Original Article

Comparative Analysis of Research Performance of Medical Universities Based on Qualitative and Quantitative Scientometric Indicators

Abstract

Evaluation of the research status of the academic institution provides it with the possibility of accurate research policymaking. Scientometric indicators are important tools for evaluating scientific activities of individuals, groups, and institutions. The current research aims to analysis the research performance of medical universities in Northern Iran based on quantitative and qualitative scientometric indicators. In this cross-sectional descriptive study, the Scopus-indexed scientific documents provided by medical universities in the Northern Iran have been studied in terms of number of publications, number of citations, average number of Citations per Publication (C/P), Field-Weighted Citation Impact (FWCI), scientific collaborations, the number of in top 10% citation percentile, and the number of publications in top 10% journal percentile according to CiteScore, Source Normalized Impact per Paper (SNIP), and SCImagoJournal Rank (SJR) indicators during a five years period. According to the findings, Mazandaran University of Medical Sciences has gained the highest position in terms of the number of publications and citations, number of publications with international and national collaborations, and  academic-industrial collaborations., while Golestan University of Medical Sciences has gained a higher position in terms of scientific outputs in top 10% citation percentile and journal percentile, CiteScore, SNIP, SJR and C/P. In terms of the FWCI indicator, Golestan University of Medical Sciences has achieved the highest value. Considering academic status and research capabilities of medical universities in the Northern Iran, increasing academic-industrial collaboration, expanding academic collaboration with superior universities and institutions around the world can be effective in increasing the quality of research and upgrading academic ranks of universities at national, regional and international levels.

1. Adkins D, Budd J. Scholarly productivity of US LIS faculty. Library & Information Science Research. 2006;28(3):374-89.
2. Dakik HA, Kaidbay H, Sabra R. Resrarch Productivity of the Medical Faculty at The American Univeristy of Beirut. Postgrod Med J. 2006;82:462-4.
3. Bookstein A. Scientometrics: New opportunities. Scientometrics. 1994;30(2):455-60.
4. Yazdani K, Nedjat S, Rahimi-Movaghar A, Ghalichee L, Khalili M. Scientometrics: Review of concepts, applications, and indicators. Iranian Journal of Epidemiology. 2015;10(4):78-88.
5. King DA. The scientific impact of nations. Nature. 2004;430(6997):311–6.
6. Glänzel W. On the h-index-Amathematical approach to a new measure of publication activity and citation impact. Scientometrics. 2006 May 1;67(2):315-21.
7. Garfield E. The history and meaning of the journal impact factor. Jama. 2006 Jan 4;295(1):90-3.
8. Nightingale J, Marshall G. Citation analysis as a measure of article quality, journal influence and individual researcher performance. Radiography. 2012 May 1;18(2):60-7.
9. Basu A. Using ISI's' Highly Cited Researchers' to obtain a country level indicator of citation excellence. Scientometric. 2006 Jul 26;68(3):361-75.
10. Levitt J, Thelwall M. Patterns of annual citation of highly cited articles and the prediction of their citation ranking: A comparison across subjects. Scientometrics. 2008 Jul 24;77(1):41-60.
11. Delasalle J, Plume A. Your metrics questions answered: Q&A from research impact metrics for librarians webinar May 24, 2016. Available from: https://libraryconnect.elsevier.com/articles/your-metrics-questions-answered-qa-research-impact-metrics-librarians-webinar.
12. Glänzel W, De Lange C. Modelling and measuring multilateral co-authorship in international scientific collaboration. Part II. A comparative study on the extent and change of international scientific collaboration links. Scientometrics. 1997 Nov 1;40(3):605-26.
13. Luukkonen T, Persson O, Sivertsen G. Understanding patterns of international scientific collaboration. Science, Technology, & Human Values. 1992 Jan;17(1):101-26.
14. Chimhundu C, de Jager K, Douglas T. Sectoral collaboration networks for cardiovascular medical device development in South Africa. Scientometrics. 2015 Dec 1;105(3):1721-41.
15. Hu J, Chen J, Karbwang J, Hirajama K. National and international collaboration in Chinese medical academic research. International journal of pharmaceutical medicine. 2006 Dec 1;20(6):373-8.
16. Pečlin S, Južnič P, Sajko M, Stare J. Effects of international collaboration and status of journal on impact of papers. Scientometrics. 2012 Dec 1;93(3):937-48.
17. Low W, Ng K, Kabir M, Koh A, Sinnasamy J. Trend and impact of international collaboration in clinical medicine papers published in Malaysia. Scientometrics. 2014 Feb 1;98(2):1521-33.
18. Kaur H, Mahajan P. Collaboration in medical research: a case study of India. Scientometrics. 2015 Oct 1;105(1):683-90.
19. Aminpour F, Kabiri P, Heydari M. Academic contribution to the scientific productivity: a case study. J Res Med Sci. 2009;14(6):393-5.
20. Djalalinia S, Peykari N, Eftekhari MB, Sobhani Z, Laali R, Qorbani OA, et al. Contribution of health researches in national knowledge production: A scientometrics study on 15-year research products of Iran. International Journal of Preventive Medicine. 2017;8.
21. Eftekhari MB, Sobhani Z, Eltemasi M, Ghalenoee E, Falahat K, Habibi E, et al. Research ranking of Iranian universities of medical sciences based on international indicators: An experience from I.R. of Iran. Archives of Iranian Medicine. 2017;20(11):673-9.
22. Aldieri L, Kotsemir M, Vinci C. The impact of research collaboration on academic performance: An empirical analysis for some European countries. Socio-Economic Planning Sciences. 2017 Jun 3.
23. Riahi A, Siamian H, Zare A, Yaminfirooz M. Mapping the scientific productions of mazandaran university of medical sciences in Scopus database in 1992-2013. Journal of Mazandaran University of Medical Sciences. 2015;24(122):395-400.
24. Siamian H, Yamimi-Firooz M, Vahedi M, Aligolbandi K. Scientific Production of medical sciences universities in North of Iran. Acta Informatica Medica. 2013:113.
25. Jahani M, Yaminfirooz M. Self-citation of Medical and Non-medical Universities in Northern Iran. Acta Inform Med. 2016;24(6):401-4.
26. Hayati Z, Didegah F. International scientific collaboration among Iranian researchers during 1998-2007. Library Hi Tech. 2010 Sep 7;28(3):433-46.
27. Moed H. Iran’s scientific dominance and the emergence of South-East Asian countries as scientific collaborators in the Persian Gulf Region. Scientometrics. 2016 Jul 1;108(1):305-14.
28. Mazlish B. The quality of the quality of science: An evaluation. Science, Technology, & Human Values. 1982 Jan;7(1):42-52.
29. Pak C, Yu G, Wang W. A study on the citation situation within the citing paper: citation distribution of references according to mention frequency. Scientometrics. 2018 Mar 1;114(3):905-18.
30. Sooryamoorthy R. Collaboration and publication: How collaborative are scientists in South Africa? Scientometrics. 2009 Apr 21;80(2):419-39.
31. De la Flor-Martínez M, Galindo-Moreno P, Sánchez-Fernández E, Abadal E, Cobo M, Herrera-Viedma E. Evaluation of scientific output in Dentistry in Spanish Universities. Medicina oral,patologia oral y cirugia bucal. 2017 Jul;22(4):e491.
32. Bornmann L. Is collaboration among scientists related to the citationimpact of papers because their quality increases with collaboration? Ananalysis based on data from F1000Prime and normalized citation scores. Journal of the Association for Information Science andTechnology. 2017 Apr 1;68(4):1036-47.
33. Aksnes D. Characteristics of highly cited papers. Researchevaluation. Research evaluation. 2003 Dec 1;12(3):159-70.
34. Leydesdorff L, Wagner C. International collaboration in science and the formation of a core group. Journal of Informetrics. 2008 Oct 1;2(4):317-25.
35. Khor KA YL. Influence of internationalco-authorship on the research citation impact of young universities. Scientometrics. 2016 Jun 1;107(3):1095-110.
Files
IssueVol 57, No 7 (2019) QRcode
SectionOriginal Article(s)
DOI https://doi.org/10.18502/acta.v57i7.2333
Keywords
Research assessment Science production Information management Scientometrics Bibliometrics Iran

Rights and permissions
Creative Commons License This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License.
How to Cite
1.
Ranjbar-Pirmousa Z, Borji-Zemeidani N, Attarchi M, Nemati S, Aminpour F. Comparative Analysis of Research Performance of Medical Universities Based on Qualitative and Quantitative Scientometric Indicators. Acta Med Iran. 2020;57(7):448-454.