Understanding the perceptions of network gatekeepers on bandwidth and online video streams in Ahmadu Bello University,Nigeria

Abstract

Online video streaming is a learning technology used in today’s world and reliant on the availability of bandwidth. This research study sought to understand the perceptions of network gatekeepers about bandwidth and online video streams in Ahmadu Bello University, Nigeria. To achieve this, the interpretive paradigm and the Network Gatekeeping Theory were used as the theoretical framework and also a case study approach was employed to investigate the phenomenon. The study used a purposive sampling technique and a semi-structured interview to seek out opinions from the respondents who were the network gatekeepers within the university. A thematic analytical approach was done with the use of NVivo software, which yielded one hundred and seven codes, ten sub-categories and four major categories. The findings from the study indicated that: (1) perceptions of network managers were one sided; (2) no acceptable user policy was on ground and available bandwidth was limited; and (3) limitation of bandwidth, hindered user access to online video and mechanisms for gatekeeping had a role to play in the overall access to online video.

Keywords

Ahamdu Bello University Nigeria bandwidth management network gatekeepers online video

Background to the study

Education today has diversified from the traditional classroom experience to learning through online video streaming which is the simultaneous download and play of video from an online video database (Hartsell and Yuen., 2006; Siemens and Tittenberger, 2009). Online video streaming is a resultant effect of the advent of the Internet, which can help learners understand complex concepts and procedures that are difficult to explain with simple text and graphics. Hartsell and Yeun (2006) posited that “online video plays a dramatic role in delivering course materials to students as it brings the course alive by allowing student to use their visual and auditory senses to learn complex concepts and difficult procedures”. Supporting this assertion, the Joint Information Systems Committee (2002) highlighted other merits of online video being in the learner’s control, they argued that the learner becomes active in the online video learning environment, with the ability to pause, stop, skip, and/or rewind sections to review problematic content until understanding is achieved. Online video also allows students the capacity to choose what to watch, when to watch, and where to watch.

The use of these online videos requires the availability of networks and its resource “bandwidth”. Bandwidth is the total data carrying capacity of the channels in a network and one of the requirements to play online videos is having sufficient bandwidth, (Oswald, 2014). Sharma et el. (2011), opined that bandwidth is responsible for data transfer speeds, therefore the bigger the bandwidth quota, the faster online video can be streamed.

These bandwidth speeds however great, if not managed correctly would still be inadequate. Bandwidth management is a set of activities, which are undertaken by organizations which have obtained bandwidth, to ensure the efficacy and control of their communication lines. Online videos being a relevant multimedia source in any learning environment is crucial and requires a little more bandwidth for their viewing than regular text (Kim and Varshney, 2005; Ying and Basu, 2005). As such, there is a need for plans and policies to be put in place in our information networks to cater for this. Cisco (2013) and Kenny and Broughton (2013), affirm the above statement that multimedia requires different amounts of bandwidth. In order to facilitate access to online video streaming in Ahmadu Bello University (ABU), it is imperative that the Internet bandwidth be managed efficiently

History and development of Ahmadu Bello University Network

The ABU was established in October 1962 and is located in Zaria, Kaduna State. The university operates two campuses, twelve faculties, a post-graduate school and has a student population of over thirty-eight thousand. As at 2005, the management of ABU, entered into a bandwidth consortium agreement under the auspices of the Africa Virtual University with five other universities in Nigeria, namely Obafemi Awolowo University Ife, University of Jos, University of Port Harcourt, Bayero University Kano and University of Ibadan to acquire a 6.5 Mbps of bandwidth to improve on the 512 kbps it had before the formation of the consortium (Adedokun, 2009). The growing needs for Internet connection and bandwidth propelled ABU to acquire 310 mb bandwidth to meet the needs of its staff and students.

Statement of problem

Students everywhere in the world can access and use these online videos provided that Internet bandwidth is sufficient. The same is true of the students in the ABU: they utilize this resource to enhance their skills and improve upon their classroom experience. Acknowledging this, the Federal Government of Nigeria has formulated and implemented policies, such as Nigeria Information Technology and Telecommunication policies, which resulted in deregulation of the telecommunication industries and growth in the deployment and use of Internet facilities in Nigerian universities (Gbaje, 2013 ). However, despite the availability of a large bandwith (310 mb) which is a result of collaborations between the Nigerian Research and Education Network the university students still find it difficult to stream online videos. Preliminary observations of the ABU network undertaken by the researcher showed that network managers in the university limit the bandwidth of students. Could the actions by network managers (bandwidth limit and mechanisms) explain the reasons for the slow buffer speeds associated with online video play and download? To address this problem, the network gatekeeping theory which discusses the importance and power play between the user (gated) and the network managers (network gatekeeper) will be used as a framework.

Objectives of the study

The study has the following objectives:

to identify the various perceptions of the network gatekeepers towards their gatekeeping role on ABU network;

to ascertain the factors bandwidth gatekeepers of the university consider in the limitation of bandwidth;

to ascertain how information control and gatekeeping mechanisms influence access to online video.

Literature review

The gatekeeping theory was used as a framework to examine the roles of network managers (gatekeeper) in the management of Internet bandwidth in ABU, Nigeria. Lewin (1947), first coined the concept of the gatekeeper in his work “channels and gatekeepers” as a means of understanding how mothers decide what foods make their way to the table from a vast community of foods available. Gatekeeping is the process by which billions of messages that are available get cut down and transformed to hundreds of messages before they reach a given person on a given day (Shoemaker, 1991). Shoemaker’s gatekeeping serves as a selective decision-making process of messages that either pass or are cut down.

These theories mainly referred to gatekeeping as a selection process and offered communication scholars a framework for analyzing, evaluating, and comprehending how communication or news selection occurred and why some items were selected while others were rejected. As more theories and models of gatekeeping appeared, scholars began to investigate gatekeeping as an act of agenda setting and change in society. Barzilai-Nahon (2009) expanded and elaborated the concepts of gatekeeping to more accurately reflect the Internet age, calling her adapted vision “network gatekeeping theory” to reflect the shift from a more unidirectional process to a more dynamic one. One of the biggest shifts in Barzilai-Nahon’s take on the theory is an explicit focus on how information flows within and between communities, with a more dynamic, two-way relationship between the gatekeepers and gated. Network gatekeeping theory stresses that “gatekeepers and gated are not monolithic social and political entities nor is their behavior in context of their stakeholders. Accordingly, in a dynamic environment, the interests and goals of the stakeholders constantly change, and so do their gatekeeping and gated roles” (Barzilai-Nahon, 2008).

Previous studies that used the Network Gatekeeping Theory

The study by Gao et al. (2014) explores how relational gatekeepers facilitate the development of relationships between out-group members and in-group members in an intercultural business environment, and to bring to the surface the inter-cultural and inter-networked nuances of guanxi. Based on 33 interviews with managers from China and New Zealand, the workings of Chinese–Western business relationships and the roles of relational gatekeepers are explored. Empirical findings reveal three key gatekeeping roles, namely reciprocal, adaptive and symbolic, used for enabling the development of intercultural business relationships.

The study by Coddington and Holton (2014) examines the way in which organizations have adapted the process of gatekeeping to respond to the collaborative, communicative power of users upon which they are exercising their gatekeeping authority. The findings from the study are as follows: (1) the results showed that the team exercised its gatekeeping authority most clearly in determining who would gain access to the suite as participants were selected through one of two primary processes, both of which allowed the team to shape the suite’s makeup; (2) the results also showed that several users spoke sarcastically of being judged not good enough to be in the suite, and others concluded that they had been given access because they had a broad social media network or because they often spoke positively online about Cleveland; and (3) the results showed that the team used the gatekeeping process to put together groups with similar interests and foster more social cohesion in the suite and thus more positive messages about their experiences in the suite.

The study by Meraz and Papacharissi (2013) described, mapped and explained evolving patterns of communication on Twitter using the events of the Egyptian uprising which led to the resignation of President Mubarak. The findings underscored a significant role of ordinary users who both rose to prominence and elevated others to elite status through networked gatekeeping actions. The findings also suggested networked framing and gatekeeping practices that became activated as prominent actors and frames came to prominence. Discourse analysis of prominent actors and frames highlighted the fluid, repetitive processes inherent in networked framing as frames were persistently revised, rearticulated, and re-dispersed by both crowd and elite. These findings point to new directions for hybrid and fluid journalisms that rely on subjective pluralism, co-creation, and collaborative curation.

The study by Harorimana (2012) which critically looks at the role of the Knowledge Gatekeeper within the manufacturing and high tech sectors selected case studies by explaining who they are, how they work and identified and analysed the barriers to knowledge creation and knowledge sharing. Research instruments included a questionnaire and interviews from 105 and 40 respondents respectively. The research methodology used was guided by a deductive approach with a multiple case study strategy. The findings were as follows: (1) technological knowledge gatekeepers operate predominantly with the boundaries of informal networks and are inclined to share information and knowledge with only a few experts within their network; and (2) key barriers to successful knowledge management are trust, the relational context and the identity between the source and recipient of knowledge.

The study by Bui (2010) looks at two news portals, Google News and Yahoo News, with the notion of a search engine bias using the theoretical framework of Barzilai-Nahon (2008). The study tests one research question, about how prominent worldwide news agencies and major news media on result pages compared to other news media and three hypotheses. The hypothesis tested the relationship between the dominance of the news media, proximity of the news events to the US interests, and the position of news links on portals. The study analysed 34,277 news items from 1200 pages retrieved over the course of 60 days in 2006 and 2008. The data showed four major trends: (1) Google News and Yahoo News differed significantly in media inclusion on their front pages with Yahoo relying on a very limited number of media outlets; (2) the two portals also differed significantly in media in media inclusion on result pages except on the Iraq bombing of 2008; (3) both news portals increased the proportions of major media and decreased that of non-major media between 2006 and 2008; and (4) in both news portals, the distribution of media outlets was heavily skewed with very few media outlets used lots of times and the majority only a few. The hypothesis tests, using combined data of two portals over two years and separate data of each portal each year, show none of the three hypotheses is fully supported; these findings advance the understanding of the traditional gatekeeping notion on the Internet and also challenge the network gatekeeping theory on the role of the gated relative to the gatekeeper, and caution against any generalization of news portals as single entities.

Research method adopted and design

The study adopted a qualitative research methodology and a case study research design. The population for this study comprised all fifteen (15) staff of the Network Infrastructure and Security Services Unit (NIS) which is a component of the Information Computing and Information and Communications Technology directorate.

Sample: The sampling method adopted for this study was purposive sampling. Purposive sampling is a non-probability sampling technique which allows the researcher to select individuals who have direct bearing on the topic of the research. The objective of purposive sampling is its focus on particular characteristics of the population (network gatekeepers) that are of interest, and that will best enable the researcher to answer the research question. The sampling strategy was the criterion purposeful strategy. Sample participants for this study were based on the following criteria.

Participants must have been a staff of the unit for at least 8 years and currently working in the unit. The central reason for this criterion is based on the recent upgrades that have taken effect in the university. Such respondents would have a working knowledge of what was and what is available presently.

Participants must be directly involved in one way or another in the managing of the university’s bandwidth as not everyone in the unit is interested in the monitoring, security and or administration of the university’s bandwidth.

Based on the above criteria, three (3) out of a total population of fifteen (15) met the study criteria and hence formed the sample for the study.

Instruments for data collection

The research made use of a semi-structured interview guide and observation for collecting data in the study. The interviews were in-depth in nature, and involved the researcher personally interviewing staff of the NIS, based on a semi-structured interview guide that had been prepared and approved by a supervisory board in the ABU. In-depth interviews were the most appropriate approach for this study, as they allowed respondents to provide detailed insights into their norms and gave room for adjustments of the interviews, which helped provide insights into their perception on bandwidth and online video.

Data analysis and discussion of results

The researcher personally interviewed the three respondents that met the study criteria. From the three respondents, six interview sessions were conducted. The six interview sessions were transcribed, coded, and analysed. During the course of the interviews, the respondents were asked to discuss their perceptions on their role as gatekeepers. This was done in order to gain insight into their beliefs, norms and values as they relate to their job role. To gain further insight into the factors considered in the limitation of bandwidth, the respondents were asked questions on the available bandwidth for the university, how they came to a decision on who and what needed more bandwidth in the university. The responses obtained from the in-depth interview which lasted for approximately 2 hours: 12 minutes were then transcribed word for word (verbatim), and transcribed data were imported onto NVivo software – coding was an iterative process of reading and re-reading the transcript in order to obtain pertinent codes, which were highlighted giving a total of one hundred and seven narratives (107). Subsequently categorization of these free nodes or open codes was done in line with the interview guide and research questions giving a total of 10 subcategories and 4 major categories. The aim of this was to group together all codes which answered the research question into categories and sub-categories. The analysis is a presentation on the perceptions of network managers on information control and accessing online videos at ABU. The section that follows is a presentation of the themes that emerged from the interviews. The emergent themes are highlighted with summarized quotes and excerpts taken from the interview, and then a discussion of the themes with pertinent quotes from the literature follows.

Network gatekeepers’ perception on their gatekeeping role

A network gatekeepers’ (administrators) role, often requires them to be proactive and have the following attributes: adaptability; ability to learn; desire to learn; software fluency; tenacity; attention to detail; responsiveness; and recognize information technologies’ role and how it helps attain the goals of the organization. Their job roles as network gatekeepers are varied but not limited to: ensuring the security of an organization’s network from threats originating from inside and outside the organization; writing network security policies and service level agreements; ensure that these security policies are up-to-date; performing frequent audits; ensuring that security policies are being followed; and ensuring the effective and smooth running of all networked systems. The way and manner network gatekeepers perceive their roles within a network, has a direct influence on their goals, functioning and the management of such network. This implies that if a network gatekeeper sees his role as singly one-sided other responsibilities will suffer due to this fact – large organizations are in the habit of sharing some of the responsibilities of the network administrator or hiring more individuals and breaking up their various tasks (Metzler, 2011). Of the all interview questions pertaining to perception of the gatekeeping role, one major category emerged with two emergent sub-categories. They were:

security of the network (monitoring, blocking, limiting and usage);

job responsibility;

challenges in performing the job.

Security of the network (monitoring, blocking, limiting and usage)

From research question one, the major issue raised was security. Research question one emerged with one major category with two sub-categories which depict the perceptions and understandings of the network gatekeepers towards their role as managers of the network. When the network gatekeepers were asked how they perceive their roles, their responses were skewed towards security of the network and monitoring the network devices for reliability and maintenance purposes. For instance, one of the respondents noted:

We have network monitoring tools that helps (enables) us monitor active devices, use, monitor bandwidth usage, monitor how end users uses the university network. What we look out for mainly are; reliability, performance and availability.

Similarly, another respondent noted that as a result of piracy, copyright and pornography, they had to resort to blocking and securing the network through the use of firewalls:

Advanced countries are bringing issues of piracy, issue of ehn … is it plagiarism if not the internet is supposed to be a free world you can do whatever you want to do that’s the basic, that’s how internet is built initially. On our network everything is open to everyone as long as you’re not downloading virus, if you’re downloading any virus in fact it will block you from downloading it.

you can’t go to torrent on our network because it’s an academic environment, you know copyright issue, people will be downloading other people’s materials free of charge.

Respondents’ perceptions on users were that users tended to abuse the network if there was not some form of restrictions.

I know that most of the youth nowadays like downloading films. Am I not right? So that is the problem. That is why we limit them. You know really, if you allow everybody there would be a point that nobody can do anything. It is just like a kind of bandwidth management ‘ka gane’ (you understand) to allow people use it and everybody enjoy it.

As the perceptions of the respondents in the description of their role as network gatekeepers’ primarily tended towards security, monitoring and limitations of bandwidth, this implies that the overall quality of experience of users streaming online video is not put into consideration and would suffer a great deal as the network gatekeepers put more consideration into the security and monitoring of their devices and the use of the network. Based on these views of users being abusive of the network infrastructure, it is believed that there would be some sort of guiding principles (security policy), that stipulate what is acceptable on the network.

Job responsibility

In the course of trying to explain their perception of their roles as network gatekeepers the respondents went on, linking it to their day to day responsibilities on the job, one respondent said:

Well you can just say maybe your responsibility, office responsibility dealing with switches, routers and servers. Configuring switches, routers and then servers

We see their performance, monitor their performance if there is any issue we tackle it. Then planning, here we do network planning and management. So we plan, design then implement.

Another respondent’s view was:

At the moment what we do in this unit, we are responsible for traffic flow and to make sure active devices. I do wireless networking like the back of my hand and then wired and then configuring devices. What we try to do, is we try to make sure the uptime should be at least 99% uptime of all our active devices.

Likewise, another respondent noted that “it is our duty ‘ka gane’ (You understand) to fish out and see who is using more bandwidth, we can trace the person’s through his IP (Internet protocol address) ‘ka gane’ (You understand), to where he is and, with the login, if it is a student, you know we use their matric number and with this we know which department he is.”

The responses above showed that aside from the view of the network gatekeeping role being on security alone, they also felt that their role as network gatekeepers was reflected in the functions and performing of their day to day activities. However, in describing these job responsibilities their opinions and views still emphasized security with terms like monitoring, traffic flow and fishing out re-emerging. Being that a vast majority of their job description would keep the network gatekeepers in their offices, it means that they have little or no time to interact with users to educate, enlighten and understand the needs of these users: this is in agreement with the studies by Harorimana (2012) and Gao et al. (2014) which posited that gatekeepers tend to share information and knowledge with only a few experts within their network since they spend more time together. As noted in an interview response these activities did not come without their own challenges. These challenges are highlighted in the next category.

Challenges: Issues on finance, capacity building and low staffing capacity were challenges reportedly faced by the network gatekeepers in performing their tasks. With regards to this one respondent had this to say:

Our challenges is (are) just government policy (management), then on capacity building too there is not enough training you know people should be trained very well for ease of the work. If you’re not trained well you may be doing some things out of ignorance but once your trained you will know what to do that will help the system.

This challenge of funding and government policy also affected the amount of bandwidth they were able to afford as one respondent reported bitterly when asked about strategies undertaken towards augmenting the available bandwidth. His response was “Well it’s a matter of money, like I told you it’s one of the problems you request for something and the management tell you there is no money.”

Aside the problem of low funding and bureaucracy the network gatekeepers faced other challenges, these challenges stem from users and method of authentication. Users seemed to constantly report problems with their login details and upon investigation it was observed that simple case error (upper case/lower case) and forgotten passwords seemed to have been the cause of the problems. This is reported in the next response:

You know sometimes mostly people forget their password that is the major problem or some they don’t know how to use it. You know like staff now they don’t add “P” with their personnel numbers and for the students, they use capital “U” instead of small “u” ka gane (you understand) and that is the problem most at times.

Analysis of the reports on perceptions of roles above shows that the respondents pay high credence to security and deem that to be their sole job responsibility. Hence, not much credence is paid to user satisfaction.

Factors network gatekeepers consider in the limitation of bandwidth

An understanding of factors that are considered in the provision of bandwidth is essential in order to understand the dynamics behind the limitation of said bandwidth. As such, responses on the reasons for this were sought because the factors considered in limiting bandwidth impact a great deal on the online video streaming. In trying to understand the rationale behind limiting of bandwidth, respondents were asked the factors they considered before such actions were carried out and there was an observable uniformity in the responses obtained. From the questions asked, emerged one main category and four emerging subcategories.

Bandwidth availability and abuse

Bandwidth plays a vital role in an information network, as established in previous sections, bandwidth is responsible for data transfer speeds, therefore the bigger the bandwidth quota, the quicker the connection speed. These bandwidth speeds however great, if not managed right would still be inadequate. The responses obtained from this established that availability of bandwidth was a major consideration to the limiting of bandwidth within the university. These responses are captured below:

When we started we only had like 8 Mb but when we upgraded to fibre we upgraded it to 155mbps then we have another 155 Mbps so making it like 310 Mbps but currently the other one is down the service provider have some challenges so we are back to 155 Mbps.

people are just saying bandwidth optimisation, Me, I don’t believe in that, bandwidth can sometimes never be enough

The bandwidth we are getting from our internet service provider (ISP) is STM 1 which is one hundred and fifty-five megabytes per second (155Mbps).

Also, a notion that users abuse the available limited bandwidth contributed to the limitations in the amount of bandwidth a given user could attain. A network gatekeeper stated that “if you have a limit, you can only use that certain limit. But if you don’t have limit everybody can just do whatever they want.” He further stated, “if you allow everybody to be unlimited, there would be a point that nobody can do anything”. From the limiting, two classes of users emerged as stated in the response of another network gatekeeper “for staff here in the university, we assign limit of 1mb while student we give them 513 Kb.” This was done based on the length of time users stayed on the network as noted in the next statement, “We considered staff only stay in the school like 8 hours in a day from 8 am to 4 pm that’s like 8 hours, but students most of them are within the campus 24 hours so let’s say they want to download a 1mb file, a staff can download it in 8 hours while students can download it in 16 hours.” Aside the limiting done to users, the network gatekeepers exercised a conscious disparity between various network users’ traffic, based on the status of the user within the university community:

Here on campus we looked for a place that would likely pull a large amount of traffic, which is the place that we might need a 10 Gb link we saw that it was the senate building and this is considered because of the principal officers because we don’t want them to have bottle neck so we give them 10 Gb link.

The above assertion is discriminatory which is in consonance with Coddington and Holton (2014), who posited that the gatekeepers based on broad social networks allocated social suites.

Finance: Finance plays a key role in the ability and performance of a network and its gatekeepers. This is necessary for the procurement of bandwidth, other network infrastructure, and their maintenance. As reported by a respondent the network was faced with the problem of dwindling resources, “you may request something, they will say there is no money, you will say you need a server or maybe a switch.” As stated above bandwidth costs money, this in turn hampers the amount of bandwidth the university can afford. The resultant effect of low funding as regards to procurement of bandwidth is reported by the next respondent:

We are almost at our peak and then when you try to browse now, you can see that the network is dragging because everybody is browsing all kinds of things, the bandwidth could (would) choke and then network traffic could (would) start crawling, so now in checking the performance we use usage against available bandwidth, so definitely, it would affect performance because we have more users now on the network. Now to improve it is to buy a much bigger bandwidth.

Bottlenecks on the network

This category highlights some of the challenges faced by the users on the network. From previous responses, a major challenge on the network was the available bandwidth for the entire university. This issue raised the question of the number of active devices that are on the network against the available bandwidth – the response obtained showed that the number of active devices far exceeded the available bandwidth resulting in bottlenecks and congestion. This conclusion is captured in one response given as thus “I can tell you of 1600 concurrent users who are using the network at a time. So those that are using the network are much. That is why you realize that by the time it is peak period, the network becomes slow and begins to lag.” The response is in line with the statement of Welzl (2005), “Congestion occurs when resource demands exceed the capacity, and from the end users’ perspective, this congestion is observed if the service quality noticed by the user decreases because of an increase in network load.” Other responses on the issue of bottlenecks showed that using low performance devices within the network could also create bottleneck. For example, “the amount of traffic or request overwhelms the switch and instead of having a 6500 catalyst switch you put in 3750 switch, you know for sure that the performance for this two devices aren’t the same as such bottleneck is expected.” He also stated that “instead of having device that uses a gigabit Ethernet port and you decide to use the Ethernet port, for sure it would limit the traffic going in and out of it. So this is some of the things that can cause bottleneck.”

Strategies for optimizing bandwidth

On the strategies for optimizing bandwidth the respondents expressed unanimous views with one particularly expressing his disbelief in the optimization of bandwidth. When asked if he thought that bandwidth can be optimized, his response was “Sincerely I don’t believe in that; they only thing you can do on a network is just not to allow everybody to use the whole bandwidth”. The response shows a strong belief that users if given the opportunity will abuse the network resources. In light of this, further responses on the strategies used for the optimization of bandwidth were sought out. A respondent reported that formerly the use of proxies was adopted to enhance the networks; however, due to the active growth of the Web these proxies were actually not doing very well:

Proxy is actually one of the solutions that were used. The essence why proxy was used is to aid slow network but it is actually not working. This is because most sites nowadays are dynamic and so proxy server cannot capture the site, because most of the sites are changed every few minute.

Orientation on the bandwidth use

This category stems from the responses obtained on the issue of security. As one respondent rightly stated “on our network everything is open to everyone as long as you’re not downloading virus, if you’re downloading any virus in fact it will block you from downloading it. Or you’re downloading torrent you can’t go to torrent on our network because it’s an academic environment”. This category sought to understand the level of awareness of users on such policies. To answer this, the respondents were asked questions on orientation and sensitization of users on the use of bandwidth and their responses are noted below. The responses obtained indicated the presence of some form of policies; however, the policies were not in any structured or written form as seen in the next response: “We developed the acceptable user policy and ehn… then the policy itself, we have given that to the management for approval. When they finish that we can publish the document and anybody coming to request for login (username and password) would be given you a copy. But up till now the management has not approved the policy. So that why you can’t do anything. On that policy, you see what and what you should do and what and what you shouldn’t do. But up till now it’s still with the management.” He stated in frustration that “it had been more than five years, since the submission of the policy, Everyday its one story or the other.”

Information control and gatekeeping mechanisms’ influence on accessing online video content

This category explores the influence of gatekeeping mechanisms on online video streaming and the bottlenecks in the network that affect these online video streams. Responses received indicated that there is a direct influence of gatekeeping mechanism on online video streaming. The response received points to the importance of online videos as educational resources, and to this end, a respondent noted that “the environment where we are, is an institution and you may have users streaming online some may even visit porn site, movie, music and etc. now for some students in theatre art, who access YouTube to access videos on dance steps, from a video that is on a server in US or in UK now students can’t be denied the usage of YouTube”. In answering the question of the influence of gatekeeping mechanism on online video streaming, one respondent noted that there were actually effects, while another further explained that “bandwidth is limited so definitely you must experience video buffering when doing video streaming, but when your bandwidth is enough it won’t affect it.” This view of a respondent ushered in questions on gatekeeping, gatekeeping mechanism, online video and prioritization of web traffic and protocols.

Devices used in gatekeeping

This category sheds more light on the gatekeeping mechanism and online video. A respondent response suggested that the use of a Fast Ethernet port instead of a gigabit port would affect online video streaming. His response showed that fibre optic links should drop into gigabit ports for end users rather than on the Fast Ethernet port because “Fast Ethernet is 100 Mbps while gigabit is 1000 Mbps”. This disparity in port speed between Fast Ethernet and gigabit port suggests that the performance of the gigabit port exceeds that of the Fast Ethernet port. A respondent further noted that these devices (gatekeeping mechanisms) used to perform the task of the gatekeeping have a limited lifespan and once they hit their lifespan, their performance begins to dwindle thus affecting online video packets. The category further explores the various software devices used in carrying out gatekeeping operations. The response obtained shows that both software and hardware were pivotal in managing the university’s networks. These responses are captured as thus “we have a device called unified threat management. This device serves as a firewall for the network.” The above response shows that the network is susceptible to security breach and attacks, hence the need for a firewall to check and protect the network from these attacks. Furthermore, a respondent described software used in managing the user’s profile, that is, creating usernames and passwords for users. In his response he states that “user manager gives us the chance to create users profile that is, we can add a user so that he can access the university network.”

Another respondent described a network monitoring device used in monitoring a user’s activities “Nfsens is the application that we use for network monitoring, monitoring end users and types of services that end users are using. With it I would be able to know the site a user is accessing.” The response indicates the presence of an active network monitoring tool through which sites visited could be determined, it also indicated that traffic could be monitored as well, hence the question of prioritization of these traffic. The following response indicates that video and voice traffic requires more bandwidth than text, hence the need for prioritization of these data packets:

If you are doing bandwidth allocation, you are saying we give priority to data, voice and video why do we do that, we do that because we want to ensure quality of service (QoS). Now because you know that video is very important when it comes to bandwidth, if you don’t give video good bandwidth you know for sure you won’t get quality picture, the same applies for voice, but the least is data because with small bandwidth, data can function.

This is further buttressed in another study conducted on Internet Protocol (IP) traffic in ABU, Zaria Network where it was found that 75% of the total IP traffic on the university network was Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP) traffic while about 19% of the traffic was termed “other IP protocol”. A closer look at the constituents of these HTTP traffic revealed that Internet mail sites like Yahoo, Google and socializing sites like YouTube, Facebook, etc. constitute not less than 50% of the total HTTP traffic on the network (Adedokun, 2009). Further enquiry on traffic prioritization highlighted that no form of priority was given to any traffic within the network. A respondent stated “NO!!(Emphatically), because when you see prioritizing that means you have a limited capacity.” He further noted that switches (gatekeeping mechanisms) within the network were only at twenty (20) per cent utilization. As such there was no need for prioritizing within the network. Enquiry into traffic exiting (leaving) the network also indicated that there was no form of prioritization. A respondent’s view further indicated that video was not necessary and as such there was no need to prioritize video traffic “because there is no need. What are you doing with videos that’s the question.” Information gathered on measures put in place to facilitate access to online video revealed the availability of offline servers which provide offline content. As earlier stated by a respondent “Nfsens is an application we use for network monitoring … … … . With it I would be able to know the site a user is accessing.” The ability to determine site users’ visits and availability of offline content raised the question on methods for redirecting users’ traffic to this offline content. The respondent stated “NO (Emphatically)” to the question of these redirection mechanisms and on the issue of channels for sensitizing users on availability of offline content, he noted “That’s not our job, our job is just to provide the services not to tell staff or students these functions are for the library”.

Discussion of findings and implications

The findings of this research will be discussed under the sub-headings of the research questions. Hence, the findings will answer the research questions in a conclusive manner in order to achieve the stated objectives of this study:

Perception of gatekeepers on their gatekeeping role

The findings of this study identified security of, and within the network as the main way network gatekeepers view their role on the ABU network. With respondents using terms like monitoring, blocking and securing in their attempt to describe how they perceive their role. The responses obtained from the network gatekeepers showed that users had the tendencies of abusing and misusing the network infrastructure, through downloading and the use of various file sharing websites. As such, some forms of restrictions were imposed on them. However, the responses did not in any way indicate the efficiency of this method employed by the network gatekeepers. The implication of their gatekeeping perceptions is that users have a strained relationship with the network gatekeepers resulting in a one-sided communication. This in turn affects the overall user satisfaction. Also, as a result of this kind of relationship that network gatekeepers had with their gated(users), they gated (users) experienced challenges with their login details hence further limiting the overall online experience.

Factors network gatekeepers consider in the limitation of bandwidth

The study also sought to understand the rationale and factors network gatekeepers considered in limiting and placing some form of restriction on bandwidth usage. The responses gotten were linked to a number of reasons among which the amount of bandwidth subscribed for the university was one. The network gatekeepers stated that the bandwidth available was 310 Mbps. However, a link of 155 Mbps was bad leaving them with only 155 Mbps to manage. As a result of this setback they were forced to put every user of the network on a specific quota which could not be exceeded. Hence, online video streaming would hinder the browsing experience of all users. They also noted that users tended to over stretch the available internet facilities by hogging all the resources through constant downloading. The findings further revealed a lack of any available acceptable user policy or document stipulating what was acceptable on the university’s network.: the implication of this being a ripple effect which affects the network and the entire university as a whole. As users are not aware and properly enlightened their behavioural patterns would still remain the same once on the network – as such the bandwidth and university network will continue to suffer as users continually complain about the poor state of the network. The findings further showed a lack and total disbelief on optimization techniques for the available bandwidth – this invariably implies users attempting to stream videos on their already limited bandwidth will face further hardship, hence resulting in total abandonment of the information resource.

Information control and gatekeeping mechanisms’ influence on access to online video content

The responses pointed out that though online videos were indeed valuable educational resources there was a direct influence of gatekeeping mechanisms on online videos. This influence being that the bandwidth capacity of the university and its students were limited, and as a result the time it would take to buffer a video file would be greatly increased. The findings indicated that gatekeeping mechanisms’ port speed had a major role to play in the quality of online video streaming as there were variances in port speed of devices within the network. Further analysis of the responses shows that various types of software and hardware were used in gatekeeping. The various software utilized all aided the information control functions (monitoring, security and user account creation). However, this software was not optimally utilized as user traffic such as video though monitored is not prioritized.

Conclusion

Network managers in the university held security of the network in high regard and had bureaucratic challenges. The power of the network gatekeepers over their gated users is ever present in the university. A strained relationship exists between the network managers and the users. As established in previous sections, the total amount a communication channel carries (bandwidth) plays a vital role in user connection speeds, but it was found that the university had only one working internet subscription as opposed to two. This affected the overall available bandwidth hence resulting in bottlenecks on the network. This and the perception of users abusing the network led to limitations of users’ bandwidth; however, there were no strategies put in place to optimize the network, nor were there any means of orienting users on their use of the bandwidth bearing in mind that this bandwidth however great, if not managed correctly would still be inadequate.

Recommendations

In this study, recommendations are made based on findings and conclusions obtained from the study.

Network gatekeepers should not focus solely on security of the network as this hinders their other responsibilities such as customer services, and orientation.

Due to the already limited capacity and Internet service provider problems faced, other means of optimizing bandwidth for video and effective service delivery should be looked into, such as, synergy between units involved in information service delivery (Library and the Network Information Service unit), mirroring of video hosting sites as offline content, and allocation of data quota to users instead bandwidth limiting.

Management should take the role of the Network Information Service seriously and make plans for the future (advisably every four years) to maintain the already established network facilities, bearing in mind that these facilities have a limited lifespan and their performance begins to dwindle as they age, thereby affecting the network performance.

Footnotes

Declaration of Conflicting Interests

The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Funding

The author(s) received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Author biographies

Imoisili Ojeime Odigie MSc, is a Master degree holder in Information Science from Department of Library and Information Science, Ahmadu Bello University. He has a flair for Information Technology and Networking. He has worked with firms, libraries and government Parastatals to deploy various IT solutions. He is currently an Information Systems Consultant with Sharon Delight & Wanabiye Consults and offers volunteer services at the Federal University Lokoja Kogi State Nigeria.

Ezra Shiloba Gbaje PhD Prior to taking up an appointment as the University Librarian of Federal Lokoja Kogi State Nigeria, Dr Ezra Shiloba Gbaje was a lecturer with the Department of Library and Information Science, Ahmadu Bello University Zaria, Nigeria. In addition to supervising postgraduate theses and dissertations he has been teaching and conducting research on digital information systems, which is his area of research interest. Dr Gbaje has published in both local and international journals as well as presented papers at both international and local conferences.

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