Factors Affecting Computer Science Research Productivity and Impact in Nigeria: Informetric Evidence

Computer science is a burgeoning research field and has the potential to accelerate the rate of industrialization and subsequently, economic development. Using bibliometric data obtained from Scopus, this study employed a 15-year informetric analysis to highlight Nigeria’s productivity and impact trends in the computer science research landscape. Our findings are summarised as follows: First, Nigeria’s computer science research contribution and citations are meager in comparison to the global output. Secondly, international collaboration is generally weak as most collaborations are national in scope. Third, Nigeria’s computer science-related research is published in low-quality outlets, as Scopus has discontinued the indexing of most of the outlets. Although the publication growth trend is encouraging, the volume and impact of computer science-related research can improve significantly with the conduct of more quality research facilitated by strong international collaborations, and published in very high-quality outlets.