Bibliometric analysis of Nigeria's social science and arts and humanities publications in Thomson Scientific databases
| DOI | https://doi.org/10.1108/02640471111156722 |
| Date | 09 August 2011 |
| Published date | 09 August 2011 |
| Pages | 438-456 |
| Author | Williams Nwagwu,Osakioduwa Egbon |
| Subject Matter | Information & knowledge management,Library & information science |
Bibliometric analysis of Nigeria’s
social science and arts and
humanities publications in
Thomson Scientific databases
Williams Nwagwu
Africa Regional Centre for Information Science, University of Ibadan, Ibadan,
Nigeria, and
Osakioduwa Egbon
Nigerian Institute for Oil Palm Research, Benin City, Nigeria
Abstract
Purpose – This paper seeks to analyse publications on Nigeria indexed in Arts and Humanities
Citation Index (AHCI) and Social Science Citation Index (SSCI) of Thomson Scientific databases
respectively to understand the international perspective of aspects of research publication dynamics in
both fields.
Design/methodology/approach – Data covering the period 2002-2007 were collected from the SSCI
and AHCI of the Web of Science, an online service of Thomson Scientific in June 2008.
Findings – SSCI and AHCI indexed a total of 716 publications on Nigeria, 634 and 82 respectively.
Paper production in each of these fields rose during 2002 to 2004 and 2005 respectively, and then
started dropping. The publications received a total of 1,371 citations; the 82 AHCI documents received
only six citations, while the 634 SSCI publications received 1,366 citations, equivalent to means of 0.06
and 2.15 citations per AHCI and SSCI document respectively. Only 6.1 per cent of the AHCI documents
were cited compared with 46.7 per cent of SSCI publications; but citation of social science papers was
consistently on the increase, while citation of arts and humanities publications, flattened in 200
humanities, was consistently on the increase. In both fields, article type of papers written in English
dominated.
Research limitations/implications – This research covers only a period of six years; a fuller
picture would be obtained with a longer period.
Practical implications – Publications in sources listed in international databases could illustrate
the extent to which Nigerian scholars have addressed issues of global relevance.
Originality/value – The paper uncovers the international status and perspective of Nigerian
publications in social science and arts and humanities disciplines.
Keywords Bibliographies,Arts and humanities citation index, Socialscience citation index,
Citation analysis,Nigeria, Bibliometric analysis,Databases
Paper type Research paper
Introduction
Publications mainly in the forms of refereed journal articles and scholarly monographs
have since become accepted as definitive evidence of research endeavours of scientists
all over the world. A collection of publications can therefore be analysed to determine
the size and nature of research carried out to measure global, regional, national, and,
individual, group and institutional practices and trends (ISI, 1999). Based on the
foregoing realisation, scientists have embarked on analysis of publications to
The current issue and full text archive of this journal is available at
www.emeraldinsight.com/0264-0473.htm
EL
29,4
438
Received December 2009
Revised January 2010
Accepted February 2010
The Electronic Library
Vol. 29 No. 4, 2011
pp. 438-456
qEmerald Group Publishing Limited
0264-0473
DOI 10.1108/02640471111156722
understand the nature and complexity of research activities. Besides the production of
the publications, it is also important to understand whether the publications are
informing or influencing research among those for whom they are written. Popularly
known as citation analysis, the usefulness and by implication quality or impact of
publications can be measured by the number of subsequent publications that make
reference or link to them.
The global structure of production and use of scientific publications has always
raised some questions about the status of science in Africa. For instance, do scientists
in Africa actually do research? Where and in what journals are their researches
published? And what is the quality of the journals where these publications appear?
Ideally, addressing these questions should require access to a comprehensiv e evidence
of research from the country. Practically, however, infrastructures that could give this
picture do not exist (Nwagwu, 2006), and existing international databases adopt source
selection processes which are undemocratic at a global level, and they leave out much
of the research outputs of scholars from the developing regions. This may explain
some studies that suggest that research is almost completely absen t in Africa, and that
they are seldom read by anyone, when, and if they are done. There are other studies
that suggest that little research is being done, and that little of the research done is
used. For instance, Pouris and Pouris (2007) showed that Africa contributed only 1.8
per cent of the world’s scientific publications during 2002-2004, based on Thomson
Scientific indexing services. This very popular index and its Journal Citation Reports
might be reflecting merely the global perception and assessment of science
performance, but they also probably give some insight about the condition of
science in the Africa region. It is known that these databases have continuously
excluded many journals from developing regions in the global publication data they
produce because those journals are considered to be of low standard (Nwagwu, 2006).
Worsened by the absence of similar indexing services in the region, as well as lack of
expression of consciousness about the significance of metric approaches to research
evaluation, most publication analysis of science in the world makes only a passive
reference to publications in Africa and many other developing regions.
Gradually, however, African journals seem to be increasing in their significanc e
considering their increasing presence in Thomson Scientific databases. In 2008, 21 of 3
per cent of Thomson Scientific list of 700 new journals considered worthy to make their
databases were published in Africa. Kenya and Nigeria contributed one journal each
while 19 originated from South Africa. Although this contribution is still relatively
very low, it is a positive departure from the records of the past years where ISI only
indexed 28 African journals up and until 2006 (Onyancha, 2009).
In this paper, publications on Nigeria in the fields of social sciences and arts and
humanities listed in Thomson Scientific databases are analysed to understand the
international status, and uncover international viewpoint of research publication
dynamics in both fields. To achieve this, the number and type of publications, the
sources/channels of the publications and their publishers and locations, as well as
authorship size, page volume and number of references of social science and arts and
humanities publications on Nigeria are analysed. Publications in sources listed in
international databases could illustrate the extent to which Nigerian scholars in the
various disciplines have addressed issues of global relevance. International research
activity is a rapidly growing component of core research activity for all countries
Bibliometric
analysis
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