The Office of Grant and Research (OGR) of the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology (KNUST), Kumasi in collaboration with the University Library has organised a training workshop on the theme: ‘‘Enhancing Publication Impact and Research Visibility’’ for staff and postgraduate students on Thursday, 14th March 2024.
The objective of the workshop, according to the Director of OGR, Professor Philip Antwi-Agyei was to educate and enlighten participants on the best practices needed to enhance their research publication and visibility. He noted that one key responsibility of lecturers and students is to publish research to impact humanity and lauded the increased number of research publications over the years. He urged participants to take the online visibility of their research more seriously to make an impact.
Professor Antwi-Agyei added that the facilitators for the workshop are equipped with vast knowledge of the topics and was hopeful that the workshop would serve as a platform for capacity building and knowledge sharing to empower participants to enhance the visibility and impact of their publications in the global academic community.
In his presentation on ‘The Importance and Benefit of Research Visibility for the Researcher and Institution,’ Dr. Samuel Kotei Nikoi, the University Librarian, stated that undertaking impactful research is an integral duty of lecturers, staff, and students at the University. He said that the benefit of research visibility encompasses opportunities for collaboration with industry, attracting funding, global ranking for institutions, enhanced reputation/brand awareness, promotion, and consultancy opportunities leading to innovations, among others. He emphasised the empowerment that comes with impactful research and encouraged participants to ensure that their research publications make a tangible difference.
Dr. Richard Bruce Lamptey, the Deputy Librarian at the College of Science Library, took participants through ‘‘Publishing in Indexed Journals; Strategies, Tools, and Platforms for Enhancing Citations’’. He shed light on the significance of scholarly indexing platforms in organising and facilitating access to academic research. He added that these publishing platforms make it easier for researchers, students, and professionals to discover relevant information as well as increase the visibility and credibility of their research. To this end, he cautioned against publishing in predatory journals and provided insights into reputable publishing platforms such as Scopus, Web of Science, and African Journals Online, Directory of Open Access Journals, among others.
Dr. Lamptey also outlined various strategies, tools, and platforms aimed at boosting research visibility and impact. These, according to him, included engaging with the academic community, publishing in open-access journals, leveraging social media for research dissemination, utilising reference management tools like EndNote, Zotero and Mendeley, setting up a Google Scholar profile, joining ResearchGate, LinkedIn, and Institutional Repositories. He encouraged participants to constantly ‘think, check, and submit’ as the strategy that will help them to identify trusted journals and publishers for their research.
During the workshop, participants seized the opportunity to share some concerns and challenges related to publishing research.