Dissertations / Theses on the topic 'Women in information science – Ghana'

In the current era of globalization, knowledge-based innovations are critical for socio-economic development. In most African countries, however, the level of African-based research and development is minuscule. In addition, there continues to be a considerable gender gap in higher education throughout Africa, where male enrolments far outweigh female enrolments, particularly in the science and technology (S&T) fields. This gender discrepancy has raised concerns about the factors that underlie reduced female enrolment in S&T programs in African universities. Equally intriguing, in view of the relative scarcity of women in the S&T fields, there is surprisingly little knowledge concerning the attributes and the experiences of those African women who do enrol and teach in S&T fields, and who thus can serve as role models for younger girls who have an interest or the potential for pursuing studies in these fields. In Ghana, although policy initiatives have been undertaken to increase women’s participation in higher education, women remain underrepresented in science and technology (S&T) fields, particularly, at the graduate education level. To gain a better understanding of how some women have overcome longstanding obstacles to gender equality in S&T, my dissertation focused on the evolving status of 24 African women in three S&T graduate education programs – Africa Centres of Excellence (ACE) – in two universities in Ghana. To shed light on the factors that facilitate or hinder women’s participation in S&T graduate programs, a qualitative inquiry, into the experiences and perceptions of these women was undertaken. The conceptual framework presents the sequence of three approaches: (a) advocacy to raise consciousness about underlying gender-disparity issues; (b) a gender-affirmative-action approach to recruit and train a critical mass of female scientists and researchers; and (c) promotion of gender mainstreaming as a way of bringing gender perspectives into the universities’ cultures. This framework has been complemented by the structuration theory that has been useful in illuminating the experiences and perceptions of the women in the S&T ACE graduate programs in Ghana. These conceptual and theoretical frameworks have helped elucidate how the development and effective implementation of gender policies and procedures can lead to the transformation of institutional, social and global structures. Structures in turn can impact women’s agency and help overcome gender disparity in S&T higher education. The analysis of the women’s stories provided insights into the intersection of gender, socio-cultural factors, organizational cultures, and how gendered challenges impacted the professional aspirations of the women academics in the two public universities studied in Ghana. Beyond a better understanding of women’s experiences, this study helps us understand gender inequalities and the societal norms and practices, as well as patriarchal forces that permeate societies and impose structural barriers to women’s advancement. The study also helps to address a major research gap concerning the forces that affect, for better or worse, women’s experiences and potential academic contributions in S&T in Ghana and elsewhere in the world and adds to the broader literature on women’s experiences in male-dominated fields.

The study explores the factors that affect the development of a strategic planning process aimed at improving the university libraries in Ghana's capacity to deliver information services effectively and efficiently. Since the structure of universities in Ghana is derived from that of universities in the United Kingdom, the project of necessity includes a consideration of current perceptions to the strategy process in some university libraries in the United Kingdom. The study adopts a multiple case study approach, exploiting the advantages of the use of a combination of varied data collection techniques. The methodology combines the interpretative and positivist methods using 5 case studies in Ghana and 5 in the United Kingdom in order to enhance representativeness. The data was collected from some major stakeholders and a sample of library staff in the universities in Ghana and the heads and deputies of library services in the case study libraries in the United Kingdom. The major findings are that: the major stakeholders and the library staff in the Ghanaian university libraries do not have a single, agreed articulated mission for their libraries; a multiplicity of strategic visions were found to be the subject of disagreement between decision makers and the library staff; the university libraries in Ghana lack the required resources-financial, human, and physical that could give them the strategic capability to provide effective services; the magnitude of the resource-performance relationship in the United Kingdom case studies was found to be strikingly greater than that of the Ghanaian case study institutions; the management style of the university libraries in Ghana is the autocratic type with a top down strategic decision making process and an obsession for control and discipline; the United Kingdom libraries have a relatively more stable political and economic environments than the Ghanaian university libraries whose decision makers are faced with highly unstable political and economic issues. It is argued that in view of these 'pitfalls' in the planning process in the university libraries in Ghana, the process as it is currently applied in the United Kingdom university libraries will not translate to Ghana. The study therefore suggests a new approach to strategy formulation in Ghanaian university libraries. It proposes a flexible strategic management concept which suits the dynamism of the macro and micro environments of the libraries where continual change is unlikely to make once-and-for-all adjustments an appropriate form of managing change. The libraries ought to be capable of inflicting as well as responding to unanticipated changes.

This study attempted to find out how mobile technologies could be used to implement Web 2.0 based service delivery to graduate students based in the Graduate School of the University for Development Studies (UDS) Library. A 23 item questionnaire was administered to a sample of 155 participants who were selected by means of simple random sampling. A total of 119 questionnaires were retrieved and found to be adequate for analysis and interpretation. The collected data was analyzed and interpreted using the SPSS package and Microsoft Excel and was presented in the form of text and graphs. Findings indicated that graduate students overall had very good abilities with regards to the usage of the Web 2.0 applications; that they will like to access their library’s resources through the Web 2.0 applications using their mobile devices and the services they will like to access include reference services, circulation services, searching the OPAC, accessing library news, e-resources and subject guides in that order. There are varied kinds of mobile library services, examples of which are MOPACs, mobile reference, mobile instruction, mobile collection and mobile tours. However, the UDS Library does not provide any Web 2.0 mobile based services. The main challenges in implementing these Web 2.0 mobile based services include cost of Internet access, slow Internet connectivity and insufficient funds to acquire needed equipment. Based on these findings, some recommendations were given.<br>Mini Dissertation (MIT)--University of Pretoria, 2014.<br>Information Science<br>MIT<br>Unrestricted

<p> Women entrepreneurs are on the rise and their numbers have grown at one and a half times the rate of small enterprises generally over the last 15 years. In spite of this, women are underrepresented in the fields of science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM). Women face additional barriers when forging careers within these fields and obtaining startup capital. This study examines female business ownership within the fields of hi-tech and biotech, and the factors that support startups by women throughout the state of California. As both of these industry sectors are known to cluster geographically around sources of venture capital, university research and development (R&amp;D) investment, and skilled labor, the study explored how these factors influence women entrepreneurs through two methods of analysis, specifically, a quantitative GIS analysis using exploratory geo-statistical tools, and a qualitative analysis using semi-structured interviews of twenty women business leaders. Results from the study demonstrated that factors that encourage hub formation are prone to cluster geographically, that women receive less venture capital than their male counterparts, biotech as a sector is more open than hi-tech to women&rsquo;s participation, high numbers of women starting businesses alongside their alma mater, and a high participation of women in business accelerators and incubators.</p>

Excerpt: Tell patients that parvovirus infections before 20 weeks' gestation confer a risk of fetal morbidity and mortality as high as 16%, but don't significantly increase long-term developmental sequelae.

Health officials estimate that the 2014 Ebola crisis disproportionately victimized women, who made up 75% of the disease's victims. This interdisciplinary study has two main goals. The first is to evaluate the news media's performance in relation to their representation of women caught up in the Ebola crisis because the media play an important role in influencing public responses to health. This study sought to understand the information behavior patterns of journalists who covered the Ebola crisis by analyzing how job tasks influence a journalist's information behavior. This study employed qualitative methods to study the perceptions of journalists who covered the 2014 Ebola outbreak. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with Liberian and American journalists who covered the outbreak to understand the choices that guided their reporting of the Ebola crisis. A content analysis of The New York Times, The Times, and The Inquirer was also conducted to examine the new media's representation of women in an outbreak which mostly victimized women. The findings suggest that covering a dangerous assignment like Ebola affected the information behavior patterns of journalists. Audience needs, the timing of coverage, fear, and the accessibility of sources, were some of the factors that influenced the news gathering decisions taken by the reporters. The findings also suggest that women were mostly underrepresented by the media as sources, experts and subjects.

This education resource guide supplements the presentation made by Tanya Lee Stone at In Search of Wonder: Common Core and More, a professional development day presented by The National Children’s Book and Literacy Alliance, in conjunction with the Perry Ohio School District. Included on these pages are engaging activities and discussion questions based on Common Core English Language Standards for two of Stone’s books: Courage Has No Color and Who Says Women Can’t Be Doctors?

The growing interest in gender issues and female employment has generated a number of studies and the library and information profession has not been excluded from this interest in promoting female equity in employment. This study investigates the career patterns of female librarians in six public university libraries in Ghana in order to establish the enhancers and inhibitors they experience in their career progression. The study adopted the multi-method approach, which entailed the use of two self-administered questionnaires for 128 professional and paraprofessional library staff respectively, which formed one group of the population studied and a semi-structured interview schedule developed for three female University library Heads, who formed the second group of the study population to address research questions in this study. Each of the professional and paraprofessional librarians completed the questionnaire on their own and their responses were then used to form essential components of one research project. Quantitative data gathered was analysed to report on descriptive characteristics of respondents, while qualitative data, from open ended questions, in the questionnaires, and responses from interviews with the female University Library Heads were analysed using the narrative analysis technique to present profile of respondents and their career histories. The findings reveal females in the study were unable to meet requirements for promotion in their various public university libraries, which has resulted in very slow progress in their careers and even in some cases stagnated careers. The few successful female librarians who made it to top positions did so relatively late in their careers. The study established that societal expectations of females, age, family responsibilities-career conflict, failure to publish, not being able to pursue higher academic programmes, inability to participate in professional enhancement and professional activities are some inhibitors to the progress of female librarians. The study concludes by recommending that the pioneer female University Librarians should serve as role models and mentors to colleague female librarians, and that there should be career development support, for females, from the Ghana Library Association and African Library and Information Association to help overcome barriers to advancement in university libraries.<br>Information Science<br>D.Litt. et. Phil (Information Science)<br>020.82

Midwives in Ghana provide the majority of rural primary and maternal healthcare services, but have limited access to data for decision making and knowledge work. Few mobile health (mHealth) applications have been designed for midwives. The study purpose was to design and test an mHealth application (mClinic) that can improve data access and reduce the reporting burden for midwives at the Millennium Villages Project site in Ghana. From the design science field, the Information Systems Research Framework guided this study through two research cycles: 1) Relevance, and 2) Design. The first phase of the Relevance Cycle took a user-centered approach to assess the people, organizations, and technology of the midwives' environment through participant observation, contextual inquiry, and interviews. In the second phase, structured requirements specification was used to categorize the data into goals, system qualities, and constraints. From the categorized data, use cases were developed for patient registration, antenatal care, malaria, family planning, and referrals. Use cases then informed the development of functional requirements. In the Design Cycle, we first used functional requirements for patient registration and malaria to develop the mClinic prototype as part of a coded-in-country initiative. Next, we examined usability of the mClinic prototype by conducting field testing, heuristic evaluation, and usability surveys. Additionally, low-fidelity prototyping was used to determine applicability of the other use cases to the midwives' environment. Midwives reported inability to access critical data, high patient loads, and extensive reporting requirements. Low technical self-efficacy and inadequate infrastructure were identified as barriers to implementation. Heuristic evaluation noted issues related to hardware selection, workflow, and security. Midwives ranked the tool as useful in the usability survey; however, ease-of-use rankings were neutral. Interviews indicated this was related to low technical self-efficacy. Applicability checks found support for touch-entry prototypes over those that included lengthy forms or text-entry. The study supported the utility of design science and user-centered methods in rural Ghana for understanding the midwives' environment, developing functional requirements, and guiding evaluation. Midwives reported mClinic would facilitate data access and reduce reporting burdens. Improving midwives data access is essential for clinical decision making and promoting their knowledge work.

Dissertation submitted in fulfillment of the requirements for the award of the degree Master of Library and Information Science of the University of Zululand, 2002.<br>Women constitute 51,6 % of the population of South Africa. It is widely known that in many households, especially blacks, men leave homes for urban areas in search for jobs, leaving women behind to maintain the entire household on their own. Despite significant role played by the women, they are faced with many problems as those experienced by women in other developing countries such as illiteracy, poverty, low social status and multiple roles of child care, farming and housework. The plight of women in rural parts of South Africa, hinder their access and exploitation of media, that can enable them to participate responsibly in nation building. The study explores the media needs of the rural women and how they are fulfilled in the areas of KwaZulu-Natal. Through a normative survey method and critical incident technique, 109 women were interviewed and questionnaires administered to 18 community leaders as well as observation for primary data. Evidently, there is need for suitable media where information on agriculture, health, education, business, legal, and career opportunities as well as self-help-related activities can be accessed. Such media should be available closer to home environment, in visual and sound formats, orally delivered by people closer to the community such as friends, relatives and neighbours as well as community leaders. Methods of information transmission should be overwhelmingly oral that includes greater use of radio transmission. Largely, the findings are consistent with similar studies conducted elsewhere in the developing countries. Conference presentation and publication in a peer-referred journal is planned in 2002.<br>University of Zululand

Rural women play significant roles in both food and cash crop production, however, the majority of them lack access to productive resources, including information. To enhance the process of development and to ensure that rural women participate in and benefit from rural development processes, it is important that productive resources such as land, technology and information are made accessible to them. The purpose of this study was to examine the extent to which rural women access gender and development information. It therefore investigated how the rural information delivery system is organised and operates in order to gain an understanding of the factors which hamper the accessibility of information to the majority of rural women. This understanding will enable rural development planners and information professionals to design and implement information services which are accessible to all members of the rural community. In conducting this study in the Tanga region of Tanzania, a sample of 773 households was drawn from an estimated 155,863 households to acquire a sample of rural women. A structured interview protocol was used to collect data from the rural women. A total of 64 human information providers out of a total of 90 targeted to be included in the study, was interviewed. Data was also collected through document reviews and informal discussion with key informants at regional and district levels as well as through personal observations during field work. The findings of the study indicate that at least 40 percent of rural women are still functionally illiterate and at least 30 percent head rural households. Tt:1e majority of them still live in poverty with limited incomes. On the other hand the information providers are predominantly male, constituting a male/female ratio of 3: 1. The information needs of rural women are practical and strategic in nature. Information providers used are mainly friends and relatives, village leaders, health extension workers and hospitals and clinics. The communications used in information exchange processes are oral in nature with face to face communication being the main channel used. Formal sources of information such as printed and audio-visual sources are rarely used. Furthermore, this study has shown that socio-economic factors impact on levels of access and use of information providers. Information made accessible to women is mainly health information, followed by community affairs which is mainly about community problems discussed at village meetings. Very few women benefit from rural training programmes and information on development projects because these are limited to specific project areas. Information delivered is therefore not adequate to satisfy rural women's needs whereas information accessed is moderately relevant as far as their health information needs are concerned. The main barriers to rural women's access to information include: workload, attitudes of information providers, customs and traditions and non availability of other sources such as printed and audio-visual sources, as well as low income and relatively low education levels of women. This study has identified several weaknesses in the rural information delivery system which need to be addressed. It is therefore recommended that in order to make information readily accessible to the majority of women, there is a need (i) to formulate gender sensitive policies and institute mechanisms for implementation, which should include the training of information providers in gender issues in services-provision; (ii) to make available adequate financial resources to support rural information seryices; (iii) to use a variety of sources of information to cater for ; the heterogenous needs of users; (iv) to have a political will not only to address gender issues but also to sensitize entire rural communities to gender issues.<br>Thesis (Ph.D.)-University of Natal, Pietermaritzburg, 1998.

M. Tech. Busines Administration<br>While the use of computers and information technology (IT) is becoming ubiquitous in everyday life, IT is also an integral part of a successful economy. The South African government, in its National Policy Framework for Women's Empowerment and Gender Equality, stipulates that science and technology are fundamental components of development, and that the government must devise mechanisms to engage women with these skills. The objective of this study was to evaluate, using the theory of planned behaviour, the difference between female and male students' perceptions about this important field. It aims to explore how prevalent the gender imbalance is in terms of students already studying IT at university with regard to their attitudes towards IT courses.

São Paulo is considered to be the hub of technology in Brazil and many Brazilian women are finding jobs in the growing technology industry there. While questions about women‟s low involvement in technical careers in the United States are being researched by organizations such as the National Center for Women & Information Technology, the American Association of University Women, and the Anita Borg Institute, research on this topic in Brazil is considerably more limited. In January 2011, 10 interviews were conducted with women in São Paulo, Brazil working in information technology (IT) careers. In an effort to understand how they got to their current careers interviewees were asked for their personal stories, perceptions, views, and opinions on career choice, work/personal life balance, employment history, and education. The majority of the responses in these interviews revealed a similar situation and similar perceptions to those expressed in the United States. Participation by females in the male-dominated IT sector in Brazil has been decreasing over the past decades and reasons for low female participation in IT are complex. Interviews revealed that 1) women working in technical careers believe that IT jobs are considered appropriate for Brazilian women, but that technical programs and workplaces are mainly occupied by men, 2) Brazilian women feel constrained by the expectation for women to be primary caretakers of domestic responsibilities even when both partners work full time, and 3) women are considered to be better communicators in Brazil, but most upper-level leadership positions in IT are held by men. This study is meant to be an initial effort on which further research can expand.<br>text

This study explores how the social tags are employed by users of LibraryThing, a popular web 2.0 social networking site for cataloging books, to describe works on Asian women in representing themes within the context of intersectionality. Background literature in the domain of subject description of works has focused on race and gender representation within traditional controlled vocabularies such as the Library of Congress Subject Headings (LCSH). This study explores themes related to intersectionality in order to analyze how users construct meaning in their social tags. The collection of works used to search for social tags came from the Association of College and Research Libraries’ list on East Asian, South and Southeast Asian, and Middle Eastern women. A pilot study was conducted comprising of a limited sample in each of the three domains, which helped generate a framework of analysis that was used in application for the larger sample of works on Asian women. The full study analyzed 1231 social tags collected from 122 works on Asian women. Findings from this study showed that users construct a variety of intersections relating to gender and ethnicity for works on Asian women. Overall findings from this showed that gender and gender-related constructs were the most common subject of tags employed for works on Asian women. Users more often referred to geography rather than ethnicity when describing the materials on Asian women. Interesting themes to emerge involved how gender and other constructs differed among the three domains. Tags describing the majority of East Asia, such as Chinese and Japanese were most common in the East Asian dataset. Countries not considered the “majority” in South and Southeast Asia were often used, such as Indonesia and the Philippines. Themes of sexuality and religion were much more prevalent in the Middle Eastern set of tags. Social tags act as a mechanism for social commentary. Researchers have access to a plethora of constructions available to them through these social tags; such abundance of information is a valuable resource to understanding how the general populace understands intersections and constructs identity.

The study aims to assess performance of Technical Reports as a channel of information for development in the Lesotho context. It concurrently evaluates how a specialized information unit of the Institute of Southern African Studies (lSAS) has performed in its obligation to devise adequate mechanisms for managing the report literature and meeting the development-related needs of users. In order to achieve that aim, the study contextualized development as a process, state, and condition and highlighted some development indicators for Lesotho. Agriculture and gender were selected as sectors of development. Global conferences, as one of the many development strategies that generate technical reports heavily, were used as a benchmark. In the performance and impact assessment methodologies, case study techniques were applied with ISAS as a site and one unit ofanalysis. Technical Reports (TRs) on Lesotho were studied. Triangulation approaches were applied in sourcing data. The academics, information workers, government officials, non-governmental organizations (NGOs) and aid agencies based in Lesotho were surveyed. Research questions that guided the study centred on the productivity, distribution of technical reports, their management by intermediaries, use, non-use and the effects thereon. Seven types ofTechnical Reports feature in the development process, namely Academic, Project, Conference, Survey, Enquiry, Official and Special Committee Reports. Technical Reports are produced at varying levels depending on needs and approaches to development by producers or commissioning bodies. Academic Reports are authored mostly by the academics. The Government, Aid agencies and NGOs produce widely through external consultants/experts, who utilize centres such as ISAS where commissioning bodies do not have information services. TRs productivity is high and diverse in Lesotho, but capacity to manage the output is seemingly low, and hence under-utilization results; ISAS's out-dated mission, lack of, or limited resources and dejure national support in the form of acts and statutes affect the Institute's Technical Reports' services. Production is gender biased, thus making for imbalance in reporting on development. Agriculture as a sector is heavily researched and reported about, but the benefits to the populace are either few or non-existent. Restricted materials are estimated at 30%, but most ofthe TRs are unaccounted for. Hoarding and poor records or information management leave a vacuum that leads to a duplication of previous studies and production. The study confirmed that technical reports are required by all the surveyed groups. Technical Reports are not ofa transient nature even though they reach a peak oftopicality and use at certain periods. Where the channel conveys factual data timeously, there are developmental benefits. Low or non-use is common where there are no specialized information services especially within the civil service. Such negative factors cause delays and infrequent currency, inadequate reporting and erroneous budgetary allocations, for example. Seeminglythere is no clarity on what restricted, secret and limited materials mean. Major recommendations were made. One concerned an integrated approach to managing the channel. This would involve preparing a Manual for the production of Technical Reports which would clarify how to prepare them; for instance, the caliber of personneVexperts who should author reports, the conditions to be observed, the timeliness production, reliability of data used, and centres that would be acknowledged to then qualify for commensurate financial and other support. The other proposes that the envisaged National Research Council be given the powers to enforce the guidelines ofthe manual and related functions. The last recommends assigning to the documentalistsfor classified Technical Reports, the role of managing classified items. Consideration should also be given to important issues raised in the study, being the role of Information, Communication and Technologies (lCTs), sectors of development to be attended to, training and networking in technical report\s. Further studies are also recommended mainly for the causes and effects of the closures of information services that managed technical reports' in southern Africa; longitudinal studies on the impact of non-use oftechnical reports in major sectors ofdevelopment like Agriculture; comparative studies on the impact of specialized centres in the developed and developing countries. Further action is urged under the aegis ofbodies like the Standing Conference ofEastem, Central and Southern African Librarians (SCECSAL), Standing Conference of National and University Librarians.<br>Thesis (Ph.D.)-University of Natal, Pietermaritzburg, 2002.

A considerable amount of research effort has been invested in investigating the under-representation of women and their career advancement in traditionally male dominated sectors. Although it is widely recognised that females’ participation at all levels of management as well as in the economy has increased substantially over the years, more than half of the economically active women in South Africa are still found in occupations which are extensions of the traditional female role. The technology sector is regarded as one of the vital sectors to the economic development and sustainability of any country, therefore, attracting and retaining women in the sector is an imperative. Despite initiatives to address inequalities in the workplace, attracting and retaining women in the ICT sector nevertheless remains a challenge. Thus, the aim of this research was to explore the career advancement experiences of female managers in the ICT sector. An exploratory qualitative study approach was adopted to gain insights into the said career advancement experiences of female managers at different levels in an ICT company. Semi-structured interviews were administered to ten female managers in the company. Insights from the interviews formed the basis of the data analysed using Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis (IPA). Integrating the participants’ experiences with pertinent literature provided an in-depth understanding of female managers’ career advancement experiences. Literature and findings of the research indicate that various factors combine to give effect to the so-called glass ceiling, which denies women access to opportunities crucial for their career advancement. Lack of role models, mentoring and networking opportunities, work/family conflict, working hours, training and development and organisational culture were identified as factors that inhibit the advancement of women into senior leadership positions. In addition, the findings further revealed that commitment to ongoing development, mentorship, an enabling organisational culture and flexible work environment are career advancement enablers. The outcome of the study confirms that there is an imbalance in the representation of women at senior management levels in the participating organisation (at the time the study was done) and, while numerous studies have sought to analyse the trends in employment and retention, in South Africa very little is known about the factors that influence the retention and advancement of women, specifically in the ICT sector. The study thus highlights the interventions required to attract, develop and retain women in the ICT sector as a means for organisations gaining a competitive advantage.<br>Industrial and Organisational Psychology<br>M. Com. (Industrial and Organisational Psychology)