Publication patterns and trends of 4ir pillars in the electronic library journal

The Fourth Industrial Revolution (4IR) is upon society, and studies have suggested that it is essential for society to have the aptitude to adapt to the new ways of doing things. It thus becomes critical that research supports the shift into this new environment. As a result, this paper aimed to determine the publication patterns and trends relating to the 4IR pillars over five years (2015-2019). The study utilised quantitative methods as the focus of the study was on analysing the publication patterns and trends of the 4IR pillars in an Information and Knowledge Management (IKM) focused journal, the Electronic Library. Deductive reasoning was utilised to enable the researchers to logically determine the publication trends and patterns of the 4IR pillars in the IKM journal identified. Content analysis was used to help fulfil the research objectives: "to map the publication patterns and trends in IKM, in terms of 4IR research and information dissemination; and to analyse the publication gap between the various 4IR pillars found within the identified IKM journal". This is due to the content analysis strategy enabling researchers to contextualise data. To assist the content analysis process, a category sheet was developed to provide detailed information regarding the nine pillars' abbreviations, synonyms, and terminology, allowing for the easier identification of the pillars in the text. For this study, the abstract of each article was evaluated to determine the mentions of the 4IR pillars. While bibliometric analyses have been done on the concept of the 4IR, an analysis of publications regarding the pillars of the 4IR within the Electronic Library journal between 2015 and 2019 had not yet been done. Therefore, it was crucial to determine the publication patterns and trends of these 4IR pillars to determine whether the identified IKM journal can aid the development of a 4IR capable workforce. The process of determining frequencies and sequencing allowed for developing a graph that summarised the research results.