies, University of Kelaniya, Sri Lanka, 2016) de Silva, A.P.U.
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    Beware the Tyranny, Resulted by Impact Factor Mania Among the Scientists: A Critical Review
    (Journal of the University of Ruhuna, 2020) Jayasundara, C.C.
    Publishing articles in high-ranked journals brings a higher payoff that designates a greater likelihood of scholastic success of academics and researchers. In the present climate, it provides many opportunities for researchers to be in a "Golden Club" and catch a great deal of offers from Head-hunters, particularly for jobs, research grants, and consultancies, as many people in the research/academic industry still rely on the fact that greater impact is widely apparent in high ranked journals and the journals with high Impact Factor (IF). In universities, many researchers in academic administration positions, who have already progressed with high visibility by publishing research in journals with high IF, always attempt to put into action the same level of requirements and stipulations in publications for tenure decisions of academic and research staff together with rewarding and endowing perks including financial incentives. Assessing junior colleagues purely by exercising the IF score or journal ranks in senior researchers' mind-set has been widely prevalent in academia in the global context. Enforcing rules and regulations for promotion, recruitment, and financial incentives for tenure decisions only for the publications in high profiled journals with top IF is a kind of mania. It, in turn, creates a dismantle discrimination and precede for academic bullying and professional prejudice in universities. Thus, this paper discusses some of the problems with IF and journal ranking mechanisms, which consist of prevailing distortions in the scientific industry by disclosing the failures to predict the definite impact and creation of perverse incentives. It further proposes some points to be taken for reforming/devising an appropriate mechanism targeting the definite impact of essential scientific values of research and researchers that can be readily used for measuring the impact
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    Bibliometric study on University Librarians Association (ULA) Publication
    (Book of Abstracts, Annual Research Symposium 2014, 2014) Rubasinghe, A.S.
    Bibliometric is closely related to Bibliography and Information Science and is also related to the field of Library and Information Science. There are a number of techniques that can be used to examine the body of literature. Statistical method is one of such technique. This research method is mostly used to analyze information science and services quantitatively.
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    Business Domains for Boosting Customer Satisfaction in Academic Libraries
    (The Journal of Academic Librarianship, 2015) Jayasundara, C.C.
    University library administrators in Sri Lanka, realising the necessity of complying with customer perception of high quality service, have begun to search for alternative ways to satisfy their clientele on the basis of service quality. This study therefore aims to meet this need by identifying business domains in the university library setting to assess the extent to which service quality domains may be used to predict customer satisfaction, from a service quality perspective. Domain identification of service quality was carried out with a sample of 262 subjects. Accordingly, seven domains–affect of service personnel, building environment, collection and access, furniture and facilities, technology, service delivery and web services–were statistically tested to be confirmed as potential business domains of service quality. Whilst not detracting from preceding research studies conducted in the field, this study has demonstrated significant implications for researchers and library administrators in understanding the importance of individual business domains within the specific service spectrum of university libraries, in order to provide ultimate satisfaction for customers with a quality library service.
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    Challenges and opportunities in university librarianship: the way forward
    (Professor Piyadasa Ranasinghe Foundation, 2014) Jayatissa, L.A.
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    The Challenges of Offshore Agile Software Development in Sri Lanka and Effects on the Project Outcome
    (International Scientific Journal of Management Information Systems, 2014) Marambe, Arjuna; Jayasundara, C.C.
    Agile development methods such as Scrum and Extreme Programming are being used by a number of software companies around the world. The offshore software industry in Sri Lanka has also started to adapt these development methods in order to meet the growing demand. However applying agile development methods in an offshore model has its own challenges and each of these challenges has an effect on the outcome of the project. Currently there has been no research done in Sri Lanka as to how each of these challenges effects the project outcome and this formed the main research question. The focus of this reassure was to study how each of these challenges effect the project outcome in terms of time, cost, scope, quality, and the overall project. The first objective was to study and contrast agile development methods with traditional waterfall based development. The second objective was to carry out a literature survey and identify the main challenges that offshore software development companies face when applying agile development methods. The five main challenges identified were, communication, achieving team coherence, following the agile development method, limitations on tools and infrastructure, and testing. The third research objective was to study how these challenges affect the project outcome. The challenges identified in the literature review were used to prepare questionnaires for three companies in Sri Lanka that practice agile development methods in an offshore model. The objective of the questionnaire was to find out how the presence of these challenges effect the project outcome and how overcoming these challenges affect the project outcome. The data gathered from the questionnaires were analyzed using Spearman’s Correlation Coefficient. The results identified that communication, tools and infrastructure, following the Agile development method, and testing had a strong relationship with the project outcome in terms of time, cost, scope, quality, and the overall project outcome. Team coherence had a moderate relationship with the time, cost, scope, quality, and the overall project outcome. Based on the results, a research framework was derived which answered the research question of; how each of the challenges affect the project outcome. Finally, the concluded that all the challenges identified for this research apart from team coherence had a strong effect on the project outcome. Team coherence had a moderate effect on the project outcome.
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    Citation analysis and user studies: its importance in library management
    (University of Kelaniya, 2000) Jayatissa, L.A.
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    Communication and Employee Relations in the University Libraries of Sri Lanka: Perception of Staff Members
    (The Journal of Library and Information Management, 2011) Jayasundara, C.C.
    Communication is a medium used by people to interact and relate with each other. The purpose of this paper is to identify the management styles in relation to communication and employee relations, barriers to open communication and the factors that impede effective employee relations in Sri Lankan university libraries. The research study was based on two universities in the Colombo area. The sample data was collected by interviewing eight para-professionals and four minor staff members from each university library. The study found that the autocratic management styles of the majority of the management in both libraries adversely affected the morale of the employees when performing their duty in the library. The study further revealed that conflict situations between management and employees are common in both universities. Finally, the respondents stated that both libraries predominantly use interpersonal or informal communication methods to transmit messages to the employees in comparison to formal and technological methods.
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    A comparative study of the British National Museum website and the Colombo National Museum Website
    (Centre for Asian Studies, University of Kelaniya, 2014) de Silva, A.P.U.
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    A comparative study of the British National Museum website and the Colombo National Museum Website
    (Centre for Asian Studies, University of Kelaniya, 2014) de Silva, A.P.U.
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    Contribution of Marxism theory for Economic development
    (Department of Economics, 2006) Rubasinghe, A.S.
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    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 effectively
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    Digital Libraries as A Tool to Confront The Digital Divide
    (Library Progress (International), 2016) Jayasundara, C.C.
    Purpose: This paper discusses how digital divide has affected the access of quality information of the citizens and how digital libraries contribute to bridge the digital divide. The article also aims to focus on several issues related to digital divide and digital libraries that pertain to the function of service provision of a traditional library. Methodology: Literature review and observations Findings: It provides some thoughts to readers to rethink of the revolutionisation of Open Access initiatives (OA), Open Educational Resources (OER) and Scholarly Communication Productions (SCP) for the benefit of their wider user community focusing specifically on underprivileged groups, who cannot easily access to quality information due to any financial, infrastructural, socio-economic dynamics. It also highlights the recent developments in OER in Fiji and the country’s effort to draft a national policy on OER to provide directions in the use of open educational resources to increase access to and support quality learning and teaching in Fiji’s education and training system.
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    Drivers of customer satisfaction in libraries: a case study of the FNU Libraries
    (2013) Jayasundara, C.C.
    Although the provision of facilities and staffing at Fiji National University (FNU) Libraries appear to be adequate, there seems to be less emphasis on quality service delivery in the customers’ eyes. This study therefore aimed to establish service quality determinants, which may have good relationship with customer satisfaction in FNU libraries. Invention of quality determinants were derived upon a comprehensive methodology consisting of three methods. First, 68 determinants were generated through the existing literature, and then these determinants were reviewed by focus groups and 39 determinants were identified as applicable determinants in FNU libraries. In addition to that 7 determinants were found by focus group discussions which are very specific to the FNU and which cannot be found from the prevailing literature. The focus groups were used as the key method for selecting the appropriate determinants. Finally, the content and face validity of these determinants were evaluated by a panel of experts to identify the most appropriate determinants and produced 37 determinants in the FNU library system. This study provides a useful device as a reference tool for library professionals and policy makers to gauge the levels of overall user satisfaction and setting up a quality assurance scheme in Fijian university libraries.
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    Effectiveness of computer usage for academic purposes among management students in Sri-Lankan universities (Western Province- Sri-Jayawardhanapura, Colombo & Kelaniya)
    (2012) Bodhinayaka, D.
    Sri-Lankan universities have commenced a number of professional courses to train the university students as needy managers and administrators for the country. Especially these universities have been empowered the process to the management faculties in order to create employment opportunities for their graduates. There has no adequate research been conducted yet to discuss this matter in a more factual manner. So, it was my intention to carryout a comprehensive research study on the topic. Today, modern technology and ICT were introduced at a full force and practiced in our education systems. Also, a major vital role is played in modern education by computer technology. The main objective of this study was to ascertain how students use the computer and ICT-Based systems effectively for their educational purposes. For this study, three major universities in the Western Province were selected namely; University of Sri-Jayawardhanapura, University of Colombo and University of Kelaniya. The data was collected through questionnaires, Interviews & Case studies. For this study, 120 students were engaged randomly from the above mentioned three universities and were requested to fill the printed questionnaires. By the same time, 30 students and 15 selected lecturers from each faculty of Management have participated for the Interviews. The data was gathered through questionnaires and case studies and analyzed by using excel and results were visualized graphically through charts and tables. The conclusions of the study pinpointed that the use of computers can provide a number of benefits to the management education. Study also revealed that when the students use the computers for their educational activities a lot of constrains and difficulties were encountered. Because of their weaknesses in the usage of English language, computers, ICT and various related software etc., it was concluded that an effective workable remedial system is required to be adopted. It was further noticed that some percentage of Management students were capable of using computer technology and ICT very effectively. Finally, some workable suggestions were pinpointed in this research study according to the findings from interviewing those management students and lecturers of the respective Faculties of Management and highlighted for further actions by Academics and the Administrators concerned.