Browsing by Author "Sife, Alfred Said"

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African web-based animal health information
(2013) Lwoga, Edda Tandi; Sife, Alfred Said
The quantity of research information being made available on the World Wide Web in various disciplines is increasing tremendously. This study examined the coverage of animal health information published on the web from Africa or about Africa. Challenges and opportunities of publishing and disseminating animal health information online in Africa were also examined. Websites and online databases which offer agricultural information were included in the analysis, but the main focus was on research, education and extension information in the core areas of animal health. Content analysis method was used to determine what agricultural academic indexing and abstracting databases have in terms of quality researched animal health information published from Africa or about Africa. Well-known databases, such as AGRICOLA, AGRIS, CAB Direct, PUBMED and Cochrane Library were investigated. The criteria used to determine the African animal health information included the content of research animal health information available on the website, how easy it is to locate information once the site has been located, the usefulness of the information, and how current and up-to-date the information is. It was found that the representation of African animal health information on the web is generally low. The poor coverage of animal health information on the web emanates from many factors: poor ICT (Information Communications Technology) infrastructure in many African countries, lack of ICT literacy, awareness and mindset, lack of recognition of all the values of information services, poor state of African indexing and abstracting services, inadequate funds, and perceived misconceptions of actual causes of the problem. Thus, this situation has led to the web being dominated by the animal health information from developed countries. Despite the challenges faced by African researchers in publishing their research findings on the web, most animal health scholars collaborate well with some international organizations in disseminating animal health information on the web. It is recommended that the researchers in Africa should fully utilize Internet services to publish and disseminate the animal health information on the web.
Contribution of mobile phones to rural livelihoods and poverty reduction in Morogoro Region, Tanzania
(The Electronic Journal of Information Systems in Developing Countries (EJISDC), 2010) Sife, Alfred Said; Kiondo, Elizabeth; Lyimo-Macha, Joyce G.
This study examined the contribution of mobile phones to rural livelihoods and poverty reduction in Morogoro region, Tanzania. The study sample comprised of 310 households, 74 focus group participants and 22 key informants. Data were collected through questionnaire, focus groups, and key informant interviews and were analyzed using SPSS and Nvivo. The findings indicate that mobile phones contribute to reduce poverty and improve rural livelihoods by expanding and strengthening social networks; increase people’s ability to deal with emergencies; cut down travel costs; maximize the outcomes of necessary journeys; increase temporal accessibility; and amplify efficiency of activities. The use of mobile phones also reduces costs of doing business and increases productivity by helping rural traders and farmers to secure better markets and prices; and promptly communicate business-related information. Although they enabled rural communities to generate some income through the sale of mobile phone services, the phones had not made important contribution in this aspect. It is concluded that mobile phones contribute to improve rural livelihoods and reduce poverty by providing rural households with fast and easy modes of communication, thereby increasing their ability to access livelihood assets, undertake diverse livelihoods strategies, and overcome their vulnerabilities.
Mapping the research productivity and scholarly impact of the traditional medicine scholars in Tanzania: A scientometric analysis
(International Journal of Digital Library Services, 2013) Lwoga, Edda Tandi; Sife, Alfred Said
A scientometric analysis was conducted to map out the research productivity and scholarly impact of researchers at the Institute of Traditional Medicine (ITM) in Tanzania for the period between 1980 and 2013. The study analyzed the growth of the ITM’s scholarly literature; ascertained the year-wise distribution of publications; determined the authorship pattern and degree of collaboration; and analyzed individual scholars’ productivity and impact. Data were obtained using the Publish or Perish software that employs Google Scholar to retrieve scholars’ publications and their citations. The findings show that there were a total of 381 publications published between 1980 and 2013, giving an average of 11.2 publications per year. The year 2012 had the most (12.3%) number of publications followed by 2007 and 2008 with 8.9% of all publications each. A vast majority (91.9%) of the publications were multiple-authored with 35.2% of the publications having six or more authors. The degree of collaboration was 0.92 and the ratio between team work and single author work was 11:1. Overall, M.J. Moshi and Z.H. Mbwambo were the top ranking scholars followed by R.L.A. Mahunnah and F.C. Uiso. All ITM researchers showed variation in their performance as no single scholar maintained the same rank in all nine metrics. The study findings call for scholars to recognize the importance of publishing in visible journals in order to receive large citation counts. Institutions are urged to employ scientometrics in evaluating the research performance of their scholars since such techniques take into account a combination of several measures.
Publication productivity and scholarly impact of academic librarians in Tanzania: a scientometric analysis
(2014-06-13) Sife, Alfred Said; Lwoga, Edda Tandi
Purpose – The purpose of this scientometric study was to conduct an analysis of the research productivity and scholarly impact of academic librarians in Tanzania for a period of 30 years from 1984 to 2013. Design/methodology/approach – Data were obtained using the Publish or Perish software which uses Google Scholar to retrieve scholars’ publications, citations and related metrics. For each librarian, the retrieved metrics were the number of papers, papers per author, citation counts, average citations per paper, average papers per author, average citations per year, average citations per author and four indices, namely, the h-index, g-index, Hc-index and the HI-norm. Findings – The study findings indicate that 434 publications were recorded for all librarians, giving an average of 14.5 publications per year. The year 2008 had the most (9.9 per cent) publications followed by 2010 (7.8 per cent), while the years 1985 and 1987 had the lowest (0.2 per cent) number of publications. About 43 per cent of the publications were single-authored and the degree of collaboration was 0.57. The top-ten ranked librarians contributed more than half (53.2 per cent) of all publications, although they showed considerable variation among different metrics. Only three journal articles had 25 or more citations. Originality/value – Previous studies on the topic are scarce, and, therefore, this paper provides useful recommendations to library and information science (LIS) schools, libraries and universities to improve research productivity of their academic librarians in Tanzania and other countries with a similar setting.
Retrieving vanished Web references in health science journals in East Africa
(Emerald Publishing Limited, 2017-07-06) Sife, Alfred Said; Lwoga, Edda Tandi
This study aims to examine the availability and persistence of universal resource locators (URLs) cited in scholarly articles published in selected health journals based in East Africa. Design/methodology/approach – Four health sciences online journals in East Africa were selected for this study. In this study, all Web citations in the selected journal articles covering the 2001-2015 period were extracted. This study explored the number of URLs used as citations, determined the rate of URLs’ loss, identified error messages associated with inaccessible URLs, identified the top domain levels of decayed URLs, calculated the half-life of the Web citations and determined the proportion of recovered URL citations through the Internet Wayback Machine. Findings – In total, 822 articles were published between 2001 and 2015. There were in total 17,609 citations of which, only 574 (3.3 per cent) were Web citations. The findings show that 253 (44.1 per cent) Web citations were inaccessible and the “404 File Not Found” error message was the most (88.9 per cent) encountered. Top- level domains with country endings had the most (23.7 per cent) missing URLs. The average half-life for the URLs cited in journal articles was 10.5 years. Only 36 (6.3 per cent) Web references were recovered through the Wayback Machine. Originality/value – This is a comprehensive study of East African health sciences online journals that provides findings that raises questions as to whether URLs should continue to be included as part of bibliographic details in the lists of references. It also calls for concerted efforts from various actors in overcoming the problem of URL decay.