Evaluating the online attention and visibility of research from State Universities in Zimbabwe using altmetrics data

Introduction Measuring research impact beyond academia has led to the development of several models that describe and theorize transformations in the way knowledge is produced and used to create impact outside of academia Traditional metrics have been used to measure research impact at the journal and author levels. However, the growth of the internet and social media have influenced research metrics leading to the rise of Altmetrics. Methods In this study, using data from Altmetric.com, the researcher analyses online mentions related to research output from the universities to establish how altmetrics may provide informative indicators of the impact of research outputs from universities in Zimbabwe. The altmetrics data was extracted from Altmetric.com between June and July 2026. The search was limited to the period 2020 to 2025. Results Social Media (51,258), News, Blogs & Podcasts (6,734), Policy, Patents & Guidelines (1,175) had higher mentions compared to Academic Sources (166). Biomedical and Clinical Sciences had the highest total mentions in all the categories, summing up to 29,556, while Psychology had the lowest total mentions in three categories. University of Zimbabwe had the highest total number of mentions of fields of research in online activities (45,606) while Manicaland State University of Applied Sciences had the lowest mentions (14). The correlation between the Total Output Tracked and Total Mentions according to field of research was 0,9 and 0,8 according to university. Many fields had zero mentions on Policy, Patents & Guidelines from most universities. The publication volume, based on the Total Output Tracked from each field of research show an increase from 2020 to 2022 and then a drop from 2023 to 2025. Discussion Altmetrics provide quantitative evidence of online activities related to research output from the universities, indicating social engagement with the work beyond academia and could be used as evidence of the visibility of universities' research output. Altmetric data revealed that research from the universities was visible beyond academia, although some fields had more mentions than others, suggesting that some universities research activities received more attention and visibility online compared to others. Altmetrics do not provide an indication of the quality and significance of research publications, yet they provide quantitative evidence of online activities related to research output from the universities, indicating visibility of the work beyond academia.