PROBLEMS AND OUTLOOK OF RESEARCH ACTIVITIES IN KAZAKHSTAN

Abstract

Performance evaluation of scientific work on regional and individual levels can be achieved by the using scientometric methods of a quantitative analysis of bibliographic information available in such databases as Science Citation Index (SCI). Unfortunately, Kazakhstan scientific journals have not been included yet in the Thomson Reuters Corp. register of periodicals, that substantially distorts the actual national scientometric indexes. The analysis of Database “National Citation Reports” (Kazakhstan), which correlated with a contribution of Kazakhstan into the world science development, has shown the low level of research activities of Kazakhstan scientists on international arena. So, the share of international publications of Kazakhstan in the global flow is equal to 0,021 % (1044 doc.) that corresponds to the 87th place in the general list of countries of 177 names. Subject to the ranking of countries into groups by the number of the published works, Kazakhstan is referring to the group of 46 countries having 1000-10000 publications over 5 years, of which 8,6% in  medicine. In this article the use of statistics and appropriate software by the authors of original articles in such journals as recommended by the Kazakh National Centre for Scientific & Technical Expertise (NCSTE) and included in the Database еlibrary.kz was evaluated. Research was conducted according to Research Report, due to which a research design and statistical analysis methods were estimated.  In the rating of the research design, the authors of articles mostly used as follows: description of a series of cases–63,2%, description of the individual cases -27,1%, and description of specific cases–9,1%. A scope of selection in Section “Research Methods” was only calculated in 21,8% of cases, and in 63,9% of cases there was no description how the selection was carried out. Methods of analytical statistics were used in the 46,0% of cases. And there were references to the program package in use only in 17,5% of works. Thus shown that non-compliance with international standards in the preparation of scientific papers, primarily statistical requirements directly affect the quality and ratings of domestic articles.