Bibliometric analysis of Ghana publications

in the Science Citation Index Expanded

Peter Osei Boamah1 & Yuh-Shan Ho2*

1. Department of Ecological Agriculture, Bolgatanga Polytechnic, Bolgatanga, Ghana; pierrodecota@hotmail.com

2. Trend Research Centre, Asia University, Taichung 41354, Taiwan; ysho@asia.edu.tw

* Correspondence

Received 08-viii-2017. Corrected 26-X-2017. Accepted 22-xi-2017.

Abstract: Ghana is a West African country for which apparently there are limited scientometric studies. The objective of this study was to analyze the Ghanaian contribution to knowledge captured in the Thomson Reuters Science Citation Index Expanded (SCI-EXPANDED) database from 1936 - 2016. The following data were analyzed: document type, the language of publication, publication trend, Web of Science Subject Categories, Journals, international collaboration, institutions, authors, and highly cited articles. Indicators such as the total number of articles, first author articles, and corresponding author articles were applied to compare publication performance for collaborative countries and institutions. Also, number of single institute articles: number of nationally collaborative articles: number of internationally collaborative articles (S : N : I) were also used to compare publication characteristics of institutions in Ghana. Results showed that publication trend increased from 1998 to 2015, with researches focusing on health and medicine. PLoS One was the top productive journal, and the most collaborative country for Ghana articles was the USA. Contributions from the University of Ghana were ranked the top one institution for Ghana articles, and higher citation papers were found in international collaborations. In conclusion, the contribution to knowledge of Ghanaian authors is massive in the areas of public, environmental and occupational health and tropical medicine but the impact factor is higher for immunology, infectious diseases, and microbiology articles. Therefore, Ghanaian authors are encouraged to publish more articles in high impact factor journals with Thomson Reuters Scientific indexing in order to have their researches recognized by the existing international databases. Rev. Biol. Trop. 66(1): 106-121. Epub 2018 March 01.

Key words: Ghana; SCI-EXPANDED; Web of Science; research trends; collaborations.

Science Citation Index (SCI) was known in the science community in 1955, and it is currently the cutting-edge tool to facilitate the dissemination and retrieval of scientific literature (Garfield, 2006). The SCI’s multidisciplinary catalogue is to achieve two objectives: i) to identify what each scientist have published, and ii) where and how often the papers by the scientist are cited (Garfield, 2007). For this reason, the author-based part in SCI journals is divided into the Source Author Index and the citation index. By inference, one can also determine what each institution and country has published, and how often their papers are cited. Web of Science (WoS) which is the SCI-EXPANDED’s electronic version can link the source author index and the citation index, and this way, author’s publication can be listed by chronology, by the journal, or by citation frequency using WoS. Furthermore, it is possible to search for scientists who have published over a given period of years using the mentioned tool (Garfield, 2009). Based on the above realization, scientists have embarked on bibliometric analysis to understand the nature and complexity of research activities.

Bibliometric analysis is therefore defined as the quantitative study of science, communication in science, and science policy (Sam, 2008; Milojević & Leydesdorff, 2013). It has been employed universally for quantification and assessment of the research output of researchers, research institution, academic institutions and countries (Aswathy & Gopikuttan, 2013; Noruzi & Abdekhoda, 2014). Generally, bibliometric analysis results are used for ranking, awarding, budgeting, and defining research priorities (Fakhree & Jouyban, 2011). Intellectually, publications are often regarded as those that the writers have in its scholastic, or the intellectual society and their publications are managed by renowned bodies with academic ambitions and task (Alemna, 2016). It additionally mentions that learned publications do not only offer research results thereby moving forward new facts, but their contents are subjected to careful inquiry by professionals in a given field.

Recently, peer-reviewed journals using Thomson Reuters Scientific indexing services have since become accepted as definitive evidence of research endeavors of scientists all over the world (Nwagwu & Egbon, 2011). The authors mentioned that the position of science in Africa has always been queried. They posed the following questions in their paper: i) Do scientists in Africa do research?, ii) Where and in what journals are their researches published?, and iii) What is the quality of the journals where these publications appear? Frankly, responding to the above queries require the availability of detailed evidence of research from the country in question. On the other hand, local databases infrastructures to give this picture do not exist, and current international databases are also unfair in the source selection processes. They generally leave out a lot of research outputs of researchers from the developing regions (Nwagwu & Egbon, 2011). This has gingered researchers from Africa to publish in journals with Thomson Reuters Scientific indexing services, in order to have their researches recognized by the existing international databases, and this has been executed perfectly well via research collaboration.

The whole of Africa’s research collaboration pattern, both regarding countries and cities, has been distinguished into three separate scientific regions, namely Northern, Western, and Southern-Eastern (Toivanen & Ponomariov, 2011). For comparison purpose, Africa’s contribution to the worldwide research literature has been computed (Tijssen, 2007). The scientific production component in the Southern Africa Development Community (SADC) was dealt with in this literature (Pouris, 2010). It was found in the literature that South Africa is responsible for 79 % of the regional production (Pouris & Pouris, 2009). They reported the results of an effort to calculate scientometric indicators-research publications and patents- for the African Continent, compared them with those of other regions and discussed their implications. Collaboration ties in Central Africa’s scientific output revealed that colonial and cultural ties play a major role in the international collaboration (Boshoff, 2009). Further research dealt with collaboration among the SADC countries as well as with the rest of Africa. It was concluded that South Africa acted as the political North, i.e., it dominated the regional scientific research (Boshoff, 2010).

Latest research works on bibliometric studies in Ghana include: Research focus and trends in nuclear science and technology in Ghana: A bibliometric study based on the INIS database (Agyeman & Bilson, 2015); a scientometric analysis of research performance of Ghanaian polytechnics (Lomatey, Abledu, Baayel, Akussah, & Botchway, 2016); research collaboration in Ghana: patterns, motives and roles (Owusu-Nimo & Boshoff, 2017). However, among these bibliometric studies presented so far, there is no comprehensive bibliometric analysis of Ghana publications in the Science Citation Index Expanded (SCI-EXPANDED) from 1936-2015. This research will, therefore, provide the following: names of authors, title, year of publication, source journals publishing the articles, contact address, and each year citation times for every publication in SCI-EXPANDED.

MATERIALS AND METHODS

Science Citation Index Expanded (SCI-EXPANDED) of Web of Science Core Collection of Thomson Reuters was used to collect the bibliographic data (Data last updated: July12th, 2016). An advanced search was conducted for documents with the phrase “Ghana” in the country field. Initially, 9 364 publications were identified, and these documents were published between 1958 and 2015. Document information included names of authors, title, year of publication, source journals publishing the articles, contact address, and each year citation times for every publication were downloaded into Microsoft Excel 2013, and additional coding was manually performed for origin country and institute of the collaborators, and impact factors of the publishing journals (Li & Ho, 2008). Besides, the reported impact factor (IF2015) of each journal was obtained from the 2015 Journal Citation Report (JCR). The total number of times a document cited from the Web of Science Core Collection since its publication to the end of 2015 was recorded as TC2015 (Chuang, Wang, & Ho, 2011; Wang, Fu, & Ho, 2011). Likewise, C2015, the total number of citations of a paper in 2015 only (Ho, 2012) were employed to characterize Ghana publications. Also, the citations per total publications (TP) since publication (CPP2015 = TC2015/TP), was also used (Ho & Ho, 2015). Articles originating from England, Scotland, Northern Ireland, and Wales were reclassified as originating from the United Kingdom (UK). Affiliations in Hong Kong before 1997 were included in the China category, but as a separate region for consistency. Affiliations in Federal Republic of Germany (Fed Rep Ger), West Germany, Germany Democratic Republic and East Germany were checked to be in Germany (Ho, 2012). Affiliations in People’s Republic of the Congo (Congo People Rep) and Republic of the Congo (Rep Congo) were checked to be in Republic of the Congo (Congo). Affiliations in Zaire were checked to be in Democratic Republic of the Congo (Dem Rep Congo) (Chuang, Chuang, Ho, & Ho, 2011). Affiliations in UKSSR were checked to be in Ukraine. Affiliations in Czechoslovakia were checked to be in Czech Republic (Czech Republic) (Ho, 2013). Affiliations in Greenland were checked to be in Denmark.

RESULTS AND DISCUSSION

Document type and language of publication: The distribution of the document type and language of publications identified by WoS were analyzed. Comparison of document types and their TCyear and CPPyear has been reported (Chuang, Olaiya, & Ho, 2012). A total of 9 364 Ghana publications with 13 document types in the SCI-EXPANDED from 1 958 to 2015 were found. Document type of review had the highest CPP2015 of 23 followed by proceedings paper with CPP2015 of 16. Article (7 375) was the most-frequently used document type comprising 79 % of the total publications, followed distantly by meeting abstracts (1 112; 12 %), letters (229; 2.4 %), editorial materials (220; 2.3 %), reviews (216; 2.3 %), proceedings papers (181; 1.9 %), and notes (147; 1.6 %). The others showing less significance were corrections (28; 0.30 %), news items (23; 0.25 %), book chapters (6; 0.064 %), book reviews (6; 0.064 %), discussion (5; 0.053 %), and reprints (3; 0.032 %). Similar results can also be found in tropical countries in Central America, for example, Costa Rica (Monge-Nájera & Ho, 2012) and Panama (Monge-Nájera & Ho, 2015) published 79 % and 82 % of full-length articles of the total publications, respectively. Journal articles were used for further analysis because they represented the majority of document types that also included whole research ideas and results (Ho, Satoh, & Lin, 2010).

The lucid dominance of full articles over other types of documents was not shocking, since Ghanaian researchers/lecturers are promoted based on number of full articles published in refereed journals and working experience. This enhances the salaries of the researchers, thus discouraging other types of work such as meeting abstracts, letters, editorial materials, reviews, proceedings papers, and notes.

An internationally collaborative review entitled “Allergic rhinitis and its impact on asthma (ARIA) 2008” (Bousquet et al., 2008) by 96 authors from 99 institutions in 40 countries was the most cited review with TC2015 of 1 316. This is the only one review with TC2015 > 1 000 in Ghana. Similarly, an editorial material entitled “Malaria: current status of control, diagnosis, treatment, and a proposed agenda for research and development” (Guerin et al., 2002) by nine authors from seven institutions in six countries was the most cited editorial material with TC2015 of 196.

Altogether, 7 375 articles were extracted from the 9 364 documents for further analyses. Almost all articles were published in English (7 358 articles; 99.76 % of 7 375 articles), 10 in French and seven in German. Nearly all Ghanaians speak English because Ghana was colonized by the British, and that is reflected in the number of papers published in English. The second reason for publishing in English was to reach a wider readership (Monge-Nájera & Ho, 2012). French was the second largest group of publishers (0.14 %) and this was not shocking, because Ghana is surrounded by three Francophone countries such as Togo, Burkina Faso, and Ivory Coast. The third largest group was German (0.10 %), which reflects the number of Ghanaian researchers who obtain their university degrees from the Federal Republic of Germany due to important scholarships such as DAAD and KAAD.

Publication year: In order to study publication year, total number of articles (TP), number of authors (AU), number of cited references (NR), and their averages were captured in accordance with Ho’s group publications (Ho, 2007; Wambu & Ho, 2016). Characteristics of Ghana articles in SCI-EXPANDED from 1958 to 2015 are shown in Table 1. A total of 7 375 Ghana articles were published in journals listed in SCI-EXPANDED, with an average of four authors in a publication. Total number of papers was in single digit from 1958-1971, and it rose to double digits from 1972-1995 and finally to triple digits from 1996-2015. The increase in the number of papers in SCI-EXPANDED journals by Ghanaian authors could be as a result of teaching and research institutions existence in Ghana as well as the local and international financial support.

In recent years, Ho proposed a relationship between classic articles and their citations per publication (CPPyear = TCyear/TP) by years (Ho, 2013). It was also applied to highly cited publications in Taiwan (Chuang & Ho, 2015) and publications in dance field (Ho & Ho, 2015). Fig. 1 shows the mentioned relationships which indicate that there is no significant change in the first period from 1958 to 1972 and 1973 to 1996, respectively. In 1958, T. W. Tinsley and co-workers from West African Cocoa Research Institute in Ghana published three earliest Ghana articles about viruses and cacao in Annals of Applied Biology (Attafuah & Tinsley, 1958; Knight & Tinsley, 1958; Tinsley & Wharton, 1958). In the third period from 1997 to 2015, publication trend increased from 123 articles to 794 articles. The significant increase in publication trend in the third period was expected, because most of the research-performing institutions in Ghana were established after the independence, and that accounted for the increase in the publication trend (Owusu-Nimo & Boshoff, 2017).

The CPP2015 for 7 375 Ghana articles was 13. An extremely high CPP2015 was found in 1967 with 44, attributed to the only one article in 1967, entitled “Tongue root position in Akan Vowell harmony” (Stewart, 1967). This was not surprising at all because it was mentioned in the paper that the Akan (Twi-Fante) language shares with a multitude of other African languages a type of vowel harmony which is apparently found nowhere outside Africa. Also, the vowels of these languages always, it seems, fall into two harmonizing sets, one of which has relatively high and the other relatively low tongue positions, and consequently many writers have seen relative tongue height as the articulatory basis of the harmony. Furthermore, our search shows that the Akan language is studied in major universities in the United States, including Ohio University, Ohio State University, University of Wisconsin, Harvard University, Boston University, Indiana University, Michigan University, and The University of Florida, and this could have also attributed to extremely high CPP2015 that was found in 1967.

Web of Science subject categories and journals: To study Web of Science subject categories, we followed literature which focuses on a country (Monge-Nájera & Ho, 2012, 2015). According to Journal Citation Reports (JCR) in 2015, there were 177 Web of Science categories in SCI-EXPANDED. Ghana articles were published across 173 Web of Science categories, but no articles in categories of andrology (5 journals), microscopy (10 journals), neuroimaging (14 journals), and ocean engineering (14 journals). Fig. 2 shows top 15 productive categories and number of journals in each category. Category of public, environmental and occupation health, had the highest total articles (976) followed by tropical medicine (780) and then environmental sciences followed with 543. Authors in Ghana were active in tropical medicine in which there were only 19 journals. Similarly, tropical countries in Central America, for example, Nicaragua (Monge-Nájera & Ho, 2017a) and Honduras (Monge-Nájera & Ho, 2017b) also published the most articles in category of public, environmental and occupation health, but Costa Rica (Monge-Nájera & Ho, 2012) and Panama (Monge-Nájera & Ho, 2015) paid more attention to plant sciences.

In total, 7 375 Ghana articles were published in 1 917 journals in SCI-EXPANDED. Table 2 shows the distribution of articles in the top 10 journals. The value of the indicator IF2015 for each journal was obtained from JCR for 2015. The journal with the most published articles was PLoS One which published 193 articles, 2.6 % of all analyzed articles. PLoS One fell into the category of multidisciplinary sciences and had an IF2015 of 3.057. The second position was Malaria Journal with 141 published articles (1.9 %) in Web of Science categories of infectious diseases, parasitology, and tropical medicine with IF2015 of 3.079. It was followed by Tropical Medicine and International Health. Five of the 10 journals in Table 2 were in the Web of Science category of public, environmental and occupational health. Four journals were in category of tropical medicine. This was not surprising since most of the avid Ghanaian writers were with the health research institutions. Researchers in the medical field were able to attract funding from local and international donors, and they are required to publish their findings in SCI-EXPANDED journals with wider readership.

International collaboration: In total, 5 038 Ghana articles (68 % of 7 375 articles) were internationally collaborative articles with 172 countries. Table 3 shows the distribution of the top 20 collaborative countries with Ghana. The most productive countries according to the number of published articles in collaboration with Ghanaian researchers were USA and UK, but there were more published articles by Ghanaian researchers with USA researchers playing the leading role (FP and RP). However, percentage of articles with leading role by Ghanaian researchers is pretty low for all shown countries. It is worth noting that South Africa being an African country, was the fifth country among the top 20 collaborative countries for Ghana articles in the Science Citation Index Expanded (1958~2015) (Table 3). Among the top 20 countries only Burkina Faso shares boundary with Ghana. More collaboration with non-adjacent countries such as USA and UK than neighbouring countries can be explained with economic and social development, research and development expenditure of these countries (Owusu-Nimo & Boshoff, 2017). Also, most researchers from Ghana went to American and European universities to study, and that accounted for the high collaboration with those countries (Monge-Nájera & Ho, 2012).

Institutions: The national (590 articles; 8.0 % of 7 375 articles) and internationally collaborative articles (5 038; 68 %) with Ghana were considered as the inter-institutional collaboration (5 628; 76 %). Indicators such as total number of articles, TP, first author articles, FP, and corresponding author articles, RP, have been presented to evaluate publication performance (Wang, Yu, & Ho, 2010). Furthermore, an indicator SNI, a proportion of single institution articles: nationally collaborative articles: internationally collaborative articles (S:N:I) was applied to compare and describe institutions’ publication characteristics (Ho & Fu, 2016). Table 4 shows the top 10 institutions for Ghana articles in the Science Citation Index Expanded. Researchers affiliated to those ten institutions published 69 % of all 7 375 analyzed articles. University of Ghana took the first position in indicators of TP, FP, and RP. The University of Ghana is the oldest university in this country, and one of the first to have been established in West Africa; it was established in 1948 and now offers degree programmes on varied broad disciplines such as health sciences, engineering sciences, natural sciences, nuclear and allied sciences, agricultural sciences, humanities, law, business, social sciences and performing arts. During the period 1958-2015, University of Ghana published 36 % of the analysed Ghana articles, 32 % of the first author articles, and 31 % of the corresponding author articles. The second place by TP, FP, and RP indicators was taken by Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology.

In Ghana, the proportion of S:N:I was 24:8.0:68. University of Ghana’s proportion of S:N:I was 23:12:65. University of Science and Technology was able to conduct research independently with S:N:I = 51:6.4:42. Ghana Atomic Energy Commission had more national teamwork or collaboration among different institutions with S:N:I = 20:34:46. In Table 4, only University of Science and Technology (S:N:I = 51:6.4:42) had at < 50 % internationally collaborative articles of its total publications. Ghana Health Service had the highest percentage of international collaboration with S:N:I = 2.5:8.0:89. Our search showed that this trend was expected, because it agrees with the core functions of Ghana Health Service. The core functions of Ghana Health Service include the following: i) The analysis of national, bilateral and international policies and their application in the development of strategic plans and implementation guidelines for the Ghana Health Service in collaboration with other Divisions and implementation partners; ii) the coordination, guidance and development of short, medium and long-term plans and budgets for the Ghana Health Service’s development, including the preparation of projects and programmes for local and international financing consistent with the Sector-Wide/Multi-Donor Budget Approach; and iii) the development of level specific performance indicators and contracts consistent with national, bilateral and international expectations, among others.

Authors: This section explores the distribution of articles by Ghanaian authors. Figure 3 captures number of articles and citations per publication. Internationally collaborative papers had the highest number of articles (5 038) followed by the corresponding author not from Ghana (3 913) and then the first author from Ghana followed with 3 708 articles. The highest citations per publication (19) were registered by both first and corresponding authors not from Ghana. This was expected because most Ghanaian researchers collaborate with researchers from countries such as USA, UK, Germany, Netherlands, South Africa, Switzerland, Canada, Japan, Denmark, Kenya, Nigeria, China, France, Australia, Sweden, Tanzania, Burkina Faso, India, Italy, and Belgium. It is believed that Ghana is limited to some extent when it comes to sophisticated equipment for science and technology research. This confirms research conducted by Atuahene (2011) on the topic “Re-thinking the Missing Mission of Higher Education: An Anatomy of the Research Challenge of African Universities”. He mentioned the following as the challenges which retard research in African universities: the poor research infrastructure, limited Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs), the lack of leadership mandate and support, the lack of congenial political and academic environment in some countries, shortage and lack of faculty to pursue academic research due to heavy teaching loads and inadequate financial support. Furthermore, Table 5 listed indicators including total number of articles, number of article with first author, number of article with corresponding author and number of single author articles, for the top 11 productive authors, each with 60 or more articles. S. Owusu-Agyei, an epidemiologist with extensive experience in the design and conduct of clinical and field intervention trials from Ghana Health Service was ranked first with 125 articles, twenty-first with ten articles as the first author and twenty-second with 10 articles as corresponding author. He has been the Director of the Kintampo Health Research Centre (KHRC) since 2002. He is a part-time Lecturer in the Departments of Epidemiology and Population Health and Infectious Tropical Diseases, London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine (LSHTM) and a Senior Lecturer at the School of Public Health, University of Ghana, Legon. The second position was occupied by B. J. B. Nyarko, Director-General from Ghana Atomic Energy Commission with 77 articles, 32nd with nine articles as the first author, 28th with nine as the corresponding author. The third position was occupied by A. Hodgson from Navrongo Health Research Centre with 75 articles, 428th position with two articles as the first author, 645th position with one paper as the corresponding author. It was not surprising that the top three spots were occupied by prolific writers from research based institutions and this could be due to the financial support they generally receive from both local and international donors for cutting-edge research.

Highly cited articles: This section captures Ghana articles including total number of times each article was cited from the Web of Science Core Collection since its publication to the end of 2015 (TC2015), total number of citations of a paper in 2015 only (C2015), and the number of authors (AU). Table 6 shows the top 11 Ghana articles with more than 300 citations (TC2015 > 300). The 11 articles were all of international collaboration. Both first and corresponding authors were not from Ghana. Seven first authors were from USA, three from the UK, and one from Australia while eight corresponding authors from USA and three from the UK. The article titled “Global and regional mortality from 235 causes of death for 20 age groups in 1990 and 2010: a systematic analysis for the Global Burden of Disease Study 2010” (Lozano et al. 2012) was published in Lancet by 189 authors and was ranked first for TC2015. The second position was occupied by the article titled “Disability-adjusted life years (DALYs) for 291 diseases and injuries in 21 regions, 1990-2010: a systematic analysis for the Global Burden of Disease Study 2010” (Murray et al., 2012) also published in Lancet by 359 authors. It is clear from Table 6 that the top three most cited articles were all published in a high impact factor journal (i.e. Lancet). This was expected because it is known in literature that papers published in journals with a high IF would probably have high citations (Chuang & Ho, 2015). Furthermore, the article titled “Impact of permethrin impregnated bednets on child mortality in Kassena-Nankana district, Ghana: A randomized controlled trial” (Binka et al., 1996) was the most frequently cited article with TC2015 of 260 by F.N. Binka from Navrongo Health Research Centre as the first and also corresponding authors.

In conclusion, Ghanaian researchers/lecturers should publish their scientific works in high impact factor journals captured by Thomson Reuters to have high citations.

RESUMEN

Análisis bibliométrico de las publicaciones de Ghana en el Índice de Citación de Ciencia. Ghana es un país del oeste de África para el cual aparentemente hay limitados estudios cienciométricos. El objetivo de este estudio fue analizar la contribución de Ghana al conocimiento capturado en la base de datos del Índice de Citación Expandido de Ciencia Thomson Reuters (SCI-EXPANDED) de 1936-2016. Se analizaron los siguientes datos: tipo de documento, lenguaje de la publicación, tendencia de la publicación, categorías temáticas de Web of Science, revistas, colaboración internacional, instituciones, autores y artículos frecuentemente citados. Los indicadores como el número total de artículos, artículos de primer autor y artículos de autor de correspondencia se aplicaron para comparar el rendimiento de publicación de países e instituciones colaboradoras. También la cantidad de artículos de una institución: la cantidad de artículos de colaboración nacional: la cantidad de artículos de colaboración internacional (S:N:I) se utilizaron para comparar las características de publicación de las instituciones de Ghana. Los resultados muestran que la tendencia de publicación incrementó de 1998 al 2015 con investigaciones enfocadas en salud y medicina. PLoS One fue la revista más productiva y el país más colaborador para los artículos de Ghana fue EE.UU. Las contribuciones de la Universidad de Ghana se clasificaron como los mejores artículos de Ghana y los artículos con mayores citaciones fueron los de colaboración internacional. En conclusión, la distribución del conocimiento de autores Ghaneses es masiva en las áreas público, ambiental y salud ocupacional y medicina tropical pero el factor de impacto es más alto en artículos de inmunología, enfermedades infecciosas y microbiología. Por lo tanto, los autores Ghaneses están alentados a publicar más artículos en revistas de alto factor de impacto con el Índice de Citación Expandido de Ciencia Thomson Reuters para que sus publicaciones sean reconocidas por las bases de datos internacionales existentes.

Palabras clave: Ghana; SCI-EXPANDED; Web of Science; tendencias de investigación; colaboraciones

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Lomatey, I. T., Abledu, G. K., Baayel, P., Akussah, M., & Botchway, H. K. (2016). A scientometric analysis of research performance of Ghanaian polytechnics. International Journal of Modern Education Research, 3(5), 37-40.

Lozano, R., Naghavi, M., Foreman, K., Lim, S., Shibuya, K., Aboyans, V., … Murray, C. J. (2012). Global and regional mortality from 235 causes of death for 20 age groups in 1990 and 2010: a systematic analysis for the Global Burden of Disease Study 2010. Lancet, 380(9859), 2095-2128. doi: 10.1016/S0140-6736(12)61728-0

Milojević, S., & Leydesdorff, L. (2013). Information metrics (iMetrics): a research specialty with a socio-cognitive identity? Scientometrics, 95(1), 141-157.

Monge-Nájera, J., & Ho, Y. S. (2012). Costa Rica Publications in the Science Citation Index Expanded: a bibliometric analysis for 1981-2010. Revista de Biología Tropical, 60(4), 1649-1661.

Monge-Nájera, J., & Ho, Y. S. (2015). Bibliometry of Panama publications in the Science Citation Index Expanded: publication type, language, fields, authors and institutions. Revista de Biología Tropical, 63(4), 1255-1266.

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Murray, C. J., Vos, T., Lozano, R., Naghavi, M., Flaxman, A. D., Michaud, C., … Lopez, A. D. (2012). Disability-adjusted life years (DALYs) for 291 diseases and injuries in 21 regions, 1990-2010: a systematic analysis for the Global Burden of Disease Study 2010. Lancet, 380(9859), 2197-2223. doi: 10.1016/S0140-6736(12)61689-4

Muzha, I., Filipi, N., Lede, R., Copertari, P., Traverso, C., Copertari, A., … Olldashi, F. (2004). Effect of intravenous corticosteroids on death within 14 days in 10008 adults with clinically significant head injury (MRC CRASH trial): Randomised placebo-controlled trial. Lancet, 364(9442), 1321-1328.

Ng, M., Fleming, T., Robinson, M., Thomson, B., Graetz, N., Margono, C., … Abera, S. F. (2014). Global, regional, and national prevalence of overweight and obesity in children and adults during 1980-2013: a systematic analysis for the Global Burden of Disease Study 2013. Lancet, 384 (9945), 766-781.

Noruzi, A., & Abdekhoda, M. (2014). Scientometric analysis of Iraqi-Kurdistan universities’ scientific productivity. Electronic Library, 32(6), 770-785.

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Smith, M. W., Patterson, N., Lautenberger, J. A., Truelove, A. L., McDonald, G. J., Waliszewska, A., … Le, E. (2004). A high-density admixture map for disease gene discovery in African Americans. The American Journal of Human Genetics, 74(5), 1001-1013.

Stewart, J. M. (1967). Tongue root position in Akan vowel harmony. Phonetica, 16(4), 185-204.

Tijssen, R. J. (2007). Africa’s contribution to the worldwide research literature: new analytical perspectives, trends, and performance indicators. Scientometrics, 71(2), 303-327.

Tinsley, T., & Wharton, A. (1958). Studies on the host ranges of viruses from Theobroma cacao L. Annals of Applied Biology, 46(1), 1-6.

Toivanen, H., & Ponomariov, B. (2011). African regional innovation systems: bibliometric analysis of research collaboration patterns 2005-2009. Scientometrics, 88(2), 471-493.

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Wambu, E. W., & Ho, Y. S. (2016). A bibliometric analysis of drinking water research in Africa. Water SA, 42(4), 612-620.

Wang, M. H., Fu, H. Z., & Ho, Y. S. (2011). Comparison of universities’ scientific performance using bibliometric indicators. Malaysian Journal of Library and Information Science, 16(2), 1-19.

Wang, M. H., Yu, T. C., & Ho, Y. S. (2010). A bibliometric analysis of the performance of Water Research. Scientometrics, 84(3), 813-820.

Zavala, F., Tam, J. P., Hollingdale, M. R., Cochrane, A. H., Quakyi, I., Nussenzweig, R. S., & Nussenzweig, V. (1985). Rationale for development of a synthetic vaccine against Plasmodium falciparum malaria. Science, 228(4706), 1436-1440.

TABLE 1

Characteristics of articles in Web of Science, 1958-2015

TABLE 1 (Continued)

Year

TP

AU

AU/TP

NR

NR/TP

PG

PG/TP

Year

TP

AU

AU/TP

NR

NR/TP

PG

PG/TP

1958

3

6

2.0

12

4.0

15

5.0

1959

0

0

N/A

0

N/A

0

N/A

1960

0

0

N/A

0

N/A

0

N/A

1961

0

0

N/A

0

N/A

0

N/A

1962

0

0

N/A

0

N/A

0

N/A

1963

0

0

N/A

0

N/A

0

N/A

1964

0

0

N/A

0

N/A

0

N/A

1965

0

0

N/A

0

N/A

0

N/A

1966

2

2

1.0

15

7.5

23

12

1967

1

1

1.0

23

23

1

1.0

1968

2

2

1.0

11

5.5

7

3.5

1969

0

0

N/A

0

N/A

0

N/A

1970

1

1

1.0

7

7.0

2

2.0

1971

3

7

2.3

40

13

18

6.0

1972

11

18

1.6

151

14

51

4.6

1973

67

127

1.9

805

12

477

7.1

1974

80

154

1.9

1068

13

586

7.3

1975

61

124

2.0

951

16

572

9.4

1976

55

128

2.3

963

18

424

7.7

1977

73

162

2.2

1105

15

523

7.2

1978

62

160

2.6

820

13

455

7.3

1979

56

141

2.5

797

14

406

7.3

1980

66

141

2.1

900

14

508

7.7

1981

59

152

2.6

872

15

425

7.2

1982

55

139

2.5

747

14

432

7.9

1983

39

94

2.4

585

15

303

7.8

1984

47

140

3.0

752

16

304

6.5

1985

65

188

2.9

1067

16

473

7.3

1986

38

114

3.0

478

13

244

6.4

1987

37

108

2.9

688

19

276

7.5

1988

43

147

3.4

666

15

281

6.5

1989

51

135

2.6

647

13

319

6.3

1990

51

172

3.4

876

17

403

7.9

1991

62

212

3.4

1 170

19

490

7.9

1992

88

241

2.7

1 593

18

709

8.1

1993

74

271

3.7

1 483

20

613

8.3

1994

83

289

3.5

1 575

19

575

6.9

1995

89

339

3.8

1 389

16

627

7.0

1996

122

426

3.5

2 408

20

853

7.0

1997

123

441

3.6

2 528

21

986

8.0

1998

125

523

4.2

2 485

20

887

7.1

1999

143

577

4.0

3 346

23

1 255

8.8

2000

164

705

4.3

3 610

22

1 230

7.5

2001

155

831

5.4

3 632

23

1 178

7.6

2002

160

786

4.9

3 769

24

1 159

7.2

2003

169

870

5.1

4 159

25

1 307

7.7

2004

181

1 515

8.4

4 633

26

1 499

8.3

2005

202

1 212

6.0

5 386

27

1 707

8.5

2006

225

1 405

6.2

6 337

28

1 961

8.7

2007

269

1 545

5.7

7 346

27

2 296

8.5

2008

284

1 700

6.0

8 638

30

2 386

8.4

2009

323

2 110

6.5

10 084

31

2 751

8.5

2010

418

2 752

6.6

13 950

33

3 780

9.0

2011

415

2 912

7.0

13 174

32

3 616

8.7

2012

494

4 718

9.6

18 350

37

4 685

9.5

2013

560

4 189

7.5

20 271

36

5 050

9.0

2014

625

6 171

9.9

24 512

39

6 281

10

2015

794

8 836

11

31 774

40

8 797

11

Total

7375

48 139

212 648

64 206

Average

4.0

20

7.5

TP: total number of articles; AU: number of authors; NR: number of cited references; PG: page counts, N/A: not available.

Fig. 1. Number of total articles and citations per publication.

Fig. 2. Top 15 Web of Science categories of Republic of Ghana’s publications.

TABLE 2

Top 10 productive journals

Journal

TP (%)

IF2015

Web of Science subject category

PLoS One

193 (2.6)

3.057

multidisciplinary sciences

Malaria Journal

141 (1.9)

3.079

infectious diseases

parasitology

tropical medicine

Tropical Medicine and International Health

139 (1.9)

2.519

public, environmental and occupational health

tropical medicine

Transactions of the Royal Society of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene

106 (1.4)

1.631

public, environmental and occupational health

tropical medicine

American Journal of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene

100 (1.4)

2.453

public, environmental and occupational health

tropical medicine

BMC Public Health

82 (1.1)

2.209

public, environmental and occupational health

International Journal of Gynecology and Obstetrics

79 (1.1)

1.674

obstetrics and gynecology

Global Health Action

71 (1.0)

1.896

public, environmental and occupational health

East African Medical Journal

68 (0.92)

N/A

general and internal medicine

Journal of Infectious Diseases

68 (0.92)

6.344

immunology

infectious diseases

microbiology

TABLE 3

Top 20 collaborative countries for Ghana articles in the Science Citation Index Expanded (1958~2015)

Country

CP

CPR (%)

FPR (%)

RPR (%)

USA

1623

1 (22)

1 (12)

1 (12)

UK

1383

2 (19)

2 (8.7)

2 (9.1)

Germany

600

3 (8.1)

3 (4.6)

3 (4.8)

Netherlands

467

4 (6.3)

4 (2.7)

4 (2.8)

South Africa

384

5 (5.2)

9 (1.7)

9 (1.8)

Switzerland

339

6 (4.6)

10 (1.2)

10 (1.4)

Canada

287

7 (3.9)

5 (1.9)

5 (2.0)

Japan

287

7 (3.9)

6 (1.8)

7 (1.9)

Denmark

286

9 (3.9)

6 (1.8)

5 (2.0)

Kenya

285

10 (3.9)

12 (1.0)

12 (0.94)

Nigeria

282

11 (3.8)

11 (1.1)

11 (1.0)

China

229

12 (3.1)

6 (1.8)

8 (1.9)

France

229

12 (3.1)

13 (0.91)

13 (0.92)

Australia

220

14 (3.0)

15 (0.57)

17 (0.58)

Sweden

220

14 (3.0)

14 (0.73)

14 (0.75)

Tanzania

172

16 (2.3)

20 (0.34)

20 (0.33)

Burkina Faso

155

17 (2.1)

19 (0.35)

19 (0.34)

India

138

18 (1.9)

23 (0.24)

24 (0.23)

Italy

135

19 (1.8)

16 (0.56)

15 (0.63)

Belgium

119

20 (1.6)

17 (0.53)

16 (0.61)

CP: internationally collaborative articles with Ghana; CPR (%): rank of internationally collaborative articles and percentage; FPR (%): rank of article with first author and percentage; RPR (%): rank of article with corresponding author and percentage.

TABLE 4

Top 10 institutions for Ghana articles in the Science Citation Index Expanded

Institute

TP

TPR (%)

FPR (%)

RPR (%)

%SI (SI)

%NC (NC)

%IC (IC)

University of Ghana

2621

1 (36)

1 (32)

1 (31)

23 (598)

12 (315)

65 (1708)

Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology

958

2 (13)

2 (10)

2 (9.5)

16 (152)

14 (131)

70 (675)

University of Cape Coast

415

3 (5.6)

4 (6.5)

3 (6.8)

37 (152)

12 (51)

51 (211)

University of Science and Technology

375

4 (5.1)

3 (6.9)

4 (6.8)

51 (193)

6.4 (24)

42 (157)

Komfo Anokye Teaching Hospital

273

5 (3.7)

11 (1.5)

14 (1.3)

3.3 (9)

12 (32)

85 (232)

Ghana Atomic Energy Commission

247

6 (3.3)

6 (3.6)

6 (3.8)

20 (50)

34 (83)

46 (114)

Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR)

245

7 (3.3)

5 (3.8)

5 (4.0)

29 (71)

21 (52)

50 (122)

Ghana Health Service

237

8 (3.2)

29 (0.84)

33 (0.78)

2.5 (6)

8 (19)

89 (212)

Ministry of Health

184

10 (2.5)

16 (1.2)

18 (1.2)

9.2 (17)

10 (18)

81 (149)

University of Dev Studies

184

10 (2.5)

9 (1.8)

9 (1.8)

12 (22)

16 (30)

72 (132)

TP: total number of articles; TPR (%): rank of total number of articles and percentage; FPR (%): rank of first author articles and percentage in all Ghana articles with first author information in Web of Science; RPR (%): rank of corresponding author articles and percentage in all Ghana articles with corresponding author information in Web of Science; %SI (SI): percentage in TP in an institute and single institute articles; %NC (NC): percentage in TP in an institute and nationally collaborative articles; %IC (IC): percentage in TP in an institute and number of internationally collaborative articles.

Fig. 3. Distribution of articles by Ghanaians authors. TP: total articles. Not FP+RP: both first and corresponding authors are not from Ghana. Not RP: corresponding author is not from Ghana. Not FP: first author is not from Ghana. IC: internationally collaborative papers. NC: nationally collaborative papers. II: institutional independent papers. CI: Ghana independent papers. FP: first author is from Ghana. RP: corresponding author is from Ghana. FP+RP: both first and corresponding authors are from Ghana.

TABLE 5

Top 11 authors for Ghana articles in the Science Citation Index Expanded. Only authors with at least 60 articles

Author

Affiliation

rank (TP)

rank (FP)

rank (RP)

rank (SP)

S. Owusu-Agyei

Ghana Health Service, Ghana

1 (125)

21 (10)

22 (10)

N/A

B. J. B. Nyarko

Ghana Atomic Energy Commission, Ghana

2 (77)

32 (9)

28 (9)

N/A

A. Hodgson

Navrongo Health Research Centre, Ghana

3 (75)

428 (2)

645 (1)

N/A

F. K. Nkrumah

University of Ghana, Ghana

4 (70)

32 (9)

359 (2)

N/A

O. Adjei

Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology, Ghana

5 (69)

169 (4)

228 (3)

N/A

E. H. K. Akaho

Ghana Atomic Energy Commission, Ghana

6 (67)

59 (7)

79 (6)

130 (1)

K. A. Koram

University of Ghana, Ghana

7 (66)

81 (6)

149 (4)

130 (1)

K. Awadzi

Onchocerciasis Chemotherapy Research Centre, Ghana

8 (64)

1 (29)

3 (23)

130 (1)

B. D. Akanmori

University of Ghana, Ghana

9 (62)

169 (4)

7 (15)

N/A

S. Adjei

University of Ghana, Ghana

10 (58)

787 (1)

645 (1)

130 (1)

TP: total number of articles; FP: number of article with first author; RP: number of article with corresponding author; SP: number of single author articles; N/A: not available.

TABLE 6

Top 11 Ghana articles with more than 300 citations (TC2015 > 300)

Rank (TC2015)

Rank (C2015)

Article title

AU

Reference

1 (1849)

1 (897)

Global and regional mortality from 235 causes of death for 20 age groups in 1990 and 2010: a systematic analysis for the Global Burden of Disease Study 2010

189

Lozano et al. (2012)

2 (1370)

2 (638)

Disability-adjusted life years (DALYs) for 291 diseases and injuries in 21 regions, 1990-2010: a systematic analysis for the Global Burden of Disease Study 2010

359

Murray et al. (2012)

3 (954)

3 (458)

Years lived with disability (YLDs) for 1160 sequelae of 289 diseases and injuries 1990-2010: a systematic analysis for the Global Burden of Disease Study 2010

355

Vos et al. (2012)

4 (864)

4 (415)

The global distribution and burden of dengue

18

Bhatt et al. (2013)

5 (528)

7 (125)

Science for managing ecosystem services: Beyond the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment

15

Carpenter et al. (2009)

6 (462)

5 (406)

Global, regional, and national prevalence of overweight and obesity in children and adults during 1980-2013: a systematic analysis for the Global Burden of Disease Study 2013

140

Ng et al. (2014)

7 (367)

35 (25)

Effect of intravenous corticosteroids on death within 14 days in 10008 adults with clinically significant head injury (MRC CRASH trial): randomised placebo-controlled trial

471

Muzha et al. (2004)

8 (327)

15 (49)

Increasing carbon storage in intact African tropical forests

33

Lewis et al. (2009)

9 (318)

61 (18)

A high-density admixture map for disease gene discovery in African Americans

32

Smith et al. (2004)

10 (307)

529 (5)

Rationale for development of a synthetic vaccine against plasmodium-falciparum malaria

7

Zavala et al. (1985)

11 (306)

14 (52)

First results of phase 3 trial of RTS, S/AS01 malaria vaccine in African children

142

Agnandji et al. (2012)

TC2015: total number of times article cited from the Web of Science Core Collection since its publication to the end of 2015: C2015: total number of citations of a paper in 2015 only; AU: number of authors.