Evaluating the Meetings Output of Educational Council and Departments in School of Health Management and Information Sciences: Content Analysis of Minutes

Introduction: This study analyzes the minutes of departments and educational council in Tehran University of Medical Sciences, School of Health Management and Information Sciences and evaluates the strengths and weaknesses of the departments meetings. Methods: This was a descriptive study. The study population was all minutes of departments in School of Health Management and Information Sciences in TUMS in 2004-2010. Minutes were transformed into digital format with a scanner. We used NVivo 8 software to codify and analyze the data. Results: Findings showed that in the meetings of both educational council and departments more attention was paid to the “thesis and proposal” and “educational issues”. Furthermore, each department had its own unique subjects which were not discussed in other departments. Conclusion: The chancellor at this school, deputy of dean and head of departments can use findings of current study to know the weaknesses of departments meetings and plan for better organization of weekly and monthly meetings in order to achieve the school goals and serve students better

Assessing the Factors Affecting the Use Of Web 2.0 Tools in Selected Iran Medical University Libraries

Background: Capabilities offered by Web 2.0 tools have attracted many academic libraries. The present study aimed to identify factors affecting the use of Web 2.0 tools in selected Iran medical university libraries including Iran, Tehran, and Shahid Beheshti universities of medical sciences. Methods: The study was conducted through a survey distributed among librarians working in the libraries of Iran, Tehran, and Shahid Beheshti universities of medical sciences. The data was collected using a questionnaire which examined the factors affecting the use of Web 2.0 technologies in terms of three general categories: factors related to librarians, users, tools/technology, and organizations. In order to ensure the content validity, the opinions of 10 medical library and information science faculty members were used. Further, the reliability of the questionnaire was confirmed by calculating the Cronbach\u27s alpha. Findings: The results of the study indicated that among the librarian-related factors, the greatest impact was related to the teaching Web 2.0 applications to the librarians with the average of 4.19. Considering user-related factors, the users’ need to use these tools had the greatest impact with an average of 4.4. Regarding the tools/technological-related factors, Internet speed, Internet bandwidth, and filtering some Web 2.0 tools, with an average of 4.62, had the most inhibitor effect to adopt these tools. Finally, the support of library managers was the most influential factor for adopting Web 2.0 tools in libraries in terms of organization-related factors. Conclusions: Identifying the factors influencing the adoption of Web 2.0 tools and planning to control the inhibitor factors in using these tools can help libraries to appropriately adopt and use these technologies

Relevance criteria for medical images applied by health care professionals : A grounded theory study.

This thesis studies relevance criteria for medical images' applied by health care professionals. The study also looks at the image information needs and image resources used by health care professionals, together with the image seeking behaviour of health care professionals from different disciplines. The work is a qualitative study that uses the Straussian version of grounded theory. The population of the study included health care professionals from different health and biomedical departments who worked in Sheffield Teaching Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust. In total twenty-nine health care professionals participated in this study and fifteen relevance criteria were identified from the data collected using semi-structured interviews and think-aloud protocols. The work forms part of the medical image retrieval track of ImageCLEF (ImageCLEFMed), and investigated the use of relevance criteria applied to search statements. Analysis indicates that some of the criteria identified by participants could be included in new topics used for future versions of the track. The findings of the study showed that health care professionals paid more attention to the visual attributes of medical images when selecting images and that they applied topical relevancy as the most frequent and most important criterion. The study found that health care professionals looked for medical images mainly for educational and research purposes and judged the relevancy of medical images based on their pictorial information needs and the image resources they used. We identified the difficulties that health care professionals faced when searching medical images in different image resources. Other findings also highlighted the need for, and the value of, looking at narrower subject communities within health and biomedical sciences for better understanding of relevance judgment and image seeking behaviour of the health care professionals

Search Strategies and Information Search Tools Used by Pharmacy PhD Students: A Qualitative Study

Objectives: This study aimed to investigate search tools and strategies of PhD students to access required information. Methods: Semi-structured interviews with pharmacy Ph.D. students in Tabriz University of Medical Sciences were conducted. We used MaxQDA software to analyze the content of the interviews. Results: Scopus and Google Scholar were the most popular search tools used by participants. These databases were also recognized as the most common starting points for searches among participants. Participants’ search strategies were categorized into two themes (search tools and search strategies) and six subthemes which include: search start up tools, search tools used, reasons to use, keyword selection and modification, type of search and field searching. Conclusion: Google Scholar has become a serious alternative for specialized databases such as Web of Science, Pubmed and Scopus. The results of this study would be benefit for policy makers and information suppliers in academic settings

Accessibility and Types of Online Sources Cited in Scholarly Biomedical Journal in Iran

One type of frequently used references in scientific papers is online references. The aim of this study is to study the prevalence, accessibility and types of online sources in biomedical journals in Iran from 2010 to 2012. We analyzed online references cited in 401 articles from 21 scientific journals indexed in PubMed, Web of Science, and Scopus. Findings revealed that only 73 papers (18.2%) had cited online sources in their references. of 186 online citations, 72 (38.7%) citations were accessible, and the URLs to 114 citations did not work (61.3%). The majority of unreachable citations were unstable citations (32.3%). Most online sources (62%) were cited in “Iranian Journal of Public Health”. An increase in the number of online citations was observed over the studied years. The study indicated that the rate of online citations is low in the studied journals, and most online citations were unreachable. The lack of clear guidelines in citing online sources seemed to be a major reason for the inaccessibility of online citations

Iranian medical English journals: reference analysis based on journal selection criteria in WOS, PubMed and Scopus

Objective: The references are an important component of citation analysis. In this study, it is aimed to determine the reference analysis of Iranian Medical English Journals (IMEJ) based on WOS, Scopus and PubMed journal selection criteria. Methods: This study is a descriptive quantitative analysis which deals with the last issues of 52 numbers of IMEJ which haven\u27t been indexed in WOS, Scopus, and PubMed. The data were collected observing the journals data provider websites and then entered into a checklist tool. MS Excel software was used for data analysis. Results: About 88.5% of journals had their own reference style. In 60.9% of journals, the amount of failure in the reference style was less than 10%. The average of self-citations to authors and journal articles, were 3.6% and 1.2%, respectively. The average percentage of foreign references was 83.6%. Most of the references were old and only 2.9% of references were done in the study year. Journals with 87.2%, had received most of the references. Conclusion: References old date, imbalance the format of cited resources, and high distances between the rate of Iranian and foreign references, were the shortcomings of cited references in IMEJ

Comparative Study of Research Performance and Innovation-Industry Indicators in National and International University Ranking Systems

Introduction: There are different national and international university ranking systems in the world which rank universities in terms of numerous metrics. Previous studies have investigated some educational and research indicators, but research and innovation metrics have not yet been compared. The present study aimed to compare research performance and innovation-industry indicators in the national and international university ranking systems based on measured dimensions, data extraction sources, and find the highest innovational and research-oriented ranking systems than others. Methods: This cross-sectional study covered the 2020 edition of each ranking, and the data were collected in January 2021. According to the inclusion criteria, 20 national and international university rankings were selected among 75 ranking systems. This study used a thematic method for data analysis. Results: Among 20 included university rankings in the study, 17 were international and three national university rankings that all have research performance indicators, and seven of them applied innovation-industry indicators. The highest research-oriented rankings were CWTS, NTU, U.S. News, URAP, and Research Excellence Framework. The highest innovative-industrial-oriented rankings were U-Multilink and Scivision. The U-Multilink and the Scivision were the most research and innovative-industry-oriented rankings, among others. Conclusion: The international university rankings are more innovational and research-oriented than national rankings. So, the national university rankings must introduce new national research and innovation-industry indicators for their universities' performance evaluation

Assessing of Iranian medical English journals based on journal selection criteria in Scopus

Journals which have been indexed in universal citation databases can introduce their countries’ scientific productions to the world’ scientific communications. In this study, it is aimed to evaluate Iranian Medical English Journals (IMEJ) based on Scopus’ journal selection criteria. This is a descriptive quantitative study which deals with the last issues of 52 numbers of IMEJ which have not been indexed in Web of Science, Scopus, and PubMed. Data is collected using a researcher-developed checklist whose validity was confirmed by faculty members. Microsoft Office Excel was used to analyze data. According to our findings, the studied journals were in compliance with Scopus’ journal selection criteria in the cases regularity in publishing, providing informative abstracts for articles, limiting the amount of self-citation, providing XML format for articles, providing the online system for sending and receiving the articles, and providing author\u27s guidelines. The low amount of structured abstracts, the low number of foreign authors and editors, and the low amount of Endnote output were the most important weakness in IMEJ. Suggested solutions were promoting the cooperation with foreign editors and authors, and providing structured abstracts, and EndNote outputs by journals and authors

Book Review: Digital Health Information for the Consumer: Evidence and Policy Implications

Wide and easy availability of health information for the general public is something that governments consider beneficial to the public as it improves the public health, helps large-scale preventative medicine and eventually reduces the costs of health services for governments. Most counties have plans for providing the public with easy-reachable health information. Developed countries make use of new information and communication technologies such as the Internet, digital interactive televisions and touch screen kiosks for this purpose. However, using new channels and media for providing information services on sensitive issues such as public health is not free from challenge and every new service needs to be evaluated and monitored carefully for the best outcome. The book ‘Digital Health Information for the Consumer: Evidence and Policy Implications’ is based on a range of qualitative and quantitative evaluative research studies conducted on several health information services in the UK

Accessibility and Types of Online Sources Cited in Scholarly Biomedical Journal in Iran

One type of frequently used references in scientific papers is online references. The aim of this study is to study the prevalence, accessibility and types of online sources in biomedical journals in Iran from 2010 to 2012. We analyzed online references cited in 401 articles from 21 scientific journals indexed in PubMed, Web of Science, and Scopus. Findings revealed that only 73 papers (18.2%) had cited online sources in their references. of 186 online citations, 72 (38.7%) citations were accessible, and the URLs to 114 citations did not work (61.3%). The majority of unreachable citations were unstable citations (32.3%). Most online sources (62%) were cited in “Iranian Journal of Public Health”. An increase in the number of online citations was observed over the studied years. The study indicated that the rate of online citations is low in the studied journals, and most online citations were unreachable. The lack of clear guidelines in citing online sources seemed to be a major reason for the inaccessibility of online citations