Abstract

The major issue surrounding effective research in higher institutions often revolves around inadequate infrastructure, limited digital literacy, and inconsistent access to high-quality resources. This study was done to examine postgraduates’ access to as well as knowledge and availability of cyberspace information resources and services (CIRS) for academic research. It was carried out across five federal universities in Southwest, Nigeria. Descriptive research design was used in the study, guided by three objectives. Purposive sampling was used in the study to choose a sample size of 1,066 postgraduate (PG) students from the five universities. Instruments for data collection include an observation checklist and a well-structured questionnaire. The study adopted frequency, percentages, mean score, and standard deviation (SD) for analysis, with t-test and ANOVA (analysis of variance) for hypothesis at 0.05 level of significance. Results revealed that PG students are aware of the available CIRS and being utilized for research and that student moderately utilized CIRS. Also, there were differences in use of CIRS, based on educational level, between PhD and master’s students. It was recommended that universities should leverage on alternative technologies such as mobile data solutions to improve infrastructures on technological matters, sound technological infrastructures be incorporated in Nigeria universities, and academic institutions are advised to adopt strict data protection and ensure compliance with international privacy laws such as the GDPR (General Data Protection Regulation). The study concluded that PG students should embrace the continuous use of those resources, while free laptops should be sufficient in the university library for students to use; sound policies should be deployed to protect cyberspace users.