An Assessment of Scholarly Contributions and Web Visibility among Scientists of CSIR-Building and Road Research Institute, Ghana

N A Mingle,D L Acheampong,N K Achampong

doi:10.4314/gjs.v61i2.2

Abstract

The introduction of the internet has revolutionized the dissemination and assessment of research outputs with renewed emphasis on the impact of scholarly publications. The purpose of this study was to measure scholarly presence and citation impact of research scientists of the Building and Road Research Institute (CSIR-BRRI) on the internet. Bibliometrics was employed as a quantitative research method for this study using Google Scholar. The results showed that majority (77.5%) of scientists had at least one scholarly reference on the internet. It also found that, almost all (96.5%) scientists who had scholarly works online showed affiliation to the CSIR-BRRI. Again, it was observed that most mentions/hits were journal publications (59%) followed by thesis (35%). However, the study found that there was a weak positive relationship between number of journal articles and citations online, a clear indication that a web presence does not automatically reflect the usefulness of a scholarly output. It is recommended that scientists identify and research into globally relevant topics and also publish in reputable journals to enhance their visibility.

Highlights

Measures and scales of assessment have been used in all spheres of life and academia is no exception
In assessing the web visibility of scientists at the CSIR-Building and Road Research Institute (BRRI), four main research questions were studied: Are scientists of the CSIRBRRI visible online as authors of scientific publications? Which forms of publishing are the scientists of the CSIR-BRRI using? And, what impact are the CSIR-BRRI scientists making in their fields of study? On the average, ten (10) separate publications often appeared on the first search page and this formed the basis for assessment of the scientist
The purpose of this study was to assess whether the CSIR-BRRI scientists were visible on the internet via Google Scholar

Summary

Introduction

Measures and scales of assessment have been used in all spheres of life and academia is no exception. In academia, publishing is one of the major determinants of “who is who.” It is the measure of a person’s scholarly output and is often used as a standard for promotion, hiring and tenure (Moher et al, 2016). Universities and research institutions have assessed the performance of academic/faculty and research staff based on the scholarly output of their employees. Reputation in scholarly publishing is considered a measure of how a scholar/ scientist is regarded among peers or colleagues in the same subject area (Hermann, 2018). It is often determined by the number of research publications and novel contributions to a scientists’ area of research.

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Conclusion