The Director of the Directorate of Research Innovation and Consultancy at the University of Cape Coast, Prof. David Teye Doku, has been featured by Research.com as the best Social Sciences and Humanities Scientist in Ghana.

According to the 2nd edition of Research.com, the firm responsible for the awards, Prof. Doku, who is also an Associate Editor of the reputable BMC Public Health journal (Global Health Section), has 38 Discipline H-index (D-index) and 40, 249 Citations under his belt.

Research.com’s best researchers ranking is a credible account of leading researchers from the area of Social Sciences and Humanities, based on a thorough analysis of 166,880 researchers discovered from multiple bibliometric data sources. For the discipline of Social Sciences and Humanities, as many as 15,317 researchers were examined.

The 2nd edition of Research.com ranking of the best scholars in the arena of Social Sciences and Humanities is based on data derived from various data sources including OpenAlex and CrossRef.

The bibliometric data for devising the citation-based metrics were acquired on 21-12-2022. Position in the ranking is based on a scholar’s D-index (Discipline H-index), which includes exclusive publications and citation values for an examined discipline.

The management of the University of Cape Coast, in an article on the university’s website, says the accomplishment by Prof. Doku adds to the University of Cape Coast's frantic efforts to advance from its current position of fourth in Africa to the top spot, and maintain its enviable position as the best-ranked university in Ghana and West Africa.

Prominent scholars listed in Ghana are representing University of Cape Coast and the University of Ghana. The average D-index for the top 3% scholars is 37 in comparison to an average of 37 for all 2 researchers listed in their ranking.

The average number of published papers in the discipline of Social Sciences and Humanities for the top 10% of scholars in the ranking is 98 against an average of 98 for all 2 scholars. The average number of citations for the top 10% scientists is 23409 against an average of 23409 for all 2 scholars.

With 2 researchers, Ghana ranks in spot 42 in the world.

D-index Threshold
The D-index threshold for accepting a researcher to be evaluated is placed at 30 if the majority of their publications are in the field of Social Sciences and Humanities. The acceptance factors for researchers to be considered into the ranking of top scholars are based on the D-index, ratio of the publications made within the selected discipline in addition to the awards and achievements of the researchers.

The D-index threshold for listing leading researchers is set as an increment of 10 depending on the overall number of scientists assessed for each scientific field whilst making sure that the top 1% of leading scholars are incorporated into the ranking. A proximity of 30% or less is expected between a researcher’s general H-index and their D-index.

Extra verification practices

Research.com says because their primary mission is to ensure that only genuine scholars are mentioned in Research.com ranking, they realized that numbers are never meant to be a complete tool to evaluate the work of scholars. For that reason, they  manually check every profile and cross-correlate it against publications in a wide range of credible sources.

Although it’s not a metric contributing to a researcher’s position in the ranking, the amount of documents published in prominent journals and conference proceedings should constitute a valuable secondary signal of their contribution to research in a specific field of study.

Position in the ranking is based on every scientist’s D-index according to metrics gathered from OpenAlex and CrossRef, which are the most prominent and well-known bibliometric databases of this type available to the research community.