Factors Influencing Lecturers’ Intention to Use Talis Reading List Management System at Auckland University of Technology

Abstract

To fulfil the legal obligation to Copyright Licensing New Zealand, AUT (Auckland University of Technology) has adopted the Talis Reading List Management System and required all lecturers to transfer their copyright-protected readings into the new system. However, among the thousands of AUT papers, only about 400 papers have a published Talis reading list for their students. Moreover, many lecturers gave up using the system after the initial set up of their reading lists. To find the root cause of the low usage rate and abandonment, the researcher decided to identify the factors that influence these lecturers’ intention to use Talis by establishing a conceptual research model after reviewing different technology acceptance models. To test this research model, a survey was designed with 20 questions and this survey were completed by 69 lecturers from different AUT faculties. The collected data was analysed using Multiple Regression Analysis to exam each factor’s correlation with the dependent variable—Behaviour Intention. From this analysis, items which had significant influence on user intention were selected to form the final research model. From the final model, it was found that AUT lecturers’ intention to use Talis was highly influenced by the system’s characteristics like its functionality of ensuring copyright compliance and its stability, and by the timely assistance they received from the library. Social factors like managers’ endorsement of using and colleagues’ recommendation only affects lecturers’ acceptance of Talis very weakly. Apart from timely assistance, lecturers also value the one-on-one training more than workshops and manuals. Additionally, in the comment field of the survey, many lecturers also complained the difficulty of using the system which even made several lecturers abandon the system. From this research result, the library and project team should firstly investigate further on how to make using Talis easier for lecturers, and on providing timely problem-resolving assistance to lecturers. A qualitative research can be conducted further to study lecturers’ complaints in future.