Informetrics Education in Library and Information Science (LIS) Academic Department in South Africa

The purpose of this paper is to explore literature on informetrics education globally, in order to determine the relevance of informetrics education in South Africa. This paper is based on the literature review on informetrics education in the field of LIS worldwide. The paper addresses the status of informetrics education; extent and levels at which informetrics education is offered; teaching methods for informetrics education; and, challenges associated with informetrics education. The literature reveals that there are 32 countries that offer informetrics education within the field of LIS worldwide. The informetrics education is commonly offered to both under-graduate and post-graduate students. For undergraduates, it is generally offered as an elective course. Commonly, the course content consists of laws and theories, link analysis, resource allocation, methods and applications, innovation and forecasting. The lecture method (face-to-face) of teaching is commonly used. There is a variation of course names from department to department, such as Informetrics, Bibliometrics, Scientometrics, etc. Challenges associated with informetrics education were revealed, including: teaching capacity, student preparedness and ICT support. This paper noted the limitation of informetrics education locally and globally, and recommends more awareness creation, curricula development, short courses and awareness of global trends. Theoretically, the paper will add to the body of literature within the field of LIS. It will offer a vivid characterization of informetrics and demonstrate the importance of its education. Practically, this paper provides a prolific centre of knowledge sharing among LIS departments concerning informetrics education. Through a good attention given to informetrics education, the research evaluation in various fields will attain utmost quality and objectivity

Correlating altmetrics and h5-Index using Google Scholar metrics for journals in Library and Information Science

The purpose of this paper is to correlate altmetrics and h5-index using Google Scholar metrics for journals in Library and Information Science, in order to clarify the relative significance of altmetrics in evaluating research impact. This paper adopted the behavioural bibliometrics to analyse data that was collected from Google Scholar metrics for three systematically selected journals in LIS. We obtained altmetrics scores for selected articles from Altmetrics.com. This paper focuses on: (i) the extent in which altmetrics indicators correlate with the journal’s h5-index; (ii) the disproportions amongst altmetrics indicators, and; (iii) the comparison of article altmetrics scores in journals with different h5-index. The results of this paper reveal noteworthy independence of altmetrics from h5-index. Therefore, the journal’s h5-index does not impact or reflect on its article altmetrics. Amongst other altmetrics indicators, Mendeley dominates in all articles altmetrics. The results further confirmed the possibility of articles in journals with low h5-index to attained greater social media attention than articles in journals with high h5-index. This paper adds to the body of knowledge in LIS, informetrics in particular. It is hoped that the results of this study will help create better understanding of altmetrics and prevent its misuse

Informetrics Education in Library and Information Science (LIS) Academic Department in South Africa

The purpose of this paper is to explore literature on informetrics education globally, in order to determine the relevance of informetrics education in South Africa. This paper is based on the literature review on informetrics education in the field of LIS worldwide. The paper addresses the status of informetrics education; extent and levels at which informetrics education is offered; teaching methods for informetrics education; and, challenges associated with informetrics education. The literature reveals that there are 32 countries that offer informetrics education within the field of LIS worldwide. The informetrics education is commonly offered to both under-graduate and post-graduate students. For undergraduates, it is generally offered as an elective course. Commonly, the course content consists of laws and theories, link analysis, resource allocation, methods and applications, innovation and forecasting. The lecture method (face-to-face) of teaching is commonly used. There is a variation of course names from department to department, such as Informetrics, Bibliometrics, Scientometrics, etc. Challenges associated with informetrics education were revealed, including: teaching capacity, student preparedness and ICT support. This paper noted the limitation of informetrics education locally and globally, and recommends more awareness creation, curricula development, short courses and awareness of global trends. Theoretically, the paper will add to the body of literature within the field of LIS. It will offer a vivid characterization of informetrics and demonstrate the importance of its education. Practically, this paper provides a prolific centre of knowledge sharing among LIS departments concerning informetrics education. Through a good attention given to informetrics education, the research evaluation in various fields will attain utmost quality and objectivity