Digital literacy skills and use of social media among registry staff in Nigerian universities

Abstract

The study investigated digital literacy skill and use of social media among registry staff in selected universities in South-West, Nigeria. The study adopted the survey research design of the ex-post-facto type while questionnaire was used as the instrument of data collection. Five hundred copies of questionnaire were administered to the respondents out of which 354 were returned with useful and useable responses. Findings from the study revealed a high level of digital literacy skill among the registry staff in the selected universities. The major social media sites regularly used by the registry staff are Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn while e-mail, text, audio, video and images were the most regularly used tools. The major purposes of use of social media by the registry staff are for supporting research of academic and professional colleagues, attending workshops, seminars and conferences as well as for communication with students and school clients. Other purposes include communicating with other universities, sharing files, documents photos and videos on behalf of the university and calling for meetings within and outside the university as well as recruitment of staff. The study recommended that universities should facilitate training to improve digital literacy skill and use of social media by the registry staff and encourage transiting from analogue communication to digital because of application of information and communication technology to encourage registry staff to incorporate use of new communication and social media. Also, universities in Nigeria are encouraged to develop institutional ICT policy needed to upgrade digital literacy skill of registry staff. Periodic training will enhance effective application of social media.