ONLINE VISIBILITY OF PHARMACY RESEARCH IN TANZANIA: A SCIENTOMETRIC STUDY

Authors

  • Edda Tandi Lwoga Directorate of Library Services, Muhimbili University of Health and Allied Sciences, P. O. Box 65001, Dar es salaam, Tanzania
  • Raphael Zozimus Sangeda Department of Pharmaceutical Microbiology, School of Pharmacy, Muhimbili University of Health and Allied Sciences, P. O. Box 65001, Dar es salaam, Tanzania
  • Alfred Said Sife Sokoine National Agricultural Library, Sokoine University of Agriculture, P. O. Box 3000, Morogoro, Tanzania

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.22159/ijpps.2017v9i9.19371

Keywords:

Bibliometric, Pharmacy, Research, Publishing, Tanzania

Abstract

Objective: This scientometric analysis was carried out to map the online visibility of pharmacy research at Muhimbili University of Health and Allied Sciences (MUHAS) from 1981 to 2016.

Methods: Publish or Perish software was used to collect data for 33 scientists from the School of Pharmacy at MUHAS. We retrieved data on scholars' publications, citation counts, the number of authors per publication, average citations per paper, average citations per year, h-index, g-index, contemporary H-index (Hc index) and the HI-norm index.

Results: A total of 499 publications were recorded for all scholars and the most (61; 12.2%) productive was 2013. The whole study period recorded the mean relative growth rate (RGR) and doubling time (Dt) of 1.62 and 0.46 respectively. A great majority (484; 97%) of the publications were multiple-authored with nearly one third (157; 31.5%) of these being jointly contributed by six or more authors. The maximum number of citations received in a single publication was 241. The degree of collaboration among scientists was as high as 0.97. The top ranked pharmacy researchers showed variation in various metrics.

Conclusion: The study findings indicate a continuous growth of pharmacy publications at MUHAS since 1981. There is a high level of collaboration among scholars and many publications have made a great impact through citations.

 

Downloads

Download data is not yet available.

References

Sreeja PA, Arya US, Kumar AS, Swathy S. Scientific writing as an art: an overview. Int J Curr Pharm Res 2016;8:2–5.

Zyoud SH, Al-jabi SW, Sweileh WM. Scientific publications from the Arab world in leading journals of integrative and complementary medicine: a bibliometric analysis. BMC Complement Altern Med 2015;15:1–10.

Lopez-munoz F, Srinivasan V, Gutierrez-soriano A, Shen WW, Rubio G, Alamo C. A bibliometric analysis of scientific research on atypical antipsychotic drugs in India during 1998-2013. Mol Med Chem 2016;23:1–13.

Abolghassemi Fakhree MA, Jouyban A. Scientometric analysis of the major Iranian medical universities. Scientometrics 2011;87:205–20.

Van Leeuwen TN, Visser MS, Moed HF, Nederhof TJ, Van Raan AFJ. The holy grail of science policy: Exploring and combining bibliometric tools in search of scientific excellence. Scientometrics 2003. p. 257–80.

Hirsch J. An index to quantify an individual’s scientific research output. Proc Natl Acad Sci USA 2005;102:16569–72.

Egghe L. Theory and practice of the g-index. Scientometrics 2006;69:131–52.

Sidiropoulos A, Katsaros D, Manolopoulos Y. Generalized hirsch h-index for disclosing latent facts in citation networks. Scientometrics 2007;72:253–80.

Braun T, Glänzel W, Schubert A. A Hirsch-type index for journals. Scientometrics 2006;69:169-73.

Harzing A. The publish or perish book: A guide to the software; 2011.

Barrett A, Helwig M, Neves K. Mapping the literature of hospital pharmacy. Bull Med Libr Assoc 2016;104:118–24.

Tanjung HR, Nasution ES. The development of top 200 prescribed drugs in community pharmacies at Medan city as learning tools. Asian J Pharm Clin Res 2017;10:9–11.

Ahmadian S, Fakhree MA, Amini A, Jouyban A. Analysis of pharmacy related publications, H-indices, and patents of 102 countries. Pharm Sci 2013;19:53–8.

Bordons M, Aparicio J, Costas R. Trends in the collaborative structure of the Spanish pharmacological scientific production and its influence over research impact. Proc 17th Int Conf Sci Technol Indic 2012;1:142–54.

Alhaider I, Mueen Ahmed KK, Gupta BM. Pharmaceutical research in the kingdom of Saudi Arabia: a scientometric analysis during 2001-2010. Saudi Pharm J 2013;23:215-22.

Atkinson J. A bibliometric analysis of the scientific output of EU pharmacy departments. Pharmacy 2013;1:172–80.

Babar ZUD, Scahill SL, Akhlaq M, Garg S. A bibliometric review of pharmacy education literature in the context of low-to middle-income countries. Curr Pharm Teach Learn 2013;5:218–32.

Basak SC, Sathyanarayana D. Community pharmacy based research activity in India: a bibliometric study of the past ten years. South Med Rev 2010;3:7–10.

Daughton CG. Pharmaceuticals and the Environment (PiE): evolution and impact of the published literature revealed by bibliometric analysis. Sci Total Environ 2016;562:391–426.

Gorraiz J, Schloegl C. A bibliometric analysis of pharmacology and pharmacy journals: scopus versus web of science. J Inf Sci 2008;34:715–25.

Gupta R, Ahmed KM, Gupta B. High productivity pharmaceutical organizations in India: A study of their performance during 2008-12. J Young Pharm 2014;6:4–13.

Mousavi S, Mansouri A, Ahmadvand A. A bibliometric study of publication patterns in the rational use of medicines in Iran. Pharm Pract 2013;11:38–43.

Plotnikova T, Rake B. Collaboration in pharmaceutical research: Exploration of country-level determinants. Scientometrics 2014;98:1173–202.

Rafols I, Hopkins MM, Hoekman J, Siepel J, Hare AO, Perianes-rodríguez A, et al. Big pharma, little science? A bibliometric perspective on big pharma’s R and D decline. Technol Forecast Soc Chang 2014;81:22–38.

Sweileh WM, Zyoud SH, Al-jabi SW, Sawalha AF. Public, environmental, and occupational health research activity in Arab countries: bibliometric, citation, and collaboration analysis. Arch Public Health 2015;73:1–12.

Velmurugan C. Scientometric analysis: annals of library and information studies publications output during 2007-2012. Int J Library Information Sci 2013;3:58–65.

Harzing A. Google scholar, scopus and the web of science: a longitudinal and cross-disciplinary comparison. Scientometrics 2016;106:787–804.

Lwoga E, Sife A. Mapping the research productivity and scholarly impact of the traditional medicine scholars in tanzania: a scientometric analysis. Int J Digital Library Services 2013;3:38–52.

Sife A, Lwoga E. Publication productivity and scholarly impact of academic librarians in Tanzania. New Library World 2014;115:527–41.

Sife ASA, Bernard R, Ernest EE, Benard R. Research productivity and scholarly impact of forestry researchers at Sokoine University of agriculture: a bibliometric analysis. J Contin Educ Ext 2013;4:261–78.

Sife A, Bernard RB. Scientometric portrait of Prof. Rudovick R. Kazwala: A public health veterinarian. Int J Libr Inf Stud 2016;6:63–76.

Gaillard J, Zink A, Tullberg A. Strengthening science capacity in Tanzania: an impact analysis of IFS support. Stolkhom: International Foundation for Science; 2002.

MUHAS. School of Pharmacy at MUHAS; 2016. Available from: www.sop.muhas.ac.tz. [Last accessed on 20 Mar 2017]

Egghe L. On the influence of growth on obsolescence. Scientometrics 1993;27:195–214.

Mahapatra G. Correlation between growth of publications and citations: a study based on growth curves. ALIS 1994;41:8-12.

Subramanyan K. Bibliometric studies of research collaboration: a review. J Inf Sci 1983;6:33–8.

Velmurugan C, Radhakrishnan N. A scientometric analysis of research papers published on pharmacognosy as reflected in the web of science. Adv Pharmacogn Phytomed 2015;1:27–40.

Bornmann L, Daniel HD. What do citation counts measure? a review of studies on citing behavior. J Doc 2008;64:45-80.

Lotka A. The frequency distribution of scientific productivity. J Washingt Acad Sci 1926;16:317–23.

Published

01-09-2017

How to Cite

Lwoga, E. T., R. Z. Sangeda, and A. S. Sife. “ONLINE VISIBILITY OF PHARMACY RESEARCH IN TANZANIA: A SCIENTOMETRIC STUDY”. International Journal of Pharmacy and Pharmaceutical Sciences, vol. 9, no. 9, Sept. 2017, pp. 72-78, doi:10.22159/ijpps.2017v9i9.19371.

Issue

Section

Original Article(s)