Impact & Feedback

Access to information through TEEAL contributes to significant improvements in agricultural research and teaching quality and productivity. This was demonstrated by a 2004 User Study and the abundant feedback from satisfied TEEAL users and librarians around the world.

 

Impact

In 2004, Mann Library, with funding from the Rockefeller Foundation, carried out a TEEAL User Study to evaluate whether TEEAL was meeting its objective of enhancing the quality and effectiveness of agricultural research and teaching by improving students' and researchers' access to relevant literature. The study collected qualitative and quantitative information, both through interviews with users and non-users at 10 institutions in 6 countries in Africa, Asia and Latin America and through a survey questionnaire of over 1000 TEEAL users at 16 institutions in 9 countries in those same regions.

The interviews and survey asked a number of different questions to probe users' perception of TEEAL and its resources. In the survey, almost 80% of respondents said that TEEAL improved their productivity and about 75% agreed that it improved the quality of their work. Users, who were largely research scientists, university faculty and graduate students, found that TEEAL's resources are both relevant to and adequate for their needs, and they trust the articles in TEEAL.

View a more in-depth summary of the TEEAL User Study findings (99kb, pdf)

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Feedback

The use of LanTEEAL has been overwhelming. It is used from 8.00am to 5.00pm. We have assigned one user per hour to allow others access.
What a difference the TEEAL collection has made for the Bangladesh Agricultural Research Council library. Before when I used to go, the library was dark and no one was there. Now it is a vibrant library with so many students waiting to use the TEEAL and reading books, journals, etc.
Since we introduced TEEAL, we have seen a dramatic increase in the number and currency of citations in student theses and papers. Before there might be only a couple of references and badly outdated from the 1980s.
[The] TEEAL database is our best electronic resource because of its wide coverage and availability. Students and researchers use it heavily.
It is important that researchers have access to research results across country borders. TEEAL and AGORA are very important vehicles for facilitating such cross-country communication of results from agricultural research. Researchers in many developing countries have a particularly hard time getting access to the relevant journals, a problem that is signficantly reduced by these two programs.
TEEAL is a big leap in information dissemination and accessibility especially in this part of the globe.
Egerton is very proud to have TEEAL because it's cost effective and works in offline mode hence its not exposed to poor communications.
I consider TEEAL one of the most efficient and effective ways to provide scientists, especially in sub-Saharan Africa, with up-to-date information on the state of agricultural research across a wide diversity of fields.
A remarkable contribution to the provision of agriculture database for research, teaching and overall development in the provision of agricultural information.
We purchased TEEAL because we found out that it includes most of the journals that were usually requested by professors and students from different fields. Our budget was never sufficient to cover the subscriptions to much needed scientific journals. The TEEAL software is very easy to use. Library users are very satisfied with TEEAL because they can review information very fast.
TEEAL has a profound effect on the agricultural research system. It provides access to the world's most important scientific literature, which would otherwise be unaffordable even to key research institutions. It helps bring about research excellence in agriculture.
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