The study aimed at comparative determination of faculty’s research productivity in Africa, using h-index and citation index from Google Scholar database. The h-index and citation index are the most authentic, valid and reliable measures of faculty’s research productivity worldwide. Eight research questions were answered with descriptive statistics, and eight corresponding null hypotheses were tested with Analysis of Variance (ANOVA) and One-sample t test at 0.05 alpha. A disproportional stratified sample of 3000 faculty in Africa was drawn, cutting across fifteen universities from the five African regions. Comparative causal-effect Ex Post Facto research design guided the work. Google Scholar citation database that has been unquestionably judged as the most dependable, accurate and e-visible database served as the source of data for measuring the faculty’s research productivity. Results primarily showed that African h-index and citation index are significantly lower than the world averages of 17.50 and 971, respectively. Also, the h-index and citation index of the University of Cape Town, University of Pretoria and Cairo University are significantly greater than those of other African universities. Southern Africa and North Africa each has h-index and citation index that are significantly higher than those in the other African regions. South Africa and Egypt have h-index and citation index that are not only greater significantly than those of other African countries, but also significantly higher than the world averages. Recommendations were accordingly made for a possible acceleration of the research productivity of the faculty in the continent.
Keywords: African Universities’, Citation index, Faculty, Google Scholar, Google Scholar Profile, Research productivity, University rankings, h-index
