A Bird's Eye View on the Determinants of Acceptance and Use of Institutional Digital Repositories (IDRS)

Abstract

This paper discussed Digital Institutional Repositories as set of services that a university offers to the members of its community for the management and dissemination of digital materials created by the institution and its community members. It also introduced the Unified Theory of Acceptance and Use of Technology (UTAUT) Model, UTAUT Model provides a useful tool for the management needing to assess the likelihood of success for technology introduction as well as helping to understand the drivers of technology acceptance.  The UTAUT Model is the consolidation of eight (8) technology acceptance models (TRA, TAM, MM, TPB, C-TAM-TPB, MPCU, IDT, and SCT) by Venkatesh et al, 2003. The constructs of these eight models were integrated into five (5) which are: performance expectancy, effort expectancy, social influence, behavioural intention and facilitating conditions. The four moderators of these constructs are: age, gender, experience and voluntariness of use. The paper further provides a review of previous studies that adopted UTAUT model such as a study conducted by Oshlyansky et al in 2007 titled "validating the unified theory of acceptance and use of technology (UTAUT) tool cross-culturally”, Nassoura (2012) titled "Students Acceptance of Mobile Learning for Higher Education in Saudi Arabia” among others. The paper discussed how the UTAUT model can be applied in the study of Acceptance and use of IDRs for research by postgraduate students. And finally, it concluded that, the UTAUT Model can be a suitable theoretical framework for research in emerging technologies/innovations in our Nigerian universities.