Visibility of Scholarly Research and Changing ResearchCommunication Practices: A Case Study from Namibia

Scholars globally are increasingly required to account for the visibility and impact of their research, and visibility and impact are increasingly digitally-mediated through the platforms and practices associated with Web 2.0. Traditional prestige-based metrics of visibility (ISI/WoS Impact Factor) measure only scholar-to-scholar outputs like journals and books. In many African universities with nascent research cultures, legacies of colonialism and imperatives of national development, these measures present scholars with particular challenges. This paper reveals the pressures shaping African research communication practices and the visibility of research, using data from a case study at the University of Namibia