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The study aimed at investigating distance learners' use of, and satisfaction with academic library services. It is a case study that employed a survey method to solicit the views of distance learning students of the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology (KNUST). Findings revealed a fairly satisfactory use of the library services albeit a low patronage of the services; an indication that the existing service model is not suitable for distance learners since it lacks support services targeted at this category of users. Recommendations are made to library management to ensure that distance learners are not disadvantaged.

Success in open educational resources (OER) has been reported by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in the USA and the Open University in the UK, among others. It is unclear, however, how valuable OER are in learning and teaching. Approaches to OER policy and sustainability are just two other key aspects that remain unresolved across the sector. Based on the findings from the Open, Transferable, Technology-enabled Educational Resources (OTTER) project at the University of Leicester, UK,1 we introduce the OER mix framework: purpose, processes, product, and policy. We argue that different mixes of the four Ps can generate different approaches to OER. We discuss the relevance of the framework and its importance for social inclusion and widening access to higher education. We also discuss the implications of the OER mix for the openness agenda. Institutions may find value in adapting and applying the framework. We invite colleagues to critique it and report back. (Contains 9 notes, 7 tables and 1 figure.)

Open education resources (OER) are taking centre-stage in many higher educational institutions globally, driven by the need to raise institutional profiles, improve the effectiveness of teaching and learning and achieve universal access to education. Many academics attracted to the idea of turning teaching materials into OER have, however, found the experience challenging and daunting. This article puts forward a workflow framework that provides guidance for evaluating existing teaching materials and turning them into OER using indicative questions against which they can be assessed on quality, ease of access, adaptability and potential usefulness. Recommendations are also made for moving the OER agenda forward, including changing institutional cultures, designing for openness, quality assurance and sustainability. (Contains 1 figure and 1 table.)

Is the curriculum in British universities being influenced by decisions about ownership of intellectual property rights (IPR) in "open educational resources" (OERs) that are available online under Creative Commons licenses, free of charge? This paper provides the context for, describes and analyses three significant examples in British higher education where OERs are being created for use by academics and learners on campus or at a distance. OpenLearn and iTunes U, two of the British examples, are drawn from the Open University of the United Kingdom, which teaches over 200,000 undergraduate and graduate students almost entirely at a distance. The third example, OTTER, is at the University of Leicester, a campus university in England with about 7,000 distance learners. Both universities depend on government funding, student fees, research and entrepreneurial income. All three examples are funded indirectly by the British government, though OpenLearn has received substantial US foundation support as well. In presenting these examples, the questions arise of whether the projects are supply- or demand-driven, and of whether they are altruistic or not. Debate over intellectual property rights has influenced creation of the OERs and vice versa, but from these three examples it seems doubtful whether, as yet, OERs and IPR have significantly influenced British universities' curriculum. The paper ends with discussion of how OERs created in British universities are influencing teaching and learning in other countries, as globalisation advances.

This article is about the information behaviour of non-governmental organizations. Despite their rise to development prominence since the 1980s and their growing importance in the socio-economic development of many developing countries, studies focusing directly on the information activities of NGOs have received tangential treatment. The find- ings presented in this article are based on a qualitative study carried out between 2001 and 2005 to investigate the information behaviour of NGO development workers in the northern region of Ghana. Three major dimensions of need emerged from this study: sociological, cognitive and ecological information needs. The article concludes that instead of the purely cognitive viewpoint which has dominated user needs studies within information science over the years, studies into human information behaviour should take as their starting point a socio-cognitive and political perspective. A case study of non governmental organizations in Northern Ghana demonstrates the importance of contextual factors as a prerequisite for understanding human information behaviour. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]