Preparatory to breaking limits in its Scopus-indexed publication drive in 2020 thereby leaping towards attaining a leading world-class university status, Landmark on Thursday 30th January organised a one-day training for both academic and non-teaching staff of the University on the use of Elsevier ScienceDirect and Mendeley towards global best practices. 

Reiterating the University’s commitment to its publication drive as a means to attaining her vision, the Vice-Chancellor, Professor Adeniyi Olayanju set new direction for publications for the year 2020. He said, “Going by our projection, the University is expected to publish minimum double of her last year Scopus-indexed documents while strategies are already in place to achieve this feat. 

“With this, Landmark is expected to run at this unrelenting pace for the next 3 years when she will also be ranked as one of the leading Universities in Nigeria, West Africa, Africa and the world. By then, we as a University would confidently say “The Lord has done great things for us, wherefore we are glad.”

He recounted the University’s effort at a sustainable Scopus ranking since 2018 following her debut appearance in its database in 2011 with only one published article. He added that the University, however, gained enormous speed to having a total of 226 and 367 Scopus-indexed papers in 2018 and 2019 respectively while already having 20 in 2020.

The Vice-Chancellor commended the impact of Elsevier’s interaction with the University over the years, describing it as a progressive one which continues to expand the frontiers of the University’s publication drive. In the same vein, he assured the University community of continuous training programs especially for members of faculty and continuous investment into Open Access publications to enhance teaching and research.

The Elsevier’s Sub Saharan Africa Manager, (Research Solution Sales) Mr. Mohamed Omar appreciated the University management for the existing relationship between his company and the University, noting that it has created them the platform to offer support in terms of capacity building and how to improve the quality and quantity of research output. He, therefore assured the University their continued support whenever the need arises.

Also, the Customer Consultant, Africa, Mr Khalid Shalan, who was fascinated by the serenity of the environment and the state-of-the-art facilities, commended the University for her lofty vision and unwavering drive for publication. He said, “the overwhelming fact is that I have been checking the performance of Landmark University across the last three years, it is one of the most promising accounts I have seen. I think this is a fertile land, this is a very fertile land for even much more researches and I am proud, I feel privileged to be added to the support to Landmark. I believe that together we can contribute our quota to the world.”

Also on the Elsevier team which earlier paid a courtesy visit to members of Management at the Vice-Chancellor’s office was the Country Representative, Mr Ibrahim Usman. 

The training under the aegis of the Landmark University Centre for Learning Resources (CLR) was also designed and delivered to the University management with a view to helping it make deliverable policies towards achieving the University’s vision.