Social media and researchers in agriculture in Ghana and Kenya

Are researchers in agriculture in Africa using social media? The answer is likely to be YES. However, are they using social media in their research related work?

Colleagues (Joel Sam, from CSIR in Ghana, and Richard Kedemi, from KARI in Kenya) and I recently carried out a study on the use of use of social media in agricultural research workflow. We used social media as an umbrella term to refer to mobile and web-based technologies, web platforms and web-based services that facilitate interactions and conversations among users and thus enhance their participation in the generation, distribution, searching and sharing of digital content. Regarding research workflow, we adopted the research lifecycle (see Fig. 1 below) proposed by CIBER, University College London and Emerald Group Publishing Ltd.

Figure 1 - Research lifecycle
[Source: CIBER, University College London and Emerald Group Publishing Ltd (2010:16)]

We invited 338 researchers from the Kenya Agricultural Research Institute and the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR) in Ghana to complete an online questionnaire hosted on Survey Monkey. Sixty-one (18%) researchers fully completed the questionnaire.

Our findings show that in general, the researchers in the two institutions have profiles/accounts on social media; Social Networking Services (SNS), that includes Facebook, LinkedIn, Google+ and MySapce, are the most popular category of social media tools; and these are followed by Voice over Internet (VoIP) Applications (i.e. Google Talk, Skype, etc,). Specifically, Facebook is the most actively used social media followed by LinkedIn and Skype.

The researchers are adopting social media for various reasons. Mostly were motivated with by the need connect with fellow researchers or to enhance their visibility within the research community and outside their countries or to connect with family members and relatives.

In agricultural research workflows, the researchers are using social media mainly in identifying research opportunities and finding potential collaborators for research projects. Overall, there is little use of social media in the dissemination of research results. LinkedIn and Google Docs are the most popular social media tools used in research.

We also found that the researchers are facing some challenges in the use of social media. Key challenges faced include unreliable Internet connectivity and lack of skills to make effective use of social media. Furthermore, use of social media in research is more of individual initiatives than part of the research organizations’ wide social media strategies. This is also common in most organizations in Africa and is not limited to agriculture research organizations.

Based on the findings, we are of the view that agricultural research organizations should improve their Internet connectivity and should implement policies and strategies that encourage the use of social media tools in the dissemination of research results in addition to the traditional methods of communicating research. The strategies should also incorporate capacity development initiatives in the use of both generic and specialized social media tools in research.  Strategic approaches to the use of social media in public agriculture research organizations in Africa could potentially open up research carried out in these organizations.

[Note: A presentation based on the study was made at the 13th IAALD World Congress at Cornell University, Ithaca, USA. The full paper will soon be available in the e-LiS repository].

IMARK e-learning course on managing spatial information

The Information Management Resource Kit (IMARK) Steering Group has announced the release of the course entitled: “Management of Spatial Information ”, available in English. The course provides a comprehensive overview of the nature and characteristics of spatial data, how it can help improve the quality and scope of activities in organizational processes, how to manage the infrastructure internally and how to integrate the infrastructure in a wider context of data acquisitioning and provisioning. The course was developed by FAO in partnership with ITC - Faculty of Geo-Information Science and Earth Observation of the University of Twente.

The course is available on CD (on request) and online.

Other IMARK modules/courses, also available CD and online, are:

• Knowledge Sharing for Development
• Digital Libraries, Repositories and Documents
• Web 2.0 and Social Media for Development
• Networking in Support of Development
• Building Electronic Communities and Networks
• Investing in Information for Development
• Digitization and Digital Libraries (superseded by the module Digital Libraries, Repositories and Documents)
• Management of Electronic Documents (superseded by the module Digital Libraries, Repositories and Documents)

IMARK courses provide an opportunity for self-paced learning to individuals who want to acquire skills in modern information management and exchange.

“African researchers are active consumers of content but inactive contributors”

In late March 2013, I took part in a workshop on National Digital Repository Framework organized by the Association of African Universities (AAU) in Accra. Participants, mainly from universities, discussed setting up national digital repositories of theses and dissertations, as part of AAU’s Database of African Theses and Dissertations (DATAD) initiative. A comment made by one presenter, that “African researches are active consumers of content but inactive contributors”, attracted my attention. I decided to give it a thought and I am afraid I have to say that he was largely right.

Most public research organizations and universities on the continent cannot afford to subscribe to scholarly publications without donor funding. For most of these institutions, they last paid for journal subscriptions using institutional budgets in the late 1980s and in 1990s. Since then, they largely depend on the good will of the international community to sustain their research and academic information needs.

At the click of a computer mouse button, thanks to modern information and communication technology (ICTs), today researchers, faculty members and students in Africa have access to thousands of journal titles, books and other information materials in digital format. This is possible due to several initiatives including the Research4Life Programme, the Programme for Enhancement of Research Information (PERI) and open access initiatives such BioMed Central. Availability of easy and around the clock access to these digital resources puts researchers, faculty staff and students on the continent at par with their colleagues in the developed world in as far as access to the latest research is concerned. However, how much of the research generated in Africa is accessible to the outside world?

Data available from the 2010 Thomson Reuters’s Global Research Report: Africa shows that from the years 1999 to 2008, on average Africa produced about 27,000 scientific papers per year, about the same volume as that of The Netherlands. Furthermore, Africa’s research scene, in terms of published outputs, is dominated by three countries – Egypt, Nigeria and South Africa. 

What then, are our researchers doing? 

Africa, as indicated by the BBC, has the potential to play a big role in the global science. However, there is little government-funding going into research. For example, in 2006, the African Union’s Executive Council endorsed that by 2010 governments in Africa should spend at least 1% of the GDP on research and development. How many countries have met this target?