Scientometric mapping of veterinary research at Sokoine University of Agriculture, Tanzania

Abstract

A scientometric analysis was conducted to examine the research productivity of veterinary scientists at the Sokoine University of Agriculture from 1984 to 2015. Data on publications, citations and related metrics for 97 scientists were retrieved using the Publish or Perish software. A total of 2,392 publications were recorded for all veterinary scientists, giving an average of 74.75 publications per year. The whole study period recorded the mean RGR and Dt of 2.10 and 0.36 respectively. The rate of growth of publications increased while the corresponding doubling time deceased. A great majority (2304; 96.3%) of the publications were multiple, authored with over one third (891; 37.2%) of these being jointly contributed by six or more authors. The degree of collaboration among scientists was 0.96. The maximum number of citations received in a single publication was 530. The top 25 ranked veterinary researchers showed considerable variation in various metrics. Veterinary scholars at SUA published their research findings in 241 different journals during the period between 1984 and 2015