A ranking of Honduran researchers based on webometry criteria with Google Scholar profiles

Abstract

Justification: Webometrics has been used to measure scientific activity and visibility in countries. Objective: to build a ranking of Honduran researchers according citations in their Google Scholar profiles and their institutional affiliation. Methodology: a search was carried out on scientific publications of researchers and academic and independent institutions of Honduras as registered in Google Scholar. The information was organized in Microsoft Excel and analyzed with the Tableau tool, used also to generate an interactive dashboard for public access, showing frequencies, percentages and averages of the researchers' citations and other criteria. Results: most of the researchers with profiles available were men 72%; (110/151). Universidad Nacional Autónoma de Honduras led the percentage with more researchers 55.69%; (84/151), followed by Universidad Tecnológica Centroamericana 13.98%; (21/151) and Escuela Agrícola Panamericana 12.65%; 19/151). Escuela Agrícola Panamericana showed the highest average number of citations per researcher (390), followed by Universidad Nacional Autónoma de Honduras (179) and Universidad Tecnológica Centroamericana (177). Researchers located in the top 20 classified by H index, also belonged to these universities. The disciplines most frequently reported by researchers were social sciences (27.2%), health (22.53%), agriculture (9.32%), and natural sciences (8.6%). Conclusions: the largest number of researchers with profiles on Google Scholar were affiliated to Universidad Nacional Autónoma de Honduras, nonetheless researchers from two private universities had a citation average almost equal to greater than that institution. The public dashboard of ranking of Honduran researchers https://tabsoft.co/3wK3vym, can guide the strategies for visibility of the country's scientists.