An Analysis Of The Perceptions Of Innovation By University Of Botswana Staff Members

The paper uses the responses of a stratified sample of 279 staff members of the University of Botswana to explore the staff perceptions on innovation in terms of perceived use and acceptability of innovation technology. The results show that between 73% and 94%, of staff are aware of ASAS, I-ERP,  Blackboard and Moodle and 97.6% reported using at least one of the them,yet close to 40% of the staff are classified as early majority, late majority or laggards. While 67.5% of the staff perceived innovation as either important or very important, innovation performance was perceived as the most interesting. The results of the Probit analysis shows that while gender and education positively affect the staff perception of innovation, age negatively significantly affect the perception while holding other variables constant. The study recommends improved computer education of staff through training, since training can enable staff to experiment with the latest technologies in such a way that something new is created. Such training for awareness creation and improvement of computer skills should be age specific and take into consideration the different levels of computer skills possessed by the staff