Iranian universities and research institutions in the ResearchGate: An altmetric study

The present study investigates the presence and function of Iranian universities and research institutions in the ResearchGate, an academic social networking website.
ResearchGate was used for data collection. Among the 428 Iranian universities and research institutions which have profiles in ResearchGate, the top 30 institutions were investigated according to six measures including R.G. Score, total impact points, number of members, number of documents, number of views and number of downloads.
Findings: With regards to all six measures together, Tehran University of Medical Sciences, Tehran University, Tarbiat Modarres University, Amirkabir University of Technology, Islamic Azad University, Shiraz University of Medical Sciences, and Sharif University of Technology are the most active Iranian universities in the ResearchGate.
The results of running a Pearson's correlation test revealed statistically significant but weak positive relationships between total number of citation of each institution in the WoS and total number of views and downloads of the same institution in the ResearchGate.