dc.description.abstract | The world has experienced rapid growth in the information and communication
technology (lCT) sector, resulting in major transformation in social, economic and
business operations and processes. The ICT sector has helped to reduce the cost of
communication, increase market information and facilitate doing business. This has
brought the need for governments and businesses to digitize their practices and
processes. The purpose of the study was to establish the practices, challenges and
strategies in digitization in the Kenyan Government. The objectives of this study were
to: establish the practices involved in the digitization projects undertaken by
departments in the Kenyan Government; determine the challenges that are faced in
digitization in the Kenyan Government; and determine strategies that can be applied
for successful digitization in the Kenyan Government. This study used descriptive
survey design. In this case the target population was all ministries. Judgmental
sampling was used to select 38 government departments. The research instrument was
a questionnaire which was administered using. "drop and pick later" method. One
subject from each department was selected to respond to the questionnaire. Data was
analyzed through percentages, frequencies, mean scores, standard deviation and factor
analysis. The presentation of findings from quantitative data was by use of tables.
Study findings revealed that digitization in government follow some of the best
practices in digitization. These include quality assurance and quality control of
metadata, content preservation, specifying the need for creating the digital collection
and quality review of digital copies. Digitization is challenged by many factors
including financial constraints, inadequate personnel in the projects, poor handling of
original documents and material and inadequate resources and infrastructure for
digitization. Technical know-how of project staff and procurement procedures are
other challenges which hinder effective digitization in government. Study findings
also revealed that various departments in Kenya undertaking digitization projects have
devised strategies which have enabled them to cope with some of the challenges
faced. Some of the workable strategies include documenting standards and best
practices to be applied uniformly and planning, monitoring and effective budgeting in
the project. Other strategies usually applied include having digital and quality
standards and policy enactment before digitization starts. The following
recommendations were made. First, the government departments should ensure that
proper planning and budgeting is done even before the project starts. Secondly, every
department engaged in digitization should ensure a consistent, high level of image
quality across collections. Lastly, all digitization projects in government should
decrease the likelihood of re-digitizing in the future by promoting best practices for
conversion of materials into digital format and the long-term preservation of | en_US |