Abstract:
This study measured, identified and determined the research visibility, productivity and trend in cybercrime research publications in Nigeria from 2009 to 2018 using an informetric method. The study analysed the informetric growth rate of cybercrime research productivity; the performance of researchers in cybercrime; the preferred research communication outlet by Nigerian researchers in cybercrime; research productivity of authors in cybercrime; the trend of research in cybercrime among Nigerian universities; the research collaboration pattern of Nigerian researchers with other countries; how researchers in cybercrime communicate in Nigeria; and the citation analysis of researchers in cybercrime in Nigeria. The descriptive informetric technique of content analysis was used as the primary research instrument in which 69 documents were retrieved from SCOPUS for the analyses. Information relating to cybercrime was harvested from SCOPUS and quantitatively evaluated using semi-log growth model, and frequencies of occurrence of different indicators, such as authors, years, affiliation, the trend of collaboration and citation analysis concerning cybercrime within the timeframe of ten years. The research revealed among others, that although there were few existing publications by Nigerian scholars, there was a steady increase in cybercrime publications output within the time frame studied, with the publications appearing in a total of 7 journal titles; the major sources of research communication being journal articles and Conference Proceedings. It shows that the trend of research collaboration between Nigerian researchers and scholars in other countries of the world was low. The study recommends better research funding for investigation into cybercrime. The grants should be made widely available by the various Universities and other higher institutions, to galvanize research efforts of those interested in researching into cybercrime in Nigeria. This will also enable the conduct of quality research that will be publishable in high impact and visible communication outlets.
