Acceptance and Usage of Open Access Scholarly Communication by Postgraduate Students at the Sokoine University of Agriculture and the University of Dar es Salaam, Tanzania (Report‪)‬

Introduction Scholarly communication involves creating new knowledge, filtering quality knowledge through the peer review process and disseminating that knowledge to intended audiences ( Mann et al, 2008; Whitworth and Friedman, 2009). Open access (OA) is an alternative form of scholarly communication that has emerged from the traditional business mode of scholarly publishing. The basic concept of open access is the online accessibility to scientific literature for readers at no charge and without any technical barriers (Mann et al, 2008). Developments in information and communication technologies (ICTs) have been cited as among the key factors that have catalysed the emergence of open access (Ng'etich, 2004; Adogbeji and Akporhonor, 2005; Moller, 2006).