“African scholarly research is relatively invisible for three primary reasons:
- While research production on the continent is growing in absolute terms, it is falling in comparative terms (especially as other Southern countries such as China ramp up research production), reducing its relative visibility.
- Traditional metrics of visibility (especially the ISI/WoS Impact Factor) which measure only formal scholar-to-scholar outputs (journal articles and books) fail to make legible a vast amount of African scholarly production, thus underestimating the amount of research activity on the continent.
- Many African universities do not take a strategic approach to scholarly communication, nor utilise appropriate information and communications technologies (ICTs) and Web 2.0 technologies to broaden the reach of their scholars’ work or curate it for future generations, thus inadvertently minimising the impact and visibility of African research.”
“To optimise scholarly communication at Southern African universities, there are four stakeholders that can play a dynamic role in improving universities’ dissemination activity: national governments, university administrations, university academics and research funding agencies. Each of these groups contributes to research and communication practices at the institution, thereby impacting the potential visibility of Southern African scholars’ research outputs. In this chapter, we provide recommendations
tailored to each of these stakeholders with a focus on enhancing research production, open dissemination and regional collaborative opportunities.”
URL : Seeking Impact and Visibility
Alternative URL : http://www.africanminds.co.za/wp-content/uploads/2014/05/9781920677510-content2.pdf