Purpose

The purpose of this study was to evaluate the usability effectiveness of a webware for electronic theses and dissertations (ETDs) in Nigerian repositories. The webware (etdsearch.com.ng) is a web application system that curates ETDs from three sampled Federal government-owned universities. The system also links users to the repositories where the theses and dissertations are hosted.

Design/methodology/approach

The case study research strategy was adopted for the study. Sixty postgraduate students from three universities were randomly selected. A usability evaluation questionnaire based on the ISO 9241-11 framework was used to collect data after performing pre-defined queries/tasks based on the informational and transactional query models. The research questions were analysed using the median of the performance score (f_x) of the three universities for each item evaluated, while the Kruskall–Wallis test by ranks was used to test the null hypothesis at a 5% level of significance.

Findings

The study answered two research questions and tested two null hypotheses on the usability effectiveness of the webware based on the informational and transactional queries. The participants found the ETD search system effectively useable. In addition, there was no significant difference in the opinions of the participants.

Research limitations/implications

The webware used simulated repositories as a feed bed for the ETDs in order to have control over the workability of the repositories. Thus, the results may differ slightly when “live” repositories are used.

Practical implications

The effectiveness of a webware that aggregates ETDs in Nigerian repositories will present libraries in Nigeria with evidence on how these systems work and can be improved upon.

Originality/value

There is a dearth of literature on practical usability studies of digital information systems in Nigerian libraries.

中文翻译：

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尼日利亚机构知识库中针对电子学位论文的联合搜索系统的可用性有效性

目的

这项研究的目的是评估尼日利亚知识库中用于电子论文和学位论文（ETD）的网络软件的可用性有效性。该网络软件（etdsearch.com.ng）是一个网络应用程序系统，用于管理来自三所联邦政府采样大学的ETD。该系统还将用户链接到托管论文和学位论文的存储库。

设计/方法/方法

研究采用案例研究策略。从三所大学的60名研究生中随机抽取。在基于信息和事务查询模型执行预定义的查询/任务之后，使用了基于ISO 9241-11框架的可用性评估调查表来收集数据。使用每所评估项目的三所大学的绩效得分的中位数（f _x）对研究问题进行了分析，而按等级进行的Kruskall-Wallis检验被用于检验显着性水平为5％的原假设。

发现

该研究回答了两个研究问题，并基于信息查询和交易查询对网络软件的可用性有效性进行了两个无效假设的检验。参与者发现ETD搜索系统有效可用。此外，参与者的意见没有显着差异。

研究局限/意义

该网络软件使用模拟存储库作为ETD的输入床，以控制存储库的可操作性。因此，当使用“实时”存储库时，结果可能会略有不同。

实际影响

聚集了尼日利亚存储库中ETD的网络软件的有效性将为尼日利亚的图书馆提供有关这些系统如何工作并可以加以改进的证据。

创意/价值

尼日利亚图书馆缺乏有关数字信息系统实用性研究的文献。