International Journal of Information Science and Management
Volume:19 Issue: 1, Jan-Jun 2021

This study aims to examine the research output in engineering by the Middle East countries. The data on engineering research by Middle East countries were collected from Web of Science. Collected data were analyzed with various tools such as Average Annual Growth Rate (AAGR), Compound Annual Growth Rate (CAGR), Activity Index (AI), and Relative Specialization Index (RSI). The level of regional and international cooperation in the Middle East countries was also identified. Findings showed Iran has the highest overall performance in total documents, total citations, h-index, and highly cited papers, but most of the publications by Yemen were international cooperation. Iran, Kuwait, Oman, Saudi Arabia, UAE, and Yemen in the field of petroleum engineering; Bahrain and Qatar in industrial engineering; Turkey in geological engineering; Syria in agricultural engineering; Lebanon in medical engineering; Israel in cell & tissue engineering; Iraq in civil engineering; Egypt in Chemical Engineering; and Jordan in Software Engineering have the highest RSI in their countries. Results show that Iran had the best performance in most of the indicators (quantitative indices) and Saudi Arabia has good performance in qualitative indices among Middle East countries.

Traditional citation analysis has been greatly criticized because the process of citation accumulation requires considerable time after publication. So, the term “altmetrics” was proposed in 2010 to measure the scientific and social impact of a paper. According to the deficiencies of traditional citation analysis, we performed a comprehensive search for medical ethics publications using the altmetrics approach from the beginning until 2019. In this descriptive-analytical study, we retrieved the articles discussing any topics relating to medical ethics that published in the Scopus database from the beginning till 2019 using related medical ethics keywords. A total number of 455 articles with altmetrics scores and citations, included in this study. Altmetrics data were extracted via an altmetrics bookmarklet. Dimensions, Mendeley, and Twitter, had prominent sources of attention on social media platforms. The most number of tweets, and Mendeley's attentions, in the medical ethics fields, originated from the United States (US) and the United Kingdom (UK). Moreover, master students have the largest share in the citation of articles in Mendeley. Journal of Medical Ethics and History of Medicine has the most proportion of altmetrics score among Iranian papers in medical ethics. The correlation between the altmetrics score and citation index was significant (p <0.05). The medical ethics researchers have to pay more attention to social activities (such as creating and updating their profiles on social media) on the web for wide dissemination and proper evaluation of their scientific publication

Researchers worldwide are striving hard to find a solution for the coronavirus pandemic and reduce the fatalities from this severe outbreak. The purpose of this article is to evaluate and visualize the published documents about coronavirus research, based on extracted data from Web of Science (WoS) citation database. The study used a bibliometric method and social network analysis. Data were collected using the WoS database on February 23, 2020, with 13252 records being retrieved and used as the study sample. Descriptive statistics were used in the bibliometric method and network analysis. Text Statistics Analyzer and ISI.exe were used to compute the number of authors per document. VOSviewer and UCINET were used respectively for visualization and for measuring the centrality and the density of networks. Study findings indicate the top actors of the scientific society (authors, institutions, countries) that had the most publication on coronavirus. Similarly, the top keywords used by authors were identified. Also, the density and centrality measures of co-authorship networks (degree, closeness, betweenness) for the top 10 authors, institutions, countries, and keywords were identified. The Journal of Virology had the highest number of published papers on coronavirus research. The study revealed that the leading researchers and institutions were mostly from the United States of America, England, China, Germany, Netherlands, France, Canada, Japan, South Korea, and Saudi Arabia.

This scientometric research was conducted through correlation-analysis, and intended to assess the correlation between publications and patents both in developed countries and in Iran. The present study was performed using scientometric methodology and used USPTO for patent data and Scopus for publication data from 2015 to 2019. This study applied both parametric and non-parametric statistical analyses. Moreover, the Spearman Correlation analysis was used to determine the correlation between variables and types of variables. The data analysis was conducted using SPSS1 software. The relationship between these two variables was significant in each of the years under study. Different types of scientific documents, such as books, articles, and conference papers, were assessed. The Pearson Correlation analysis between these types of documents showed significance at 0.01 level in the articles with the correlation coefficient of 0.858, books with the correlation coefficient of 0.867, and conference papers with the correlation coefficient of 0.874, which was related to the extent of patenting. The subject areas related to social sciences and humanities, engineering and technical sciences, medical sciences, and biological sciences with the correlation coefficients of 0.866, 0.861, 0.843, and 0.834, respectively, at 0.01 level, revealed a significant relationship between the studied countries’ scientific output in these subject areas and the extent of patenting. The results of the present research showed that there was a positive relationship between the studied countries’ scientific output and their level of patenting. The countries that enjoy high levels of scientific output have more inventions. However, the results for Iran indicated that the growth in scientific output has had an insignificant effect on the country’s invention rate.

Fashion branding is decisive to create a distinctive image of a product. It is more important in the fashion apparel industry. Despite the existing studies, there is a need for a comprehensive investigation that can accurately portray the realities regarding fashion branding. In this regard, to provide a complete image and a deep understanding of the state of research in this field, the visualization technique of scientific networks was used. The research population consisted of all articles indexed on the Web of Science (WoS) database using the keywords such as "branding" and "fashion" from 1900 to 2019. The data was collected via a systematic review and analyzed by VOSviewer software. The research results included the data on identifying top scientific researchers and most influential countries; analyzing the relationships among researchers and countries, identifying keyword occurrences; and identifying research hotspots and subjects on which little research had been done. 1679 researchers, 64 countries, and 2522 keywords were obtained from 906 articles in total. This research seeks to explore and present emerging research topics. The research new insights and instruments emphasize the intellectual paradigm governing branding in international research for managers and owners of the fashion apparel industry. The intellectual paradigm investigated in this study by providing a comprehensive image of research conducted over the past thirty years in the field of fashion branding guides researchers to select research fields, keywords and also cite international articles and thus make Iranian research outputs more valuable. Managers of the fashion and clothing industry are also advised to use the fashion branding intellectual paradigm, which has been studied in detail in this research, in order to gain a comprehensive insight into the research background and scientific management of their brand.

Intellectual property is necessary in the flourish of research, development, and science as well as technology promotion in the new Internet and digital spaces. The key purpose of the protection of intellectual property is to prevent abuse and plagiarism, to encourage scientists and authors to conduct scientific research and literary activities, and to make their results accessible to the scientific community. Compliance with the codes of ethics, intellection, and human rights are the reason for the application of the laws of intellectual property rights at the national and international levels. The present study is an applied-exploratory study and a quantitative-qualitative research. The researcher-made questionnaire (content analysis and Delphi panel) consists of five main components (publisher, author, publications, subject, and commercialization) and 63 questions. Questionnaires were sent to the statistical population of the study, which was all the open access medical journals. About 611 completed questionnaires were entered into spss24 software. Validity and reliability, exploratory and confirmatory factor analysis and finally presentation of the model with PLS software were examined on the questionnaires. As can be seen from the findings, Cronbach’s alpha values, composite reliability, and average variance are statistically acceptable. In addition, the Cronbach’s alpha coefficient for most factors is greater than 0.7. Therefore, it is inferred that the variables have acceptable reliability. The AVE value is calculated for the components, with almost all variables having an acceptable convergent validity. The results show that there is a significant difference between the components. Considering the obtained results, it can be concluded that there is a relationship between the factors and intellectual property of journals. The quality indicators of the model confirmed this correlation as well. Finally, the results show that the questionnaire can be used with open access medical journals to examine intellectual property.

First edition of University Impact Ranking (UIR) has been published, and although it’s still in a process of rapid evolution, the result is likely to substantially influence the long-term development of higher education systems across the world based on the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). This study aims to analyze and critique the principal ranking system prepared by Times Higher Education which assess universities against the SDGs. This study investigated the reliability of Times Higher Education University Impact Ranking (UIR) and attempted to identify its contribution and impact of participating universities on their societies. Taking an explanatory case study approach, this study used observation, document study, and experts’ reflection as data collection methods. The findings suggest that UIR does not contribute sufficiently to identification of universities that have a good impact on their societies to achieve SDGs.

Commercialization of research results refers to a set of efforts aimed at raising capital and increasing the relationship between the academic and research sector and economic and social sector. The present study intends to identify and rank the factors affecting the commercialization process of research results at Payam-e-Noor University in order to determine the extent of influence of the identified factors. Therefore, this is an applied research in terms of purpose, which studies the factors affecting the process of knowledge commercialization in previous studies, using the confirmatory factor analysis approach. Using fuzzy hierarchical analysis, it was determined that legal, economic, manpower, cultural, structural and political, and communicational and information-related barriers are the first to sixth barriers to the knowledge commercialization in Payam-e-Noor University. Using fuzzy DEMATEL technique, the effectiveness and affectability of factors involved in the process of knowledge commercialization were identified. Accordingly, weak legal framework for supporting idea people at the university, inefficiency and ineffectiveness of the rules and regulations for commercialization, lack of regulation for the apportionment of financial gain from commercialization among scholars, lack of skilled and expert human resources in the universities, lack of facilities and financial resources for research commercialization, and lack of mutual recognition between university and industry had the most affectability. In other words, these are the dependent/outcome variables of the model. On the other hand, inadequate knowledge of the faculty members, poor fund management in the university, weakness of universities in wealth creation, absence of university entrepreneurial missions, the absence of up-to-date and effective idea banks and databases in the universities, and lack of effective communication between students and industry sector’s activists had the most effectiveness. In other words, these variables are the independent/causal variables of the model.

The pattern of success for knowledge management may help companies achieve their goals regarding knowledge. Therefore, this research aims at planning the pattern of success for knowledge management in the knowledge-based companies. The research method was a combined one: at the first stage, theme analysis was used to identify the major and components that affect the success of knowledge management in the knowledge-based companies. The main tool for gathering data at this stage was interview. Sampling at this stage was accomplished in a theoretical way. At the second stage, the pattern of success for knowledge management in the knowledgebased companies was planned based on interpretive-structural modelling; the planned pattern was evaluated in the statistical population of knowledge-based companies using path-structural modelling. The data gathering tool in this phase was a questionnaire. The results of the qualitative phase showed 9 major themes and 42 components. The results of the quantitative phase showed that the strategy of knowledge management and the environmental and industrial factors are considered the main factors of success for knowledge management in a knowledge-based company. Evaluating the planned pattern in the statistical population of this research showed that the planned pattern fitted properly, and the entire acquired relations were confirmed.

The study investigated teachers’ awareness of knowledge management and knowledge sharing behaviour in secondary schools-Nigeria. Three objectives/ purposes guided the study and the hypothesis was tested at significance level of 0.05. Descriptive survey research design was adopted for the study. The population comprised 283 teachers. The sample of the study was the 283 though 244 returned copies were fit for analysis. One formulated hypothesis was tested with t-test statistical technique. The collected data were analyzed with the use of SPSS version 23. The major findings of the study include; the level of awareness of knowledge management by experienced and less experienced teachers in Isoko South Local Government Area of Delta State was high. Knowledge sharing behavior of both experienced and less experienced teachers was positive and commendable; Among the implication of the study is the fact that government at all levels will be adequately informed why there is need to provide a conducive environment for teachers to thrive in the area of knowledge management. It was recommended that all categories of teachers’ trainers should ensure that the concept of knowledge management is captured in teachers’ curriculum. Equally, school authorities should have an open door policy that will boost the level of knowledge sharing behaviour and management among secondary school teachers

The purpose of this empirical quantitative study is the measurement and evaluation of the relations between structural domains, including simple and complex structure of concepts and semantic relations. Our scientific guess is that there is a significant relation between the structure of concepts and the number of semantic relations. Moreover, there is the lack of investigation on assessing the behavioral interaction between structural domains to improve information retrieval (IR( performance for achieving cognitive results to generate theoretical argument. The mix-method of deductive and inductive approach is adapted in operating the research methodology, especially for data collection. The research data is selected from a complex and authoritative agricultural ontology (i.e., VocBench). Sample size out of 40000 concepts is around 1500 concepts, which were collected via stratified random sampling. The data analysis results were derived from SPSS and Excel software which employed proportional and inferential analysis. The expected relation is that an increase in the numbers of simple concepts causes the increase of semantic relations and vice versa.

The present study aims to work out solutions for reducing Social Media(SM) harms based on the media ecological perspective. According to media ecology perspective, SM should be addressed at micro-, meso-, exo-, macro-, and chrono-levels. Drawing on meta-synthesis method, Magiran, SID, Noormags, ScienceDirect, Wiley, Springer, Ebscohost, and Sage databases were searched for the data using related keywords. Accordingly, a number of 129 articles were retrieved from the databases. Further analyses on the article titles, abstracts and full texts led to the exclusion of 47, 26, and 14 articles from the set, respectively. Eventually, 42 articles were selected and analyzed as the research sample. The eligibility criteria included peerreviewed journal articles or full conference papers on social media harms or abuse, published between 2002 -2020, available in English and Persian. As other sources (e.g. dissertations) are not peer-reviewed, and we aimed to identify rigorous best practice literature, we excluded these. The results showed that solutions could be worked out by studying the why and how to use and to participate along with the harms simultaneously. The why and how to use as well as the harms may be determined at micro-, meso-, exo-, macro-, and chrono-levels so that solutions could be proposed at five levels including nurturing time management skills; promoting critical thinking; encouraging family, peer, and colleagues’ participation in creating recreational, sports and leisure contexts; teaching media literacy; passing binding and persuasive laws, then review the historical trend of technology adoption.