JREPT: Vol 7 No 1

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https://bspace.buid.ac.ae/handle/1234/2724

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Browsing JREPT: Vol 7 No 1 by Author "Abukari, Abdulai"

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    Editorial
    (The British University in Dubai (BUiD), 2024-10) Abukari, Abdulai
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    Grey Literature (GL): Access and Use Potentials for Healthcare Education Professionals in Developing Context: Ghana as a Case
    (The British University in Dubai (BUiD), 2024-10) Abdulai, Salmu; Abukari, Abdulai
    The growing interest in grey literature (GL) is attributed to the fact that it constitutes a significant part of scientific production. The proliferation of alternative/complementary approaches to professional practice as well as new modes of delivery that bring in new forms of knowledge and usage have made GL more essential to inform practice and theory. Similarly, the rise of advanced and sophisticated technologies for storing, retrieving and sharing of information have also improved and encouraged the use of GL by practitioners across different practice sectors. However, majority of the research and papers on GL is cast within the context of literature review for the purposes of research and library practice (management – obtaining, storing, sharing etc). In addition, there is limited focus on how practitioners access and use GL to inform their practice. In developing contexts such as in Africa, the importance of GL has been highlighted but the main issues are that it is not adequately documented, as well as limited national and regional databases and access issues. These issues have negatively affected the use of GL in many developing contexts. This research paper assesses access and potential use of GL by healthcare education professionals in a developing context through a critical analysis of the characteristics of online repositories from 5 selected public higher education institutions in Ghana. The finding shows that the case institutions’ online repositories hold large databases of GL with many items relevant to healthcare education. It also indicates that many of the repositories are accessible online and have appropriate search engines that facilitate access and retrieval of documents. These characteristics post positive potential for access and use of grey literature by professionals. However, the finding highlights issues with intermittent access to internet in some of the repositories; lack of organised access and retrieval of GL materials. The paper provides a few recommendations which include provision of modern IT systems and stable internet connectivity to institutions holding large GL databases.