The use of bibliometric in determining the scientific and social impact of research publications at the University of Ghana
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Date
2015-04-17
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University of Ghana
Abstract
The growing awareness of the importance of scientific research
demands that science is measured using indicators that are valid. One
of the validated tools for measuring scientific outputs is the use of
bibliometrics. Bibliometric is a quantitative tool used to analyse
scientific publication. The importance of bibliometric analysis hinges
on two factors. First, the notion that scientific publication is an
indicator of research output and secondly, the notion that citation
from research publications is an indicator of scientific impact on the
research community.
Based on data extracted from Scopus (Elsevier) on the overview of
publication output by subject area of the University of Ghana from
2009-2013, there is the indication that majority of the publications
captured are skewed towards the natural sciences. Also, critical
examination of the top 10 journals by number of articles from the
University of Ghana between 2009 -2013 shows a skewed towards the
natural sciences. This therefore affirms the position that most publications
from the University of Ghana in international bibliometric
databases comes from the natural sciences
It is based on these observations that this article proposes that the
usage of bibliometrics a lone to evaluate scientific outputs of researchers
and among different research fields at the University of Ghana
could lead to bias in research output assessment. The paper therefore
recommends two sub-group of bibliometric indicators for assessing
University of Ghana faculty members ' research outputs: internal
documents and international bibliometric database
Description
School of social sciences colloquium
Keywords
scientific research, Bibliometric, journals, University of Ghana