مجله علمسنجی کاسپین (May 2022)
Scientometric Study of Scientific Outputs on the Caspian Sea
Abstract
Background and aim: Quality and quantity assessment of scientific outputs is one of the important indicators of the national development of countries. The aim of this study was to determine the status of Iranian scientific outputs in the thematic area of the Caspian Sea in the Scopus database during 1970-2020. Materials and methods: This applied descriptive study was conducted using the scientometric methods. The study population was all scientific documents related to the Caspian Sea, which were indexed by Iranian researchers in Scopus using the keyword of “Caspian Sea” for the geographical area of Iran during 1970-2020. Data were analyzed using data analysis tools in Scopus, SPSS 21, and Excel. BibExcel and VOSviewer were applied to draw the scientific maps. Findings: The results showed that 920 documents from Iranian researchers on the thematic area of the Caspian Sea were indexed in Scopus. The highest number of documents was indexed in 2013. Fazli with 34 articles was the most prolific author, the Tehran University with 170 articles was the most productive scientific center, and the Iranian Journal of Fisheries Sciences was the top journal with 67 articles. Iran had the most international collaboration with the United States, Malaysia, and Germany. The main research topics in the articles related to the Caspian Sea were “Agriculture and Biological Sciences” and “Environmental Sciences”. The highest occurrence keywords were Caspian Sea, Iran, Article, Nonhuman, Fish, Environmental Monitoring, and Controlled study. The study of the level of scientific participation of researchers showed that 93% of the studied scientific documents were compiled with the participation of 2 to 9 authors and with degree of collaboration of 0.93, collaboration index of 4.18, and collaboration coefficient of 0.66. Conclusion: Although Iran has had good growth in terms of the number of published scientific documents in the thematic area of the Caspian Sea, Iran does not have very favorable conditions in terms of international participation and quality of articles.
