Analysis of the status of Iranian scientific production in some subject areas by scientometric and social network analysis indicators

The aim of this study is to analyze of the status of Iranian scientific production in selected areas related to science and Information technology included information technology, management, and library and information science by scientometric and social network analysis indicators. This research looks at the approach of the scientific outputs of Iranian scholars indexed in WOS database. In order to identify the status of the scientific cooperation between researchers, the co-authorship network of these researchers has been studied. After reviewing the literature, all records related to the selected areas were extracted from WOS database.Then the retrieved data sets were examined based on quantitative indicators (the number of scientific outputs) and qualitative indicators (the number of citations, h-index, etc.). Finally, the co-authorship network for each of the fields was drawn using network analysis method and appropriate software. This network was examined using social network analysis indicators such as density, clustering coefficient and centrality. The degree density of the co-authorship network in all three areas is down, and the authorships (nodes) have little communication with each other. The average of clustering coefficient index of the networks, especially in the field of information technology, represents a relatively high tendency of the network members to form different clusters. As well as by determining the centrality (degree, betweenness and closeness) of authors, their performance and the best writers for each of these indices were found. The results of this research can be effective in research policies by determining the dimensions of scientific cooperation in each of the studied areas.