mohammad amin erfanmanesh

Considering that the goal of social science research is to train and provide skilled and specialized human resources to carry out research, education, management and planning in various social and cultural fields, and also considering that the main emphasis of this field is the education and promotion of excavations. A field about the social issues of the country and the analysis and interpretation of their roots, contexts, causes and factors, description and analysis of their extent in the society and finally the analysis of the information obtained from these studies is to solve social issues, therefore providing considered solutions to deal with them. With these problems and social developments, it is necessary. Considering that one of the evaluation criteria of universities and countries is the quantity and quality of their research outputs in international reliable databases. The status of each country's indexed research outputs in international valid indexes indicates an important part of that country's scientific activities at the international level. Therefore, in order to analyze scientific activities, a clear picture of this situation has always been the focus of the country's research managers. Therefore, it is necessary to pay attention to the quality of research outputs in Iranian universities, which are considered the most important scientific hub of the country. The results of this research can be used for planning at the level of administrations, various vice-chancellors and the entire universities under review, and by knowing the priorities, abilities and weaknesses, provide the necessary facilities to make scientific activities more targeted in the subject areas of social and behavioral sciences in the universities under review.  Therefore, this research studies and analyzes the research outputs of Iran's major universities using qualitative Scientometrics indicators in the subject areas of social and behavioral sciences during the period of 2010-2020.

What is the status of the research outputs of Iran's major universities in the subject areas of social and behavioral sciences with a Scientometrics approach from the perspective of quantity and impact index based on Scopus database data during the years 2010 to 2020?

The review of the literature indicates that the quality of research outputs in Iran's major universities has been less studied over a long period of time and using multiple Scientometrics indicators. In most of the previous studies, only the average index and the percentage of documents were cited and the H index was used to study the quality level of research outputs. Therefore, according to the investigations carried out in the dimension of scientology and the need to pay attention to the quality of research outputs in addition to their quantity, the present article studies and analyzes the research outputs of major universities in Iran in the subject areas of social and behavioral sciences according to several indicators of effectiveness during the period of 2010-2020. In this way, it has helped to identify the scientific position of the universities in the subject areas of social and behavioral sciences, as well as planning for its development at the national level, and to help strengthen and improve the country's scientific rank at the international level.

The current research is of an applied type and has been carried out with a Scientometrics approach and with documentary and citation analysis methods. The community under review is all research outputs in the subject areas of social and behavioral sciences, including "subject areas of psychology, economics (economics, econometrics and finance)", "management (business, management and accounting)", "social sciences", and "sciences", decision-making", according to the subject classification of the Scopus database, in the major universities of Iran in the years 2010 to 2020. The research implementation environment was Scopus and Scival databases. Research data was collected from March 20 to March 28, 2019 from Scopus and Scival. The method of data collection is to refer directly and get standard outputs from Scopus and Scival databases. The indicators used in this research are: citations, average citations per article, H index, weighted citation impact at the field level, percentage of highly cited articles, and percentage of articles published in top journals. Descriptive statistics (with Microsoft Excel software) were used to analyze the data.

According to the results, the total number of research outputs in the subject areas of social and behavioral sciences of Iran's major universities in the target period was 19,582 records. In all the studied universities, the subject area of social sciences had the most research outputs. In general, the research outputs of Iran's major universities in the subject areas of social and behavioral sciences have been on the rise in the given period of time. The reason for this can be the increase of students and researchers in postgraduate studies. In terms of the number of citations index, Shahid Beheshti, Isfahan, Ferdowsi, Tabriz, and Shiraz universities have the most citations in the subject area of "social sciences" and in the universities of Tehran, Allameh Tabataba’i, and Tarbiat Modares, the subject area of "business, management and accounting" has the most citations. In most of the cases mentioned in the universities and subject areas under investigation that received the most citations, in terms of the index of highly cited articles at the threshold of 10% and the index of articles published in top journals at the threshold of 25%, they also took the highest percentages. This issue indicates the high quality of research outputs with more citations, which these findings are consistent with the vital and high research (2016) for this reason that the more the citations of the articles, the higher the quality. In terms of highly cited articles at the threshold of 10%, in the universities of Tehran, Tarbiat Modares, Isfahan, Ferdowsi, Tabriz, and Shiraz, the subject area of "Economics, Econometrics and Finance", and in Shahid Beheshti and Allameh Tabataba’i universities, the subject area of "Trade" "Management and accounting" got the highest percentages.

In terms of the index of articles published in top journals at the threshold of 25%, in Shahid Beheshti, Tehran, Tarbiat Modares, Ferdowsi, Tabriz universities, in the subject area of "Business, Management and Accounting", in Allameh Tabataba’i University, in the subject area of "Psychology", in universities Isfahan and Shiraz have the highest percentages in the subject area of "Social Sciences". In this regard, it has been mentioned in most of the cases that they have obtained a high percentage in terms of the index of highly cited articles at the threshold of 10% and the index of articles published in the top journals at the threshold of 25%. This issue shows the high quality of research outputs in the mentioned subject areas, which with the research of Irfan Manesh and Hosseini (2016), in terms of the impact of general impact indicators (H index, weighted citation impact index at the field level, citations) on the increase of articles published in Top journals and highly cited articles match. Since some of the indicators examined in this research, such as citations and the number of highly cited articles, are included in some ranking systems, such as the rankings of Leiden University, Saimgo University, and Shanghai University, increasing the mentioned indicators as much as possible is effective in improving the position of universities in these ranking systems.

In general, it is very important for universities to emphasize the quality of research outputs in addition to the quantity of these outputs. Attention to the quality of research outputs with the researches of Ebrahimi and Hayati (2007), Yaminifirouz et al. (2015) and Erfanmanesh and Hosseini (2018). Considering the number of received citations of the published research outputs of Iran's major universities in the review of their performance, as well as considering the special research credit and score for the authors of highly cited articles in various subject areas can be a suitable solution in this field. Also, emphasizing the quality along with the quantity of research outputs in universities and research centers should be given special attention.

We are grateful to Shahid Beheshti University Research Vice-Chancellor for their support in the implementation of this research.

This study aims to study the social and behavioral sciences research outputs at Shahid Beheshti University using indicators of Scientometrics and Altmetrics during 2010-2020. In the current world, where research is considered a factor for increasing power, countries try to raise the quantity and quality of their research outputs. Scientometrics is a field of research that uses statistical and measurement methods to determine the growth and development criteria of science and help determine the position of countries quantitatively.  On the other hand, the Web 2 revolution and the current advances in information technology have had a great impact on various scientific fields, and the possible benefits, and have changed the behavior of researchers. The wide level of access and widespread use of the web has made researchers use this space to share their works and increase the visibility of their research outputs, and tend to be more present in social networks and connect with the virtual world.

The indexed research outputs in Scopus in the field of social and behavioral sciences were studied.The current research was applied and was conducted with Scientometrics and Altmetrics approaches. Scopus, Scival, and Altmetric databases were used to gather data. The data were analyzed using descriptive and inferential statistics tests in Excel and SPSS software.The investigated community is all research outputs in the subject areas of social and behavioral sciences, including "subject areas of psychology", "economy, econometrics, and finance", "business, management and accounting", "social sciences", and "decision-making sciences", according to the category The subject of the Scopus database is Shahid Beheshti University in the years 2010 to 2020.

In terms of Field-weighted citation impact, the highly cited articles were in the top 10% threshold, the top journals were in the top 25% threshold, and the subject area of business, management, and accounting was located in the highest rank. The most used social media in all areas were Twitter and Mendeley. In terms of the number of tweets, the field of psychology with 599 tweets has the most mentions and 3079 mentions in Mendeley, in the first place, and economics, econometrics, and finance have the least mentions and signs with 14 tweets and 348 mentions. In the correlation section, the results of the Spearman test showed that the subject areas of psychology and decision-making sciences have a statistically significant relationship Between the number of citations index and the altmetric score.

The research outputs of Shahid Beheshti University in the subject areas of social sciences and behavior had an ascending process during 2010-2020. The reason for this can be the increase of students and researchers at different levels. It can be stated that by inserting a digital object identifier (DOI) for all the outputs, their effect will be investigable based on the Altmetrics indicators. Universities need to emphasize the quality of research outputs in addition to the quantity of these outputs and also considering the special research credit and credit for authors of articles in top journals can be a suitable solution to increase the quality of research outputs. The results of this research can be used for planning at the level of management, and various vice-chancellors in the university under review, and by knowing the priorities, abilities, and weaknesses, provide the necessary facilities to make scientific activities more targeted in the fields of social and behavioral sciences in the university under review. Finally, the findings of this research can help identify the scientific position of the desired university in the subject areas of social and behavioral sciences, as well as plan for the development of the university at the national and international levels.

PRESSoo is a conceptual model for describing serial works. This conceptual model is a formal ontology intended to capture and represent the underlying semantics of bibliographic information about continuing resources. In this research, the feasibility of implementing the PRESSoo model in organizing Persian serials has been studied. The purpose of this study was to identify the degree of adaptation between Persian Bibliographic Records with PRESSoo model.

The present study is an applied research which is carried out by evaluation method. The population of this study was 90 Persian serials of the Knowledge and Information Science in the National Library and Archives of Iran. In order to collect the required data, 2 adaptive table utilized to analyze the adaptation between Persian Serials with the PRESSoo conceptual model. The first table has been prepared by using PRESSoo classes and data elements of ISSN manual. The other adaptive table has been based on the UNIMARC fields and PRESSoo classes and Properties. The gathered data was analyzed using the excel 2016 software.

The results of this study showed that the, fields used in the Persian serials’ records are related to different classes of PRESSoo model. According to the characteristics and changes observed in the Persian serials’ records of the information science and science serials, among the different classes of PRESSoo Z1, Z5, Z6, Z11 and Z12 should be used in modeling Persian Serials. On the other hand, 18 properties of PRESSoo model out of 46 properties are important in Organizing Persian serials. The results of this study showed that, in the studied records, adaptation between the IRANMARC fields of the RASA software, with 5 classes and 18 properties of PRESSoo were observed.

The results of this study showed that the Persian Serials in the National Library and Archives of Iran have low adaptation with the conceptual models. The reasons of this low adaptation are: lack of commitment to the Anglo-American Cataloguing Rules 2, software problems and inattention to essential UNIMARC fields. Likewise, the results of this study revealed that, although there is a sufficient adaptation between IRANMARC fields and PRESSoo conceptual model, but due to the lack of attention to UNIMARC fields in RASA, and the standards like Angelo-American, software problems in Iran, appropriate compatibility between IRANMARC fields and PRESSoo classes was not observed in the studied records. In order to correctly use the conceptual models, it is necessary to use more UNIMARC fields depending on the users' needs.

Altmetrics (Alternative Indicators) are indicators which can be exploited alongside traditional scientometrics concepts based on citation analysis to examine the impact of scientific products on the Web 2 environment. The purpose of this study was to investigate the prevalence of international articles in the field of medical informatics and health information management in social media and to determine the researchers' use of these media and identify top articles based on Altmetrics scores.

The present study was conducted with a scientometrics approach, using Altmetric indicators. The research population is 64 journals in the field of health information management, medical informatics indexed at the SJR (Sciemgo) and Scopus databases. All the necessary information about the journals and articles, such as the name of the journal, the name of the article, the altimetric score, etc. was obtained by referring to Altmetric.com. Spearman correlation test was used to analyze the data.

Mendeley, Twitter, and Facebook, were among the social media that received the most mentions. The findings indicated that there was a significant relationship between altmetrics coverage (presence in social web environment) and three quality performances Indices (SJR, Snipe and the Site Score). The correlation coefficients obtained for these three indices were, 0.401, 0.248 and 0.285, respectively.

Social media can have a positive effect on the citation rate of scientific articles. Therefore, researchers in the field of medical informatics and health information management can increase the number of citations by sharing their works on social media. Due to the lack of strong correlation in this study, altmetrics can be used to complement scientometrics indices, but not as a alternative to evaluating scientific research.

This research investigates the citation, usage, reach and readership of scholarly books published by Springer Nature in four areas of Pure Sciences, Engineering, Medical Sciences, and Social Sciences within three years after publication.

The current study is a descriptive – correlational research which is conducted using citation, altmetrics and usage-based indicators. The sample of study is comprised of 1184 electronic books from Springer published in 2013. The data was collected from Bookmetrix, Springer’s platform for monitoring the performance of books, which shows the number of citations in Crossref, the number of downloads in SpringerLink, the number of mentions in social media tools and the number of bookmarks in Mendeley. Data analysis was conducted using SPSS.

Results of the study revealed that Springer books in pure sciences were more frequently cited than the other three subject areas. Like citation data, download statistics varied between scientific areas and the highest download count belonged to engineering books. Results showed that books in medicine received more social media attentions compared with those in social sciences, pure sciences and engineering. Regarding Mendeley bookmarks, the engineering books demonstrated the highest number of bookmarks among four studied research areas.All the studied books have been downloaded at-least once, while the proportion of bookmarked, cited and mentioned books was 90.2%, 67.9% and 19.5%, respectively. The highest number of downloads in all four subject areas was occurred 6 to 18 months after publication time. The results of running a series of correlation tests revealed statistically significant and positive associations among the number of citations, downloads, mentions and bookmarks in all four disciplines. Findings revealed that books with more download statistics also accumulated higher citation counts. The relationship between citations and downloads could be bilateral. On the one hand, early download may lead to more citations. On the other hand, documents may gain more attention and be downloaded because they acquire more visibility when they are cited.

The results of the current study provide evidence that usage-based and social media-based metrics could act as the complement of traditional citation-based measures for assessing the impact of books and book chapters in a multidimensional way. This study also provides insights into different types of impact that scholarly books have and how they are being cited, downloaded and discussed in book-oriented and article-oriented disciplines. Librarians’ and researchers’ familiarity with alternative metrics are mandatory.

Journals indexed by the Clarivate Analytics’ Web of Science (WOS) are temporarily suppressed from the Journal Citation Reports, if they manipulate their impact factor and present extreme outliers in citation behavior through excessive self-citations and citation stacking with other journals. The current research aims to investigate the different characteristics of the suppressed journals by Clarivate Analytics, in a five-year time span (from 2010 to 2014).

The current study is an applied research in terms of objectives while it is a descriptive study in terms of data analysis and conducted using scientometric indicators. Research population comprised of 225 suppressed journals from the Journal Citation Reports during 2010-2014. Data was collected from the Journal Citation Reports and Web of Science.

Results of the study revealed that at least one journal from 177 different subject categories were suppressed during 2010 to 2014. The highest number of title suppressions was belonging to electronics and electrical engineering, management and artificial intelligence. Of the interesting findings of the research is the low presence of medical journals in the suppressed lists. Investigating the share of world countries showed that the United States, United Kingdom, the Netherlands and Germany had the greatest number of suppressions. 41.3 percent and 38.2 percent of the journals were suppressed for one and two years, respectively. Moreover, 65 percent of the suppressed journals were ranked in the first and second quartiles of their subject categories a year before suppression. Even some journals were the first journals in their categorical ranking of JCR before suppression.  

In the five-year period of this study, 32 countries were engaged in journal suppression by having at least one suppressed journal. Notably, the most frequent language of the suppressed journals was English that can be interpreted and about half of the suppressed journals belonged to authoritative international publications like Sage, Wiley-Blackwell, Taylor and Francis, Springer and Routledge. Of course, almost 80 percent of the suppressed titles could meet the Clarivate Analytics criteria again and remove the suppression after two years.Considering the fact that two Iranian journals had the record of suppression, awareness of the researchers and journals’ editorial board members of the country as well as regular monitoring of the journals’ citation performance may avoid occurrence of suppressions in the future.