The Relation between Self-Citation and Impact Factor in Medical Science Open Access Journals in ISI & DOAJ Databases

Citation is one of the important elements in scientific literature which has a significant role in information production and generation. Self-citation is a part of citation behavior. Relying on their articles, journals can change the number of citations and consequently the level of journal impact factor. This research aims at investigating the relation between self-citation and impact factor in the open access journals indexed in ISI and DOAJ in medical science in 2007-08. In this research, indexes such as the relation between self-citation of journal and impact factor and the effect of self-citation rate of the journal in open access performance are investigated. Research method is an analytical method conducted by using citation analysis technique. SPSS statistical software was used to examine and analyze the data and its inferential analysis methods such as Pierson Factor were used as well. Statistical society includes 168 journals. The results showed a self-citation rate of 28% for the journal. The findings indicate that there is a significant relation between self-citation and impact factor. After omitting self-citation, the level of self-citation in the performance of journals showed that 60% of the titles in the medical science experienced ranking increase, 27% experienced ranking decrease and 13% remained unchanged. Torabian R, Heidari A, Shahrifar M, Khodadi E, Esmaeile Vardanjani SA. The Relation between Self-Citation and Impact Factor in Medical Science Open Access Journals in ISI & DOAJ Databases. Life Sci J 2012;9(4):2206-2209] (ISSN: 1097-8135). http://www.lifesciencesite.com. 32