Scientometric study of Iranian Marine Science researcher's outputs on three water Bodies Caspian Sea, Persian Gulf and Oman Sea in Web of Science during 1992 to 2013

The aim of this study is investigating Iranian marine science outputs based on Science Citation Index-Expanded published by the Thomson Reuters and determination of the co-authorship Iranian marine researchers related to scientific outputs between 1992 to 2013 on three water bodies Caspian Sea, Persian Gulf and Oman Sea.
Scientometrics indicators were used. The data were extracted in plain text format from SCIE, analyzed using HistCite software and counted in MS office Excel program.
Findings: The results of this study demonstrated that 749 scientific documents were recorded in the SCI by Iranian marine researchers during 1992-2013, which are consisted of 323, 368 and 58 documents relevant to the Caspian Sea, Persian Gulf and Oman Sea, respectively. The highest participation rate belonged to the documents with three or five authors, While the highest co-authorship rate (99%) in the three water bodies occurred in 2013. Our study on the three water bodies data based on Bradford’s and Lotka’s laws indicated the rejection of Lotka’s laws and confirming Bradford’s rule. Among the three water bodies during the study period, the Caspian water basin allocated the highest authors (819) and authors with highest publications (17 papers). Our findings demonstrated that Malaysian and German authors took the leading position of participation (48%) with Iranian researchers in scientific marine productions. Iranian Journal of Fisheries Sciences allocated the highest number of Iranian marine science output in comparing with other studied journals.
The literature and co-authorship factor on the Caspian Sea, Persian Gulf and Oman Sea have grown exponentially during the sutdy period.