Omwoyo Bosire Onyancha

Knowledge production through collaborative research in sub-Saharan Africa: how much do countries contribute to each other's knowledge output and citation impact?

This paper examines co-authorship of research articles in Thomson Reuters citation indexes in order to assess knowledge co-production in selected sub-Saharan African countries. Two indicators, namely publications and citations, were analysed to establish the patterns of knowledge co-production and its scientific impact, respectively. The study found that knowledge production through collaborative research among sub-Saharan African countries is minimal and contributes only a small percentage when compared to collaboration between sub-Saharan African countries and their foreign counterparts. Similarly, the scientific impact of international collaboration was higher than that of continental collaboration. Countries belonging to the same geographic region contributed to each other’s knowledge production more frequently than they did to the countries outside their region. It is recommended that, for knowledge co-production in sub-Saharan Africa to improve, various measures such as encouraging student and staff exchange, hosting more regional conferences and encouraging research networks need to be put in place.

An informetric investigation of the relatedness of opportunistic infections to HIV/AIDS

This work presents preliminary findings of a broader content analysis study of the AIDS literature as published and reflected in key bibliographic databases. Specifically, this study focuses on the relatedness of the AIDS-defining diseases in persons with documented HIV infection--otherwise known as Opportunistic Infections (OIs)--to HIV/AIDS by measuring their strengths of association. Ultimately, the project aims at assisting researchers and other stakeholders to identify new research areas and the linkages among these areas in HIV/AIDS research and assist policy makers to map the dynamics of HIV/AIDS research in order to do research planning and formulate appropriate policies. Among many other objectives, the current study sought to test the hypothesis that, through the analysis of published articles, one could show the disease-gene relationship. Documents related to OIs and HIV/AIDS were retrieved and downloaded from the MEDLINE database. The co-word analysis algorithm was used to calculate the strength S of association between the descriptors (i.e. the OIs and HIV/AIDS). The findings of this study correlate with the general observation by medical practitioners as regards the common OIs in AIDS patients. Those infections that are said to be the most common in HIV-infected persons exhibited stronger associations than the less common infections. The strength of association was highest with pneumocystis carinii pneumonia (PCP) while it was lowest with Shigella. Whereas the association between the diseases and HIV/AIDS has weakened over the last two decades, relatively, there has been continued growth of literature, both on HIV/AIDS and OIs. Finally, this study strongly demonstrates the use of informetrics techniques in assessing the relatedness of a disease to the pathogens that are associated with it.

LIS research in Africa: how much is it worth? A citation analysis of the literature, 1986-2006

This paper examines library and information science (LIS) literature as produced and published by researchers in Africa in order to establish the productivity and impact of LIS research in the region. Using publication counts, and more specifically, citation analysis, the paper demonstrates that the research output and impact of LIS literature on the continent is relatively low when compared to other disciplines in Africa, such as social sciences. Correspondingly, the research forms a small percentage of both the national and world total LIS research output. A comparison of countries indicates that South Africa presently leads in terms of both research output and citations, and Nigeria and South Africa account for over 70% of the total number of Africas publications and citations. Other findings are discussed, in addition to recommendations for further research, and ways in which to improve the visibility of LIS research in Africa.

The marginalized knowledge: An informetric analysis of indigenous knowledge publications (1990-2004)

The paper analyses and demonstrates the application of informetrics by use of descriptive bibliometrics to determine the status and trend of Indigenous Knowledge (IK) development from 1990-2002. IK records published during that period have been analyzed by use of eight databases hosted by EBSCOHost and SABINET by document type, by growth of the literature over the period, by source where the document is published, by document affiliation, by subject domain, and by nature of authorship among others. A positive growth of IK is observed with strong representation in AGRICOLA database and recommendations are given for a follow up and further research. It is recognized that the paper could provide useful information for decision support in knowledge management in general and knowledge management in particular.

Information literacy education and instruction in academic libraries and LIS schools in institutions of higher education in South Africa

According to the Association for Progressive Communications [APC] (n.d.), Zimbabwe (90%) tops the list of countries with high literacy rates in Africa followed by Mauritius (85.3%), Equatorial Guinea (84.8%), Lesotho (84.4%), Namibia (83.3%), Congo (Brazzaville) (82.8), South Africa (82.4%), Libya (81.7%), and Swaziland (80.9%). Countries with low literacy rates include Niger (17.1%), Burkina Faso (25.7%), Gambia (38.9%), Benin (39%), Senegal (39%), Guinea Bissau (41%), Ethiopia (41.5%), Angola (42%), and Chad (45.8%). It is noteworthy, however, that literacy statistics are, in most cases, grossly unreliable and therefore should be treated with caution. The most important aspect is how literacy is defined in a particular context. That notwithstanding, the statistics indicate that South Africa’s literacy rate is relatively high. Nevertheless, it has been observed that the country’s functionally illiterate adults are on the increase (Aitchison & Harley 2006) as shown in Table 1. We believe that the low functional literacy rates, in sub-Saharan Africa in general and South Africa in particular, profoundly impact on the information literacy skills of the general population. Functional literacy refers to the reading and writing skills sufficient for everyday life, which implies that the less skilled the population is in reading and writing, the less

Can information ethics be conceptualized by using the core/periphery model?

The term ‘information ethics’ (IE) is rapidly diversifying as new technologies enter the milieu and add to already existing ‘entanglements’. Unsurprisingly, the term lacks a universally accepted definition, although there is some common ground as to its constitution. This paper explores the term using the most commonly co-occurring terms in IE literature as indexed in nine databases, namely the EBSCO-hosted Academic Search Premier (ASP); Communication and Mass Media Complete; ERIC; Library, Information Science and Technology Abstracts (LISTA); Newspaper Complete; Business Premier; and Master File Premier, and Wilsons Library Literature and Information Science (LLIS) Full Text. Core/periphery analysis, the co-occurrence of words as subject terms, and social network techniques were applied using UCINET for Windows, text STAT and Bibexcel computer-aided software to analyze data. The paper identifies the most common terms used to describe IE and the core terms with which IE can be defined. Other than informing LIS research and education, the results could potentially assist with the development of IE taxonomy and definitions (e.g. in understanding IE content and development) that may apply to the intercultural and global understanding of IE.

Country-wise collaborations in HIV/ AIDS research in Kenya and South Africa, 1980-2005

This study uses co-word and factor analyses to identify and measure country collaborations between Kenya and South Africa and their respective country collaborators. Using the widely accepted indicator of research collaboration, co-authorship of papers, the study used three measurement indicators, namely, the Eigenvectors/scores, the collaboration coefficients (CC) and the strengths ( S ) of term association to identify key collaborators and evaluate their degree and strengths of collaboration over time. The influence of research collaboration on research impact in Kenya and South Africa was also explored. Results indicate that the two countries largely collaborate with foreign countries, with the USA emerging as the strongest collaborator. Kenya exhibited stronger links with foreign countries while South Africa had much of its papers published through internal collaborations. There have been shifts in research partnerships in the two countries. From the standpoint of impact, Kenyas papers produced a higher average impact than South Africas papers. Co-authored papers yielded a higher average impact than the single-authored papers, thereby providing a strong argument for encouraging research collaboration not only within the countries but internationally.

An informetric analysis of the corruption literaturebased on Africa between 1990 and 200 I

This paper explores corruption literature as reflected in four online databases in the 12-year period from 1990 to 200 I. Descriptive informetrics has been used for the analysis of the publications. The results of the study indicate that there was a remarkable increase in the number of articles from just nine in 1990 to 78 in 1999, followed by a decline in both 2000 and 200 I. Although there seems to be a relationship between the number of articles and the level of corruption. the 0.370 correlation value is not significant to warrant a definite conclusion. EBSeO and its databases produced 90.3% while 151yielded only 9.7%. Magazines yielded 74.1 % of the records, and journals 25.9%. The researchers concentrated more on political corruption as opposed to administrative corruption. It was also observed that single authorship of publications on corruption stood at 76.4% for journals and 56.7% for magazines, while co-authored articles constituted 15.5% of journal articles and 8.5% of the magazine articles. Whereas Lotkas Law of Author Productivity applied as far as its theoretical observation is concerned, it does not apply statistically. The applicability of Bradfords Law of Scattering was confirmed.

Growth, productivity, and scientific impact of sources of HIV/AIDS research information, with a focus on eastern and southern Africa

As channels of communicating HIV/AIDS research information, serial publications and particularly journals are increasingly used in response to the pandemic. The last few decades have witnessed a proliferation of sources of HIV/AIDS-related information, bringing many challenges to collection-development librarians as well as to researchers. This study uses an informetric approach to examine the growth, productivity and scientific impact of these sources, during the period 1980 to 2005, and especially to measure performance in the publication and dissemination of HIV/AIDS research about or from eastern or southern Africa. Data were collected from MEDLINE, Science Citation Index (SCI), Social Sciences Citation Index (SSCI), and Ulrichs Periodical Directory. The analysis used Sitkis version 1.5, Microsoft Office Access, Microsoft Office Excel, Bibexcel, and Citespace version 2.0.1. The specific objectives were to identify the number of sources of HIV/AIDS-related information that have been published in the r...

Authorship patterns of the literature on HIV / AIDS in Eastern and Southern Africa : an exposition of the responsible authors, institutions and countries, 1980-2005

Research is commonly evaluated through an analysis of research outputs (i.e. theses and dissertations, papers in scholarly journals and conference proceedings, etc.) and research outcomes (i.e. new discoveries, Nobel prize winners, graduating students, new developments of drugs, etc.) using research units (e.g. persons or bodies responsible, sources in which the findings are published, medium of communication, nature of information conveyed, timing and frequency with which information is conveyed, amount of information conveyed, etc). Some of the methods of research evaluation that have been proposed and are commonly used include peer-review and informetric approaches. This paper reports findings of an informetric study of HIV / AIDS literature published by and on Eastern and Southern Africa in order to find out the number of countries engaged in the publication of HIV / AIDS literature; the most productive authors, institutions and countries; and the countries in which the literature is published. A comparison is made between regional (i.e. African) and foreign (or international) productivity. Results indicate that foreign authorship dominates the scene and that majority of the publications are published in foreign countries. The implications of this pattern of publication for researchers based in Africa are discussed. Finally, recommendations based on the findings are provided.