Background: Scientometric evaluations are important part of research assessment which can help universities to visualize the effect of their achievements and assess the effect of policy changes and investments in the field knowledge development. Current study aimed to evaluate the scientific production of the faculty members affiliated to Shahid Beheshti University of Medical Sciences in Scopus database between 2011- 2014.Methods: Faculty members of Shahid Beheshti University of Medical Sciences participated in this cross sectional study. We had the names and affiliation of all faculty members based on university's Human Resources Management database. All the faculty members were recruited in the study. Total number of the articles, total article’s’ citations and H Index between 2011-2014 were used for evaluation of faculty members. Scopus online webpage was the source of extracting the indices.Results: there had been 1299 faculty members working at the university. Of all participants, 165 (12.7%) were professors, other academic degrees were associate professors 335 (25.8%), assistant professors 656 (50.5%), associate professors 335 (25.8%) and instructors 112 (8.7%)., respectively. The findings of current study showed that each faculty member was contributed in in a mean of 14 person- articles and there had been 95 citations to the articles in average. The mean H index for the university was 3.2 .Conclusion: Current study has illustrated a general image of the articles affiliated to Shahid Beheshti University of Medical Sciences which were indexed at Scopus database from 2011-2014. Results showed the universities scientific production had significant growth during these years.

HajiHashemi, Zahra

Malih, Narges

Sohrabi, Mohammad-Reza

Vafaee, Reza

English

Journals Portal, Shahid Beheshti University of Medical Sciences

HajiHashemi Z et al. Social Determinants of Health, Vol.2, No.4, 2016       155           Original Article Scientific production of Shahid Beheshti University of Medical Sciences in Scopus between 2011-2014 Zahra HajiHashemi1,Narges Malih2, , Reza Vafaee3, Mohammad-Reza Sohrabi4* 1 Department of Rheumatology, Imam Hossein Teaching Center, School of Medicine, Shahid Beheshti University of Medical Sciences, Tehran, Iran 2 Social Determinants of Health Research Center, Shahid Beheshti University of Medical Sciences, Tehran, Iran 3 Proteomics Research Center, Faculty of Paramedical Sciences, Shahid Beheshti University of Medical Sciences, Tehran, Iran 4 Department of Community Medicine, School of Medicine, Shahid Beheshti University of Medical Sciences, Tehran, Iran Corresponding author and reprints: Mohammad-Reza Sohrabi. Department of Community Medicine, School of Medicine, Shahid Beheshti University of Medical Sciences, Tehran, Iran. Email: m.sohrabi@sbmu.ac.ir Accepted for publication: 27 Oct 2016  Abstract   Background: Scientometric evaluations can help universities to monitor their achievements and assess the effect of policy changes and investments in the field knowledge development. The current study aimed to evaluate the scientific production of the faculty members affiliated to Shahid Beheshti University of Medical Sciences, Tehran, in Scopus database between 2011- 2014.   Methods: Faculty members of Shahid Beheshti University of Medical Sciences, Tehran, participated in the present study. All the faculty members were recruited in the study based on the names and their affiliation in the Human Resources Management database of the university. Scopus online webpage was the source of extracting the total number of the articles, total article citations, and H Index between 2011-2014.    Results: Information obtained from 1299 faculty members, including 165 (12.7%) full professors, 335 (25.8%) associate professors, 656 (50.5%) assistant professors, and 112 (8.7%) instructors, were included in the study. The findings of current study showed that each faculty member averagely contributed 14 articles and there have been 95 citations, on average, to the articles. The mean H index for the university was 3.1±3.90. Also, 20% percent of faculty members had no article published during the last 4 years and 10% had no article at all in Scopus database.   Conclusion: The current study illustrated a general image of the articles affiliated to Shahid Beheshti University of Medical Sciences, Tehran, which were indexed at Scopus database from 2011-2014. The results showed that the scientific production of the university has had a significant growth during these years.  Keywords: Achievement; Faculty; Science; University  Cite this article as: HajiHashemi Z, Malih N, Vafaee R, Sohrabi MR. Scientific production of Shahid Beheshti University of Medical Sciences in Scopus between 2011-2014. SDH. 2016;2(4):155-161.  Introduction cientometric evaluation is an important part of research assessment. Without scientometric indices, we would suffer from mismanagement of our resources to have the highest efficiency and effectiveness in research purposes. Many countries use these indices for ranking their academic institutions and prioritizing research funds (1).SFaculty Member’s Scientific Production Social Determinants of Health, Vol.2, No.4, 2016     156  There are different scientific databases and indices in the field of biomedical research. Scopus, along with Web of Knowledge, is one of the most valid indexing sources in this field, which contains nearly 22,000 titles from over 5,000 publishers (2). There have been different indices for evaluation of scientific production and scientists in these databases. One of the mostly accepted indices is Hirsh index, suggested in 2005 by Jorge E. Hirsch. An H Index of a scholar defines as “h papers published each of which has been cited in other papers at least h times.” (3). Seientometric evaluations of university outputs can help universities to visualize the effect of their achievements and assess the effect of policy changes and investments in the field knowledge development (4–7). Since multiple scientometric evaluations are needed for this purpose, the current study aimed to evaluate the scientific production of the faculty members affiliated to Shahid Beheshti University of Medical Sciences, Tehran (SBUM), in Scopus database between 2011- 2014.  Methods All SBUM faculty members participated in the present study. The names and affiliations of the faculty members were obtained from Human Resources Management database of the university. The total numbers of the articles, articles’ citations, and H Index between 2011-2014 were used for evaluation. Scopus online webpage was the source of extracting the indices (8).  We searched the first letter of the first name and full last name of the author in the search box. After searching for the names, those who were affiliated to SBMU were extracted. Total numbers of articles and indices were derived as well. A number was also assigned for each faculty member.  Taking into account different spellings of some names, all writing forms of a name were considered for the possible calculations. Research identity was utilized for data analysis which was defined as using faculty member’s personal information, annual, and total number of articles in the past four years and Scopus H Index. The faculty member's research activities in the past four years were evaluated using this index.  Taking into account the possibility of multiple author participation in one article under SBUM affiliation, person-article was used instead of article for the faculty member’s scientific production evaluation. Descriptive statistics were conducted using Microsoft Office Excell and SPSS software 16 (SPSS Inc., Chicago,IL, USA). P values lower than 0.05 were considered significant.  Results Based on the list of SBUM Human Resources Management database, 1299 faculty members were working at the university at the time of data collection. A total of 165 (12.7%) participants were full professors, 335 (25.8%) were associate professors, 656 (50.5%) assistant professors, and 112 (8.7%) instructors. Up to the end of 2014, 9250 articles were located affiliated to SBMU from which 6984 articles were recorded after 2009. As in Figure 1, there has been an increasing trend in the scientific production of SBMU, despite the downward trend of the scientific growth of the country.  The number and the mean (Standard Deviation) for articles and citations are given in Table 1. According to Table 2, 90% of the faculty members had at least one article and 80% had an H-index of at least 1 in Scopus database from 2011 to 2014. Table 3 illustrates the mean (Standard Deviation) for articles based on different schools of SBMU in the Scopus database. The highest numbers of articles, citations, and H index were 11.4, 67.6, and 4.9, respectively, for the School of Pharmacy. School of Medicine had the least numberHajiHashemi Z et al. Social Determinants of Health, Vol.2, No.4, 2016       157  of articles (2.9), and the least number of citations and H-index was related to the School of Nursery and Midwifery (15.5 and 1). Means (SD) for the articles of all Schools of SBMU in Scopus database during 2011-2014 is shown in Table 4. The highest increase in the number of articles was seen for the School of Pharmacy (Table 4).        Figure 1. Number of documents affiliated to SBMU in Scopus in 2009 and 2014      Table 1. Means for scientometric indices of faculty members of SBMU in Scopus during 2011-2014 Year   Articles Citations 2011 Total number 2125 15500  Mean (SD)  1.6 (4.1) 11.97 (39.2) 2012 Total number 2421 19207  Mean (SD)  1.87 (4.2) 14.8 (48) 2013 Total number 2523 22182  Mean (SD)  1.95 (3.7) 17.1 (51.8) 2014 Total number 2490 22708  Mean (SD)  1.9 (3.96) 17.6 (54) 2011-2014 Total number 18316 123485  Mean (SD)  14.1 (30.4) 95.5 (234.3) H Index Mean (SD) 3.17 (3.90)    Faculty Member’s Scientific Production Social Determinants of Health, Vol.2, No.4, 2016     158     Table 2. Percentiles for scientometric indices of faculty members of Shahid Beheshti University of Medical Sciences, Tehran, in Scopus during 2011-2014  percentiles  10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80 90 95 97 Total articles 0 1 2 4 6 9 13 20 34 50 65 Total citations 0 0 2 7 13 25 46 93 251.4 429.2 601.8 Articles 2014 0 0 0 0 1 1 2 3 5 8 9 Articles 2013 0 0 0 0 1 1 2 3 5 7 10 Articles 2012 0 0 0 0 1 1 2 3 5 7 10 Articles 2011 0 0 0 0 0 1 1 2 4 7 9 Citations 2014 0 0 0 2 4 7 11 19 47 76.5 107.2 Citations 2013 0 0 0 1 3 6 10 18 44 77.2 103.1 Citations 2012 0 0 0 1 2 4 8 15.8 36 69 92.4 Citations 2011 0 0 0 0 1 3 5 12 29.4 54.2 86.4 H Index 0 0 1 1 2 3 4 5 8 11 13      Table 3. Mean (Standard Deviation) for Articles of Schools of Shahid Beheshti university of Medical Sciences, Tehran, in Scopus databases during 2011-2014 Schools Number of faculty members Articles  Citations  H-Index   Mean (SD) Mean (SD) Mean (SD) School of Medicine (Faculties of clinical disciplines)  677 2.9 (3.3) 71.5 (182.6) 2.9 (3.3) School of Medicine (Faculties of basic Sciences disciplines)  128 19.2 (26.3) 142 (269) 4.6 (4.2) School of Dentistry  131 5.7 (7.8) 24.1 (50.2) 1.8 (2) School of Pharmacy  48  26.5 (22.9) 228.2 (272.8) 6.6 (4.6) School of Rehabilitation  37 3.9 (7) 19.8 (69.5) 1.1 (2) School of Paramedical Sciences  53 9.1 (16.5) 36.1 (76.6) 2.1 (2.5) School of Public Health  30  17 (25.9) 110.1 (286.6) 3.3 (3.6) School of Health, safety and environment  20  5.4 (6) 35.3 (69.6) 1.7 (2) School of Nutrition  32 21 (35.6) 201.9 (562.2) 4.9 (5.7) School of Nursery and Midwifery  54 4.1 (7.9) 15.5 (45.7) 1 (1.6) Traditional Medicine 10 10.6 (12.3) 36.2 (45) 3 (2)     HajiHashemi Z et al. Social Determinants of Health, Vol.2, No.4, 2016       159  Table 4. Means (SD) for articles of schools of Shahid Beheshti University of Medical Sciences, Tehran, in Scopus database during 2011-2014 Schools Number of faculty members 2011 2012 2013 2014 School of Medicine (faculties of clinical discipline)  677 1.4 (2.76) 1.5 (2.54) 1.6 (2.44) 1.5 (2.34) School of Medicine (faculties of basic sciences discipline)  128 2.3 (3.45) 2.2 (3.10) 2.4 (3.32) 2.6 (3.32) School of Dentistry  131 0.7 (1.26) 0.9 (1.86)  1.2 (2.52) 0.7 (1.37) School of Pharmacy  48  0.19 (2.11) 2.9 (3.03) 3.9 (3.57) 3.9 (3.44) School of Rehabilitation   37 0.4 (1.13) 0.7 (1.42) 0.6 (1.12) 0.5 (1.13) School of Paramedical sciences  53 1.3 (2.83) 1.5 (2.69) 1.8 (4.19) 1.5 (3.33) School of Public Health  30  1.8 (2.78) 3.5 (5.93)  2.3 (4.30) 2.97 (5.58) School of Health, Safety and Environment 20  0.7 (1.03) 0.5 (0.88)  0.9 (1.05) 0.9 (1.43) School of Nutrition  32 2.3 (4.71) 2.9 (5.06) 3.7 (4.96) 3.6 (4.75) School of Nursery and Midwifery 54 0.5 (1.43)  0.8 (1.57)  0.6 (1.49) 1 (2.33) Traditional Medicine 10 0.8 (2.20) 2.1 (2.02) 1.9 (1.59) 2.6 (1.26)  Discussion Findings of the current study showed that each faculty member averagely contributed 14 articles and there have been 95 citations, on average, to the articles. The mean H index for the university was 3.2.  A total of 18316 articles were indexed in Scopus from 2011-2014. This number was 10698 from 2009 to Mid-2012, which showed a 60% increase in scientific production (4). This incremental trend is in line with Abolghassemi Fakhree et al. study, who showed an increase from about 100 articles in 2001 to 1000 in 2009 for Tehran University of Medical Sciences (9). The total number of the articles were 3165 in Hamadan, 1157 in Ilam, 4807 in Kermanshah, 1194 in Kurdistan, and 630 in Lorestan universities of Medical Sciences in a 5-year period between 2010-2014 (10). In a study by Khalihi et al. in Gilan University of Medical Sciences, a total of 845 articles were reported from the foundation of the university in 1986 till 2014 (11). The total number of articles for Northern universities of Iran were reported as 546, 288, 258, and 256 for the Medical universities of Mazandaran, Golestan, Guilan, and Babol, respectively (12). It seems that the number of faculty members, researchers, students, and budgeting per university should be taken into account so as to making better conclusions because these factors can affect scientific production of the universities. The total number of citations in our study was 123485. In the period between 2009 - Mid 2012, the citations were 54300 in the same university (4). The numbers of citations in Scopus database for Mazandaran, Golestan, Guilan, and Babol Medical universities were 1728, 608, 482, and 441, respectively, between 2005-2010 (12). Also, per article citation of medical universities in the west of Iran were 3.3, 3.1, 5, 3, and 1.9 for Hamedan, Ilam, Kermanshah, and Kurdistan universities, respectively (10). In a scientometric study in Gilan University of Medical Sciences, 3.64 citation/paper was reported (11).  In Rasolabadi et al. study, H indexes of western Medical universities of Iran were Faculty Member’s Scientific Production Social Determinants of Health, Vol.2, No.4, 2016     160  between 14-38 (10). The H indexes for medical universities in the north of Iran were between 11-19 (12). In addition, the total H indexes for the articles of Iran University of Medical Sciences, Isfahan University of Medical Sciences, Mashhad University of Medical Sciences, SBMU, Shiraz University of Medical Sciences, Tabriz University of Medical Sciences, and Tehran University of Medical Sciences were 27, 31, 22, 39, 34, 24, and 46, respectively (9). In a study conducted in Guilan University of Medical Sciences, the H index was reported to be 23 (11). Although the mean H index of the current study was 3.17, which was 1.9 in the time period between 2009 to Mid-2012 (4), showing an increasing pattern, this index refers to the faculty members' H indexes and not the university. It was found that 90% of the faculty members had at least one article and 80% had an H-index of at least one in Scopus database from 2011 to 2014. This was 80% for articles and 50% for H-index of the university between 2009-mid 2012 (4). School of Paramedical Sciences had a mean H index of 2.1 in our study. In comparison to a study in the same university between 2009 - mid 2012, the mean H index was 0.9 for this School, which shows an H index growth. This growth is observed although the number of faculty members reduced from 62 to 55 (4,13).  The scientific production of Shahid Beheshti University of Medical sciences has had an increasing trend. This finding is in line with those of different universities in Iran (9,14,15). This can be due to supportive research policies of the university in the period under the study. The current study illustrated a general image of the articles affiliated to Shahid Beheshti University of Medical Sciences, Tehran, indexed at Scopus database from 2011-2014. The results showed that the scientific production of the university had a significant growth. Supportive research policies could guarantee continuation of the scientific production of the university.  Conflict of interest Authors declare no conflict of interests.  Acknowledgements Researchers kindly acknowledge Vice-Chancellor of Research Affairs of Shahid Beheshti University of Medical Sciences for their financial support and university’s Vice-Chancellor office in Administration and Resources Development Affairs for preparing the list of faculty members.  References  1. Geuna A, Martin BR. University research evaluation and funding: An international comparison. Minerva. 2003 Dec 1;41(4):277-304. 2. Web of Science. Available from: http://apps.webofknowledge.com/home.do?SID=V1gs5XE9UQNAigYkifB 3. Scopus web page. Available from: https://blog.scopus.com/topics/h-index  4. Sohrabi MR, Rahmati-Roodsari M, Rahmdar SR. Effect of university policies on research productions: ascientometric study. Medical Journal of The Islamic Republic of Iran (MJIRI). 2014;28(1):386-93. 5. Zorzetto R, Razzouk D, Dubugras MT, Gerolin J, Schor N, Guimarães JA, Mari JJ. The scientific production in health and biological sciences of the top 20 Brazilian universities. Braz J Med Biol Res. 2006;39(12):1513-20. 6. Malih N, Sohrabi MR, Vafaee R, HajiHashemi Z. Scientific production of Shahid Beheshti University of Medical Sciences in Web of Science between 2011-2014. Social Determinants of Health. 2016;2(2):70-5.  7. Shahbodaghi A, Shekofteh  Maryam. A comprehensive study of published articles by members of SBMU and their citation status as reported by the Institute for Scientific Information (ISI) from 1998-2007. Research-in-Medicine. 2009;33(2):81–7.  8. Burnham JF. Scopus database: a review. Biomed Digit Libr. 2006; 3: 1. 9. Abolghassemi Fakhree MA, Jouyban A. Scientometric analysis of the major Iranian medical universities. Scientometrics. 2011;87(1):205–20.  10. Rasolabadi M, Khaledi S, Khayati F, Kalhor MM, Penjvini S, Gharib A. Scientific Production of Medical Universities in the West of Iran: a Scientometric Analysis. Acta Inform Med. 2015;23(4):206–9.  11. Khalili M, Rahmatpour P, Barari F, Hoseinzadeh T. Scientific Outputs of Guilan University of Medical Sciences in Scopus Database Based on Scientometrics Indicators. J Guilan Univ Med Sci. 2016;25(98):9–16.  HajiHashemi Z et al. Social Determinants of Health, Vol.2, No.4, 2016       161  12. Siamian H, Firooz MY, Vahedi M, Aligolbandi K. Scientific production of medical sciences universities in north of iran. Acta Inform Med. 2013;21(2):113–5.  13. Vafaee  r, Sohrabi MR, Hemati K. Trend of Scientific Production at The School of Paramedical Sciences of Shahid Beheshti University of Medical Sciences inScopus & ISI Databases During 2009-Mid 2012. www sjimu medilam ac ir. 2013;21(4):12–20.  14. Aghaei Chadegani A, Salehi H, Yunus MM, Farhadi H, Fooladi M, Farhadi M, et al. A comparison between two main academic literature collections: Web of Science and Scopus databases. Asian Soc Sci. 2013;9(5):18–26.  15. Mobasheri M, Moradi M, Rafie S, Sharifi A. Scientific output of Shahrekord university of medical sciences (Iran) in ISI database from 1993 to the end of 2011 according to scientometric indicators. J Shahrekord Univ Med Sci. 2013;14(6):115–23.   

Scientific production of Shahid Beheshti University of Medical Sciences in Scopus between 2011-2014

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Scientific production of Shahid Beheshti University of Medical Sciences in Scopus between 2011-2014

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