Research Trends in Library and Information Science in African Countries: A Scientometric Assessment

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1 Research Trends in Library and Information Science in African Countries: A Scientometric Assessment Sanjay Kumar Maurya, Akhandanand Shukla* Department of Library and Information Science, Mizoram University, Aizawl, Mizoram, India Abstract Paper deals with the scientometric assessment of research output of African countries in Library and Information Science. Paper discusses quantitative research output of 37 African countries in terms of total research output, citable research output, and non-citable research output. Moreover, citations and self-citations related data to African countries have been analyzed also. Citations per document and h-index values have been calculated for African countries during the period. Nigeria and South Africa have been found to be the most research productive country in LIS research and in terms of receiving citations also. Keywords: Research output, research performance, research contributions, LIS, citable research output, citation analysis, h-index *Author for Correspondence akhandanandshukla@gmail.com INTRODUCTION ACRL defined scholarly communication as the system through which research and other scholarly writing are created, evaluated for quality, disseminated to the scholarly community, and preserved for future use. The system includes both formal means of communication, such as publication in peerreviewed journals, and informal channels, such as electronic listserves. Scholarly communication comprises research articles published in the form of research journals, conference papers, book chapters, and monographs in both print and online form. Scholarly communication is generally famous as research output or research productivity and there are a number of studies on research output/productivity analysis of particular field or institutions. Research output covers the intellectual activity of an individual or an institution or country or field of study. Library and Information Science (LIS) related research productivity analysis studies are fewer in number. Due to lack of such researches LIS professionals are not aware of their productivity progress amongst world level. With the emergence of online platform and open access movement, there are dramatic changes occurs in access, use, dissemination and preservation of scholarly research output as well as record the research productivity in various terms by various online databases like Scopus, Web of Science, INSPEC, Ei Compendex, MEDLINE etc. Scholars communicate the research output mostly in electronic forms via electronic networks which make most of their works available online. As a result, there is tremendous growth in usage of electronic format compared to print and open access movement helps the scholar to make their scholarly research output available to the widest possible audience and improves their research impact as well as research visibility. In a study, Raju et al. [1] pointed out the fact that research conducted in Africa and published in international journals is not accessible due to financial constraints to those researchers and community that need it the most; also African researchers cannot afford excessive author page fees which limit their capacity to publish in leading international journals that have an open access publishing option. The study is an effort to analyze the scholarly research performance by countries under African continent in the field of library and information science. LITERATURE REVIEW Kademani et al. [2] have made an attempt to highlight quantitatively and qualitatively the growth and development of world literature on Materials Science in terms of publication JoALS (2017) STM Journals All Rights Reserved Page 20

2 Research Trends in Library and Information Science Maurya and Shukla output and citations as per Web of Science ( ). A total 3, 44, 725 publications were published and received 16, 87, 929 citations. The highest number of publications (75009) found in the year 2009 and the highest number of citations received in the year Asia is the most productive continent with 1, 77, 626 (42.18%) publications whereas North- America received the highest average number of citations (7.43) per publication. Publication Efficiency Index (PEI) is the highest for Netherland followed by Switzerland and USA. Kostoff [3] compared the relative performance of USA and China in Science and Technology (S&T) through different databases and concluded that China has relatively higher S&T literature in Ei Compendex when compared with INSPEC; moreover, USA leads in quality over China as well as other countries like France, Italy, Japan and Australia. Larsen et al. [4] compared the scientific output and impact of publications from for China, Europe, India, Japan and the USA. The share in the total number of publications is found to be gradually decreasing in recent years for Europe and fast-growing in China. The USA is leading in publication impact whereas Europe, India, and Japan are far behind than the USA. Glanzel et al. [5] have analyzed activity and impact patterns in Science and Technology output from based on publication share in the world total, subject-based publication profiles, citation-based indicators like journal and subject normalized mean citation rates. In the case of publication output, China ranks fifth in the world behind USA, UK, Japan, and Germany. Moreover, China compares to Sweden and Italy in terms of international patent applications. It is also found that US scientist publishes on average in the journal with higher citation impact than world standard. Guan and NanMa [6] compared the scientific research in semi-conductor related field in China with some major nations of Asia with the help of SCI-Expanded database during ; and they found China at the second position in number of publication whereas Chinese scientist's collaboration of authors is typically four or more authors which are similar to Japan and South Korea. Asian countries, except Japan, have less citation (research efforts) compared with USA and Germany. Sagar et al. [7] analyzed quantitatively the growth and development of mass spectrometry research in Nuclear Science and Technology in terms of publication output as reflected in International Nuclear Information System (INIS) database during They found a total 10, 913 papers were published with the highest 816 papers in The USA topped the list with 2, 247 publications followed by Germany and Japan; India has 460 publications. There are 81.83% of the papers were published collaboratively and the highest productive institution is Bhabha Atomic Research Center, Mumbai, India with 233 publications. Zhou and Leydesdorff [8] pointed out China's contribution and its citation rate that shows exponential growth. The European Union and the USA are the biggest contributing countries in world science while among Asian countries mainly Japan, China and South Korea are leading. Chinese language science literature was not cited frequently though they are included in the Science Citation Index. In 2004, China's world share of publications was 6.52% while world share in Nanotechnology publications was 8.34%. Robert [9] has made an attempt to analyze the evolution of biotechnology research, to map leading organizations, and to study the interaction between Science and Technology. American organizations lead in the patents followed by European organizations. Derwent Biotechnology abstracts is found to be the most frequently used database for bibliometric analysis of biotechnology. Jabeen et al. [10] produced quantitative analysis, growth rates, and trends in global publications in the field of LIS produced by library science professionals based on Journal Citation Reports and Web of Science. There were 18, 371 articles were published in 40 core LIS journals during the period 2003 to The USA was on top with 7, 818 (43%) publications followed by UK and Canada. The top most productive LIS institution was Victoria University, New Zealand with 317 publications followed by University of Illinois (265 publications). Erfanmanesh et al. [11] investigated the world scientific productivity of LIS researchers, their visibility, and impact of their publications JoALS (2017) STM Journals All Rights Reserved Page 21

3 from a total 99, 789 documents published in 61 LIS journals which are extracted from Web of Science during There is no significant differences were found among frequencies of LIS publications in different years. The number of citations received by each LIS publications was 0.27 on average. More than 60% of LIS publications and about 40% of citations of LIS were made by US researchers. SCOPE OF THE STUDY The study is confined to the research output of Library and Information Science in African countries seen through Scopus during 1996 to There are total 57 countries in African continent out of which 37 countries are recorded in Scopus for LIS research and all are taken into account based on the number of research output in LIS. OBJECTIVES OF THE STUDY The objective of the study is to assess the research trends of Library and Information Science in African countries through scientometric methods. The specific objectives of the study are to: 1. Find the total extent of research output of LIS in African countries. 2. Examine the overall performance of African countries in LIS by the contribution of research output. 3. Find out the extent of citations, selfcitations, and citations per document for the research output of LIS in African countries. 4. Examine the overall performance of African countries in terms of citation analysis. 5. Find out the h-index of African countries in LIS research and assess their overall performance in terms h-index. METHODOLOGY The study is concerned with the scientometric analysis of LIS research output of African countries. We have consulted Scopus database for the purpose of collecting data from 1996 to The paper focuses mainly on the total number of research documents published, a total number of citable documents, total citations, self-citations; and the h-index of the African countries in LIS research. MS-Excel has been used for data collection, tabulation, processing, and analysis. DATA ANALYSIS AND INTERPRETATION Performance by Research Output The total research output includes the research output of African countries in LIS during the selected period. In this category, all types of research output are considered including citable research output and non-citable research output. Citable research output includes the number of citable research documents published by a journal in the previous years (selected year research documents are excluded). Non-citable research output can be obtained by the subtraction of citable research output from total research output. Basically, this is current year research output published by a journal. From the observation of Table 1, we can see the total research output of African countries in the field of LIS is 2, 648 research documents only as seen through Scopus during By the analysis of Table 1, it has been found that Nigeria is the highest productive country in LIS research with 906 research documents that are 34.21% share of a total of African countries. South Africa has contributed 779 research documents that are 29.41% share of a total of African countries. Nigeria and South Africa are leading countries in LIS research amongst African countries. Similarly, Botswana has contributed 145 (5.47%) research documents with the third rank followed by Tunisia (118 research documents, 4th rank), and Ghana (107 research documents, 5th rank) and so on. There are 15 countries, which have the research output range between 10 documents to 100 documents. Similarly, 17 countries have the research output range between 1 and 10 research documents. From African continent, about 77% LIS research has been contributed by five countries only whether as rest of the countries (32 countries) contributed only 23% of research during the study period. From the African countries, Nigeria is top LIS research contributor with 906 documents whereas South Africa is in 2nd position with 779 documents. JoALS (2017) STM Journals All Rights Reserved Page 22

4 Research Trends in Library and Information Science Maurya and Shukla Table 1: Research Output of African Countries in LIS Research with Ranking ( ). Country Total Research Output Citable Research Output Non-Citable Research Output Number % Rank Number % Rank Number % Rank Nigeria South Africa Botswana Tunisia Ghana Algeria Kenya Uganda Tanzania Ethiopia Morocco Zambia Namibia Malawi Swaziland Senegal Zimbabwe Sierra Leone Benin Mauritius Cameroon Sudan Libya Côte d Ivoire Mozambique Mali Burkina Faso Rwanda Niger Liberia Togo Lesotho Congo Mauritania Seychelles Congo Guinea Total From the observation of Table 1, there are 2, 580 citable research outputs (documents) in LIS for African countries as seen through Scopus during In the case of citable research output, Nigeria has the highest number of citable research documents (900) which 34.88% share of total citable research documents followed by South Africa (739 research documents, 28.64%). There have been very little and non-significant changes in ranking as well as a number of citable research output. Botswana, Tunisia, and Ghana have the similar rank for citable research output as compared to total research output. Again from the observation of Table 1, we have observed that there are 68 non-citable research outputs (documents) for African countries in the field of LIS as seen through Scopus during ; and only 13 African countries have noncitable research documents that are 2.56% of total research documents. South Africa is the highest number of non-citable research JoALS (2017) STM Journals All Rights Reserved Page 23

5 documents (40) that is 58.82% of total noncitable research documents followed by Nigeria (6 documents, 8.82%). Tunisia has 7.35% non-citable research documents (3 rd rank) and Tanzania is in 4th rank with 4.41% non-citable research documents whereas with 2.94% non-citable documents many African countries are in 5th rank. Performance by Citations to Research Output The citations data has been calculated by the number of citations received in the selected year by a journal to the documents published in the three previous years whereas selfcitations are a number of journal's selfcitations in the selected year to its own documents published in the three previous years. Citation per document is the average citations per document during the selected period. It is computed considering the number of citations received by a journal to the documents published during the study period. From Table 2, we can see the total citations to research documents of the African continent in the field of LIS is 9, 323 as seen through Scopus during On analysis, it has been found that South Africa is the highest citation receiving country with 4401 citations to research documents that are 47% share of total of African 25 countries, and so got first rank in African countries in terms of total citations received followed by Nigeria (2nd rank with 1762 citations), Botswana (3rd rank with 818 citations), Kenya (4th rank with 365 citations), Tanzania (5th rank with 318 citations) and so on. Top five countries of African continents have received more than 82% share of citations which indicates least research impact of other African countries in LIS field. Surprisingly, Nigeria has the higher number of research documents than South Africa but received less than half number of citations as compared to South Africa. Similarly, Botswana has less number of documents but received a higher number of citations as compared to Nigeria. Moreover, citations per document have also been calculated for each country and it ranged from 0 to 7.66 citations per document. In terms of citations per document Libya (7.66), Mali (5.66), South Africa (5.64), Botswana (5.64), Tanzania (5.57), Kenya (4.93), and Congo (4.0) are in top five countries whereas Nigeria (1.94) is comparatively very fewer citations per document than other countries. South Africa and Botswana have a similar number of citations per document for LIS research though South Africa has the highest number of citations than Botswana. Liberia and Mauritania have not received any citation for their research documents during 20 years of study period. There are 25 African countries having total citations less than 100 during 20 years of time span. Table 2 also displays the African countries self-citations to research documents in the field of LIS. There are total 1931 selfcitations, and out of that 80% self-citations share belongs to Nigeria and South Africa only. It shows that majority (80%) of selfcitations to research documents in the field of LIS were obtained by two countries whereas 20% self-citations to research documents were obtained by 35 countries of the African continent. There are 16 African countries that do not have any self-citations, so rest of the 19 African countries have 20% share of selfcitations. South Africa is leading in selfcitations with 44.12% share followed by Nigeria (36.19%), Botswana (4.24%), Algeria (2.22%), Ghana (1.96%), and Tunisia (1.86%). Further, self-citations per document have been calculated for each country and it ranged from 0 to South Africa (1.09), Malawi (0.8) and Nigeria (0.77) are in top 3 countries, in terms of self-citations per document ratio whereas 16 African countries do not have any self-citations per documents. Performance of African Countries by h- index The h-index was introduced by Hirsch [12] that measures the quality and sustainability of the impact of a researcher s publication. It is based on a researcher s lifetime citedness, which incorporates productivity as well as citation impact. The h index is approximately proportional to the square root of the total citation counts and linearly proportional to the total number of publications. JoALS (2017) STM Journals All Rights Reserved Page 24

6 Research Trends in Library and Information Science Maurya and Shukla Table 2: Citations to Research Output with Ranking of African Countries. Country Citations Self-Citations Number % of Citation per Rank as per Number % of Self Self-Citation per Rank as per Citations Document Citation Citations Document Self-Citation Nigeria South Africa Botswana Tunisia Ghana Algeria Kenya Uganda Tanzania Ethiopia Morocco Zambia Namibia Malawi Swaziland Senegal Zimbabwe Sierra Leone Benin Mauritius Cameroon Sudan Libya Côte d Ivoire Mozambique Mali Burkina Faso Rwanda Niger Liberia Togo Lesotho Congo Mauritania Seychelles Congo Guinea Total Table 3: Performance of African Countries by h-index. Country h-index Country h-index Country h-index South Africa 27 Senegal 5 Burkina Faso 1 Nigeria 15 Malawi 4 Rwanda 1 Botswana 14 Zimbabwe 4 Niger 1 Kenya 11 Benin 4 Togo 1 Ghana 9 Swaziland 3 Lesotho 1 Tanzania 9 Sierra Leone 3 Congo 1 Uganda 8 Mauritius 3 Seychelles 1 Ethiopia 7 Sudan 3 Congo 1 Morocco 7 Cameroon 2 Guinea 1 Tunisia 6 Libya 2 Liberia 0 Algeria 6 Côte d Ivoire 2 Mauritania 0 Zambia 6 Mozambique 2 Namibia 5 Mali 2 JoALS (2017) STM Journals All Rights Reserved Page 25

7 Table 3 displays the h-index for African countries as seen through Scopus in the field of LIS. The arrangement of the table is made from higher to lower h-index value recorded for every country by Scopus during In this regard, South Africa has the highest h-index (27) followed by Nigeria (15 h-index), Botswana (14 h-index), Kenya (11 h- index), Ghana and Tanzania (9 h-index), Uganda (8 h-index), Ethiopia and Morocco (7 h-index) and so on. There are 33 African countries those have h-index less than 10 including two countries without any h-index. Amongst 37 African countries, nine countries have 1 h-index while five countries have 2 h- index and totally 23 countries have less than 5 h-index. In terms of h-index performance of African countries, it has been an inference that LIS research is in poor condition amongst African countries except for South Africa, Nigeria, Botswana, and Kenya. FINDINGS OF THE STUDY 1. Nigeria has the highest research performance in LIS research amongst African countries in terms of total research output (34.21%) and citable research output (34.88%) followed by South Africa (29.41% and 28.64%, respectively) whereas in case of non-citable research output South Africa leads with 58.82% research documents followed by Nigeria (8.82%). 2. About 77% LIS research have been contributed by five African countries only whereas rest of the countries contributed only 23% of LIS research during the study period. 3. South Africa has received the highest number of citations (4401, 47.2% share of African countries) followed by Nigeria (18.89%), Botswana (8.77%) and Kenya (3.91%). 4. The top five countries of African continents have received more than 82% share of citations which indicates least research impact of other African countries in LIS field. 5. Nigeria has the highest number of research documents but received less than half number of citations as compared to South Africa. 6. Libya is having the highest rate of citations per document (7.66) amongst African countries followed by Mali, South Africa, Botswana, and Tanzania. 7. Nigeria has less number of citations per document (1.94) as compared to Libya, Mali, South Africa, Botswana, Tanzania, and Kenya. 8. South Africa has received the highest number of self-citations (852, 44.12% share of African countries) followed by Nigeria (36.19%), Botswana (4.24%) and Algeria (2.22%). About 80% self-citations share belongs to Nigeria and South Africa only. 9. In the case of self-citations per document, South Africa (1.09), Malawi (0.8) and Nigeria (0.77) are in top 3 whereas 16 African countries do not have any selfcitations per document. 10. South Africa is having the highest h-index value (27) for LIS research followed by Nigeria (15), Botswana (14), and Kenya (11) whereas Liberia and Mauritania do not have h-index value. Amongst 37 African countries, nine countries have 1 h- index value while five countries have 2 h- index value. 11. South Africa and Nigeria leads in LIS research amongst African countries. CONCLUSION Research trends in the field of LIS have been conducted by many scholars where it has been established that the United States and the United Kingdom have highest numbers of researches in the discipline since its emergence. The African continent is lagging behind in LIS research and present condition of African countries in LIS research is not better. African countries research output in LIS discipline found to be 2648 during 20 years of a long time and out of which 63% research contribution are made by Nigeria and South Africa only whereas rest of the countries are limited to 37% research output. Nigeria emerged as a leader in LIS research amongst African countries in terms of a total research output and citable research output whereas South Africa follows the same. Rest of the African countries has contributed very fewer research documents during 20 years of a long JoALS (2017) STM Journals All Rights Reserved Page 26

8 Research Trends in Library and Information Science Maurya and Shukla period. In the case of citations, there are 9323 citations for 2648 research output (documents) and on an average 3.52 citations per document are achieved. The majority of citations belong to South Africa and Nigeria only whereas rest of the countries shares less citation which indicates the lower research impact of LIS in the respective countries. Surprisingly, citation per document ratio is highest for Libya amongst African countries but in the case of research documents, Libya's productivity is very less. South Africa has a good number of citations compared to Nigeria that leads higher citation per document for South Africa than Nigeria. The h-index of African countries display the research impact of LIS research in world level and South Africa has the highest h-index value (27) for LIS research amongst African countries whereas Nigeria (15), Botswana (14) and Kenya (11) have remarkable h-index values. From the analysis of the whole study, it has been established that South Africa and Nigeria are leading countries in LIS research in African continent whereas rest of the African countries are far behind in LIS research. A study by Raju et al. (2013) indicates that African researchers face financial constraints to make their research open for public. This may be one of the reasons for lagging behind in LIS research by African countries but there is a lack of researches which proves the poor economic conditions of LIS researchers. If such researches will be conducted in future, it will be easy to correlate the financial constraints with less research output of LIS researchers of the African continent. REFERENCES 1. Raju DR, Smith I, Gibson H. Opening access to African scholarly content: Stellenbosch University s AOARI platforms. Insights. 2013; 26(1): 44 50p. 2. Kademani B, Sagar A, Surwasa G, et al. Publication trends in materials science: a global perspective. Scientometrics. 2013; 94: p. doi: /s Kostoff RN. Comparison of China / USA science and technology performance. J Informetrics. 2008; xxx(xxx-xxx): 1 10p. doi: /j.joi Larsen PO, Maye I, Ins MV. Scientific output and impact: Relative positions of China, Europe, India, Japan and the USA. In H. K. Havemann (Ed.), 4th International Conference on Webometrics, Informetrics and Scientometrics, 2008, (p. 9) Berlin. Retrieved from 0/ 5. Glanzel W, Debackere K, Meyer M. Triad or tetrad? On global changes in dynamic world. Scientometrics. 2008; 74(1): 71 88p. doi: /s Guan J, NanMa. A bibliometric study of China s semiconductor literature compared with other major Asian countries. Scientometrics. 2007; 70(1): p. 7. Sagar A, Kademani B, Kumar V. Scientometric mapping of mass Spectrometry research in nuclear science & technology: A global perspective. Proceedings of 12th ISMAS Symposium cum Workshop on Mass Spectrometry, 2007, (p. 16) Goa. 8. Zhou P, Leydesdorff L. The emergence of China as a leading nation in science. Res Policy. 2006; 35(1): p Robert D. Bibliometric analysis of biotechnology. Scientometrics. 2002; 55(2): p. 10. Jabeen M, Yun L, Muhammad R, et al. Research productivity of library scholars: Bibliometric analysis of growth and trends of LIS publications. New Lib World. 2015; 116(7/8): p. doi: /nlw Erfanmanesh MA, Didegah F, Omidvar S. Research productivity and impact of library and information science in the Web of Science. Malaysian J Lib Infor Sci. 2010; 15(3): 85 95p. 12. Hirsch JE. An index to quantify an individual s scientific research output. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, 2005; 102(46): p. JoALS (2017) STM Journals All Rights Reserved Page 27

9 13. Principles and Strategies for the Reform of Scholarly Communication 1. (n.d.). Retrieved May 20, 2017 from Association of College & Research Libraries (ACRL): papers/principlesstrategies Cite this Article Sanjay Kumar Maurya, Akhandanand Shukla. Research Trends in Library and Information Science in African Countries: A Scientometric Assessment. Journal of Advancements in Library Sciences. 2017; 4(2): 20 28p. JoALS (2017) STM Journals All Rights Reserved Page 28