Scientific impact of Iranian medical sciences universities' research journals in google scholar

Abstract

Due to medical researchers need for updated and valid scientific findings in their research area, it is important to evaluate medical journals. On the other hand, researchers are looking for prestigious journals to publish their articles in their field of activity. Because much of the medical journals in Iran are published by Universities of Medical Sciences, this study aimed to evaluate Iranian Medical Sciences Universities' research journals in Google Scholar citation database between 2010-2014, with emphasis on both scientific impacts: The Journal Hirsch index and Journal Impact factor. In order to collect data the researchers used Publish Or Perish, which is a citation analysis software. Data were analyzed by descriptive statistics and Spearman correlation test using Microsoft Excel and SPSS16. The results showed that a total of 38,717 articles from 130 surveyed journals in the period of study were indexed in Google Scholar and these articles had received 61,938 citations, i.e. 1.6 citations per article. Total average of Hirsch index in study population was 7 and total average of journals impact factor was 1.31. Spearman correlation test results showed that the journal language and number of journals articles have a significant positive correlation with the number of received citations, journal Hirsch index and journal impact factor. The relationship between journal impact factor and Hirsch index was significant, too. It seems that due to the high correlation between journal impact factor and Hirsch index, these two indicators can be used as complementary elements in evaluating journals. © 2018 Iranian Research Institute for Scientific Information and Documentation. All Rights Reserved.