Dimensions of the Scientific Collaborations of the Researchers Affiliated with Shiraz University of Medical Sciences

Researchers at medical universities are highly active in scientific collaborations at the national, regional, and international levels. Iranian Medical researchers pay diligent attention to scientific collaborations at all levels. The present study aimed to investigate various dimensions of scientific collaborations of the researchers at Shiraz University of Medical Sciences (SUMS).  The dimensions include the patterns and levels of national and international collaborations, interdisciplinary interactions, the relationship between geographical distance and scientific collaboration, and the interdisciplinarity pattern of international collaborations. The study adopted a descriptive-analytical method. The data were collected using scientometric measures. The research population consisted of 4499 journal articles in Web of Science (WoS) authored by SUMS researchers during 2014-2018. The VOSviewer was applied to analyze the data and visualize the networks. The results revealed that national collaboration was the dominant pattern. The results showed a desirable ratio of scientific collaborations to all publications (52%). The authors mostly tended to collaborate with American researchers. The majority of interdisciplinary collaborations were observed in the microbiology field. The results suggested that geographical distance did not affect scientific collaborations at the national and international levels (P>0.05). At the international level, SUMS researchers had the highest collaboration with the University of Manitoba and Tehran University at the national level. The results suggested that research policymakers at SUMS should prioritize research policies toward scientific collaborations at all levels and fields to share and synergize knowledge.https://dorl.net/dor/20.1001.1.20088302.2021.19.2.3.

Social Network Analysis of Editorial Board Interlocking Phenomena from the Perspective of Astronomy and Astrophysics Journals

Editorial board members (EBMs) of journals play a pivotal role in authentic international scientific journals. Editorial Board Interlocking (EBI) phenomenon reflects the effectiveness and importance of the scholarly journal's editorial boards in various scientific fields. The primary purpose of this paper is to conduct a Social Network Analysis (SNA) of EBI phenomena from the perspective of astronomy and astrophysics journals. The present study is applied research based on EBI, SNA, and the descriptive-analytical approach. The statistical population of this study consists of the editorial board members of all journals of astronomy and astrophysics indexed in the JCR and official journal websites. There are 1597 job positions in 67 astronomy and astrophysics journals occupied by the 1394 scholars. Data analysis shows EBI for 95 scholars and 79 organizations. "Aleksei A. Starobinsky" from Russia and the Russian Academy of Sciences, "Daniel J. Scheeres" from the United States, and the University of Colorado Boulder have the highest EBI contributions in five journals. "Daniel J. Scheeres," with a centrality of 39, has the highest degree of centrality measurement among the EBMs. The presence of more than five times as many men as women indicates that astronomy and astrophysics journals are considered "masculine" by the editorial board. The EBI phenomenon is observed in astronomy and astrophysics journals due to the limited number of peop le eligible for the editorial board. Due to EBI, a limited number of famous scholars are made macro-policies such as publishing the articles, referees selections, and the reviewing process. Astronomy and astrophysics journals have "elite" academic networks. Gender inequality exists among EBMs, and the majority of them are male. Accordingly, these journals are "men's journals.

RDA (Resources Description and Access): A new standard for digital environment

Digital technologies have changed widely environment of libraries and information centers and other knowledge management organizations. So, these organizations have started designing and keeping of data bases in order to access their recourses. According to nonstop-increasing resources in these data bases and the lack of an international standards which make these resources descriptive and accessible, introducing and representing such standard is necessary. RDA as a new standard for description and access to digital resources has been designed to overcome these problems. It is based on Anglo American Cataloguing Rules (AACR). RDA is a collection of instructions and guidelines which is used to describe and access to all kinds of resources and media. We will introduce the new international standard, RDA, with a review of previous cataloguing rules in this article. RDA is being surveyed of different aspects as: necessities, structure, and consequence of use, characteristics, goals, strategies, revised and development processes. The outline of this standard will be introduced and surveyed properly. One of the important results of this paper is that the librarians and information scientists become familiar and aware with RDA and usage of it in libraries and scientific information center

Scientific and Professional Performance, Web Presence of Iranian Knowledge and Information Science Academics and Their Publications in Google Scholar, ISCI & Google

Web presence is one of the areas of research in the field of webometrics. Due to lack of precise information on the presence of the Knowledge and Information Science (KIS) faculty members in Iran, this study aims to address this problem. It studies the level and quality of the presence of the LIS faculty and its relation to their professional effectiveness, focusing on their academic and professional performance. This study is an applied research, taking two approaches: descriptive survey and webometrics. The study participants are the KIS faculty members in Iran who hold a PhD degree, have senior lecturer (assistant professor) position and positions above that, and have scientific publications and web citations. A checklist was used to collect the webrelated data on their presence, and a questionnaire was designed to collect the data on their academic and professional activities. Three databases were used to collect the web-related data, namely Google, Google Scholar and the Iran Science Citation Index. The data was analyzed using statistical analysis and tests of descriptive and interpretive types. From the web presence perspective, the findings revealed that besides experienced academics, younger academic members have remarkable web presence. The findings showed that there is a meaningful relationship between the level of presence of the studyparticipants and their publications. KIS academics of Ferdowsi University of Mshhad and Shahid Chamran University of Ahvaz have gained highest positions according to publication web presence in Google. Also, scientific databases, self citations and university websites have got the first to third ranks in order to publication web presence themes. In addition, results showed us publishing Farsi and English articles in credible refereed journals is the most important theme in scientific and professional performance

A survey of collaboration rate among of Iranian LIS students in producing scientific articles for annual student conference of AlZahra University (2000-2006)

Collaboration in research and production of scientific publications is common in all academic areas. This collaboration among researchers results in the development of scientific knowledge and hence the attainment of wider information. The significance of collaboration in the production of scientific publications in today's complex world where technology is everything is very apparent. Scientists from many nations have realized that in order to get their work wildly used and cited to by experts, they must collaborate. This research aims to survey the rate of collaboration among Iranian LIS students on the production of scientific articles for the annual student conference of Al-Zahra University and assess their contribution to domestic scientific production in the field of Library and Information Sciences. It is through the efforts of the Al-zahra library and information science students accosiation and their lecturers , that this annual conference happens every year and has been able to bring together lecturers, librarians and LIS students in order to debate the latest information in the aforementioned field since its establishment in 2000 for seven consecutive years. As this is a student conference and most of the LIS students of all levels submit papers to this conference. The aim of the present article is to survey the rate of collaboration among contributors which in turn should clarify the contribution of Iranian LIS students in the production of these articles. To that end submitted articles and thematic inclinations of each conference has been examined. Research results indicated that in the seven conferences held 63 articles were present in speech form, of the 91 authors collaborating in the production of these articles, 51 were female and the rest i.e. 37 were male. The most number of articles, 15 on the subject of Iranian University Libraries in the form of a speech were presented in 2003. The least number were submitted in 2000 and 2004 where a total of 7 in the form of speech on the subject of the education of Library and Information sciences and its difficulties were submitted. Of the 63 articles 42 were presented individually while the other 21 were as a result of collaboration where 15 were the result of the collaboration of 2 authors and the other 6 the work of 3 authors. The most number of collaborative articles were submitted in 2005 and 2006 with 6 and the least number was presented in 2001 and 2003 where nothing was presented. The results of this research indicated that The LIS students of ALZahra University with 18 articles took first place while The Chamran University of Ahvaz with 8 was second and Shiraz University with 5 came third

Webometrics of Iranian Universities Dominated by the Ministry of Science, Research and Technology

This research aimed to investigate visibility, web impact factor (WIF), and the collaboration rate of the websites of the Iranian universities under coverage of Science, Research and Technology Ministry, using an analysis of the various links among these websites and webometrics. From all 70 websites belonging to the Iranian universities, due to some technical problems, only 69 ones were reviewed through Yahoo, in a period of one month (October 6 – November 5, 2008). These were decreased to 52 websites in analysing co-links and identifying hi-frequency websites. The results indicated that Tehran, Payame Nour and Elmosanat websites were the most visited sites. The websites of Mohaghegh Ardabili, Industrial Jondi Shapoor and Zabol Universities had the most WIF and RWIF. In-link analysis results showed that the investigated websites had collaborated in 6 clusters, and a multidimensional scale illustrated the collaboration of these websites in 5 clusters

Correlation between Scientific Output and Collaboration among LIS Scholars around the World [as Reflected in Emerald Database]

Sample of The present investigation was drawn from the total number of LIS articles published in Emereald Database during 2003-2008 period. 8320 articles was produced by 10760 researchers. The most prolific writers, countries having the highest number of articles, the most prolific research centers, and the busiest journals based on article count alone, were identified. Mean coefficient of collaboration among LIS scholars was 0.08. No significant correlation was found between scientific output and degree of collaboration. Findings indicated that in spite of the importance of joint research that would eventually lead to an increase in quality, coefficient of collaboration among LIS scholars is very low