COMPUTER LITERACY AS A PREDICTOR OF LECTURER ENGAGEMENT WITH ACADEMIC SOCIAL NETWORK: A STUDY OF STATE UNIVERSITIES IN OSUN STATE, NIGERIA.

Academic Social-Networking Sites (ASNS) such as Academia.eduand ResearchGate are becoming very popular among academics.These platforms allow lecturers to upload their academic articles, abstracts, and links to published full-text articles and also track the reading and citation of their published articles among others.Despite this, some studies have reported low use of the academic social networking sites by lecturers.This gap could be a function of their computer literacy competence.Thus, this study examined Computer Literacy Competence (CLC) and use of Academic Social Networks (ASNs) by lecturers in state universities in Osun State, Nigeria.Two state universities are located in Osun state.These universities are Osun State University (Uniosun) and University of Ilesha.The numbers of lecturers in the two universities were known.80% of the numbers of lecturers in the two universities were sampled.This indicates that 80% of the lecturers form the sample size.The sample size forms the basis for questionnaire administration.Therefore 210 questionnaires were administered.Findings showed a significant positive relationship between computer literacy competence and use of academic social networks by the respondents.This means that a lecturer with low level of computer literacy competence will not have the needed knowledge, skills and attitude to use academic social networks effectively.The study recommends that in order to sustain the high level of computer literacy competence of the lecturers, the management of the universities should on a regular basis organise ICT capacity building workshops.