Scientometrics study of scientific productions of Iranian Medical Sciences Universities in Web of Science During 1999-2008

Abstract

The current study analyzes quality and quantity of scientific productions originated by Iranian medical sciences Universities during 1999-2008. All raw data was extracted from the database of Web of Science during 1999-2008. The findings of study showed that the number of scientific productions emanated by Iranian Medical Sciences Universities has increased through the study period. The number of scientific productions increased from 259 documents in 1999 into 15852 documents in 2008, an increase of greater than 60 times. Articles were the most frequent document type indexed in the WoS. English language was the dominant language of publications. Pharmacology and pharmacy have been the most interesting subject area for researchers in theses universities. Despite fluctuations in the number of received citations in scientific productions and H- index of these universities during study period, the number of self-citations has increased significantly, but in terms of citation average per paper, a descending order was observed during the study decade.