Awareness, Knowledge of Copyright and Digital Publishing: A Survey of Doctoral Students in Faculty of Education, Ahmadu Bello University, Zaria

Abstract

The study was carried out to investigate the awareness, knowledge of copyright and digital publishing among doctoral students in the Faculty of Education, Ahmadu Bello University Zaria. Three (3) research objectives and research questions guided the study. Survey research design was adopted for the study using an online questionnaire as an instrument for data collection. The population of the study comprised 190 doctoral students from the faculty of education. Out of the 190 questionnaires distributed to the doctoral students, only 167 were returned and found useful for analysis. The data collected were analyzed using descriptive and inferential statistics by the use of SPSS version 25. The majority, 152 (91%), of the doctoral students are aware of copyright law but their knowledge on copyright is rather low, 121 (72%). The study also revealed that a good number of the doctoral students are less aware of the various Creative Commons licenses, which impede their digital publishing. Plagiarism, piracy, indiscriminate photocopying, and counterfeiting were the major ways in which copyright is being infringed by the doctoral students in the Faculty of Education at ABU, Zaria. The study advocates for a copyright unit to be set up in the entire university to handle copyright matters in order to facilitate copyright knowledge and compliance in the faculty and entire Ahmadu Bello University, Zaria.