RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN PROFILE CHARACTERISTICS OF STUDENTS AND THEIR KNOWLEDGE OF KRISHIKOSH

Abstract

The evolution of Information and Communication Technology (ICT) has revolutionized how we organize, process and disseminate information to users. The advent of Open Access has simplified access to a wealth of information in the digital realm. There are efforts being made across the globe to build Institutional Repositories. The National Agricultural Education and Research System (NARES) have built KrishiKosh an open access Institutional Repository of India. This initiative was planned as part of the Indian Council of Agricultural Research’s (ICAR) National Agricultural Innovation Project (NAIP)  in New Delhi. Currently, KrishiKosh contains 75000+ records of articles, books, journals, institutional publications, conference proceedings, reports, theses and dissertations etc. This number is rapidly increasing due to the participation of 70+ libraries, who upload documents on a regular basis. It is a convenient, timesaving, efficient, and trustworthy source of information. To assess and verify the student’s acquaintance to KrishiKosh a random sample of 150 student respondents belonging to Agriculture faculty, University of Agricultural Sciences, Dharwad was selected. The data was gathered using Google form by circulating it among students group email. The results of the study revealed that the ‘r” value; age (r=0.020) and education (r=0.076) have a positive correlation with knowledge about KrishiKosh, thus indicating the trend that research scholars use KrishiKosh more than master’s students. Further, the “r” value of Gender (r=-0.186) had a negative relation which shows that female students had more knowledge about the repository. It is clear from the results of the study that majority of the students are accessing the KrishiKosh for their study.