Response Surface Methodology and Its Application in Evaluating Scientific Activities in a Federal University of Technology

Abstract

This paper used a second-order response surface methodology (RSM) to modeled the relationship between some selected university ranking indicators and citation variables. The objectives were to investigate which of the selected indicator(s) are relevant to the number of citations received on publication and obtain the best link function that relate the factors variables to response variable, also check if there exist an interaction effect between the selected ranking indicators. The University ranking indicators used in this paper were sourced from google scholar, research gate, the University repository and through questionnaire. The observations were treated as quasi-experimental designs. The causal effect of Publication was funding, collaboration, human resources, department facility, which were highly significant. Also, the causal effect for Citation were numbers of articles, collaboration, undergraduate and postgraduate project were highly significant and follow second order model with interaction. The obtained model was used to fit possible number of publication and citation () for differently assumed factors and graphical method was used to compare each paired factors to the number of citations on 3D plots. Using contours plot and surface plot highest citation is reached only in department with high production, human resources, funds, facilities and more collaboration. Based on these results, it is recommended that, research collaboration among the university researchers should be highly encourage, and there should be a provision for more facility in the department in other to maximize research output of the departments.