Correlation between co-authorship and number of citations in Iranian English language journals of ministry of health, indexed in Web of Science (2005-2011)

Background: Academic collaboration is sharing the expertise, resources and abilities by researchers. This study examined academic collaboration among the authors of articles published in Iranian English language journals of ministry of health, indexed in the Web of Science and its correlation with article citations, 2005-2011.

Methods: This study was a descriptive-analytical and cross-sectional study. The data were collected using a researcher-designed checklist. The study population was 6388 articles from 21 Iranian English language journals of ministry of health, indexed in the Web of Science. Data were collected by referring to each journal and counting the number of authors and citations allocated to any article. The obtained data were analyzed by SPSS and Excel software.

Results: A total of 6388 articles published in 21 journals were analyzed according to the intended criteria. %17.8 of journals was monthly, %19.6 was tow-monthly and% 62.7 was quarterly. On average, 4.37 authors collaborated in writing each article. The mean of collaborative coefficient was 0.67. There was positively significant correlation between the number of authors and the number of citations to each article.

Conclusion: The academic collaboration among the authors of examined articles enjoyed a favorable status, which is indicative of spirit of teamwork among the Iranian researchers. However, the rate of citations to articles in the examined journals was not in a good condition; hence, the factors affecting citation to articles, especially academic collaboration between researchers should be taken into consideration.