Browsing by Author "Mwinami, Nolasko Victory"

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A study of data sources for accessibility and reuse practices among agricultural researchers in Tanzania
(Journal of Agricultural & Food Information, 2023-03-10) Mwinami, Nolasko Victory; Dulle, Frankwell W.; Mtega, Wulystan Pius
This paper reports a study that investigated how agricultural researchers use and reuse other researchers’ data in Tanzania. This research used a survey method to investigate the factors influencing researchers in this use/reuse. Findings indicated that more than 80% of researchers use and reuse data accessed from different sources. Several factors influence the majority of researchers (more than 70%) to use and reuse data. The results of this study may attract the attention of agricultural researchers elsewhere to agricultural data use and reuse practices.
Communication channels and their potential applicability in enhancing agricultural research data sharing among agricultural eesearchers in Tanzania
(The Journal of Association of European Research Librarries, 2023) Mwinami, Nolasko Victory; Dulle, Frankwell W.; Mtega, Wulystan Pius
The goal of this research was to investigate the communication channels that enhance data sharing among agriculture researchers in Tanzania. Specifically, the study aimed to identify communication channels that are used by agricultural researchers in Tanzania, examine the extent to which such channels were used to enhance data sharing among agricultural researchers, and examine the factors that influence the choices of channels used in data sharing. A descriptive cross-sectional design, alongside uantitative, and qualitative approaches, was employed to collect data from q 204 respondents. The Concentric Layered Model for the channel choices was used to guide this study. Results indicate that both mediated, and non-medi- ated channels existed and were used as data-sharing avenues and channels. The majority of the researchers (77.9%) preferred to use non-mediated chan- nels. Also, the findings indicate that more than 50% of respondents agreed that timely delivery, the cost of the channel, and convenience of a channel were among the factors influencing researchers in their channel selection. It can be concluded therefore that research institutions should invest in mediated channels that have been underutilized to strengthen data-sharing practices among researchers.
Data preservation practices for enhancing agricultural research data usage among agricultural researchers in Tanzania
(Journal of Librarianship and Information Science, 2022) Mwinami, Nolasko Victory; Dulle, Frankwell W.; Mtega, Wulystan Pius
The objective of this study was to investigate the role of research data preservation for enhanced data usage among agricultural researchers in Tanzania. Specifically, the study aimed to examine the data preservation methods used by agriculture researchers, find out how long agriculture researchers preserve their agriculture research data, and determine factors that influence agriculture researchers on their choice of data preservation methods for use. The study employed a cross-sectional research design. The study employed both qualitative and quantitative approaches. A survey was conducted to collect data in 11 research institutions. A simple random sampling technique was used to select 204 respondents from the study area while purposive sampling techniques were used to select 11 agriculture research institutions including 10 Tanzanian Agricultural Research Institution (TARI) centers, and Sokoine University of Agriculture (SUA). Also, 12 respondents were selected purposively for an in-depth interview as key informants. The study adopted Data Curation Centre (DCC) Lifecycle Model to explain data preservation process. Findings indicated that a majority of more than 90% of researchers preferred to preserve their data using different storage devices such as field notebooks, computers, and institutional libraries. Moreover, findings indicated that about 74% of agricultural researchers preferred to preserve their data for more than 6 years after the end of the project. Findings also indicated factors that influence researchers in the choice of data preservation methods to be easy to reach, cost-effective storage devices, support to use the devices, adequate infrastructure for data preservation, and reliable power supply. It can be concluded that there is yet a great role of research data preservation in enhancing data usage among researchers in Tanzania. It is recommended that the government should establish an agricultural research data bank to guarantee permanent availability of data at all times when needed.
Factors influencing data sharing practices, perceptions and motivations for improved accessibility of agricultural research data in Tanzania
(HSOA Journal of Environmental Science Current Research, 2023) Mwinami, Nolasko Victory; Dulle, Frankwell W; Mtega, Wulystan Pius
Accurate and reliable information on the data sharing practices and what motivates researchers to share their data is important in making data accessible for use/reuse. The purpose of this paper is to report a study that investigated factors influencing data-sharing practices, perceptions, and motivations for enhanced accessibility of agricultural research data among agricultural researchers in Tan- zania. This research employed a cross-sectional survey method to examine data-sharing practices in agricultural research institutions and examined factors motivating researchers in their data-sharing. The sample size included 227 while from this sample size, some 204 respondents participated in the study. The findings have revealed that more than 80% of the researchers shared their data with proj- ect funders, research institutions, and with departmental colleagues. The findings also indicate that many researchers (60%) shared their data with the public through media, institutional libraries, and online publications. The findings reveal that both individual and institution- al factors influence researchers in data sharing. However, some of the factors were statistically significant at 5%; these are perceived community benefit, perceived ability to share, data sharing norms, perceived risk, and funding agency policies. In addition, the findings indicate that agricultural researchers face several challenges in their data sharing, including a lack of data sharing policy that could en- hance data sharing in research institutions. This study has practical implications for promoting more reliable, and beneficial data sharing in the agricultural scientific community. The findings of this research can facilitate the establishment of a data-sharing policy and data repositories that could improve easy data sharing. The present study has significant theoretical contributions: the TPB model has been used in this study to explain the factors motivating researchers in their data-sharing behavior.