چكيده لاتين :
Background: The journal impact factor is increasingly employed to evaluate the quality of
scientific research. This is in contrary to its critical limitations, e.g., its marked variation across
scientific disciplines. This study was conducted to describe, in both quantitative and qualitative
terms, the contribution of Iranian universities and research institutes to biomedical publications in
2004 and to examine the possible effect of impact factor normalization by subject on their
rankings.
Methods: The Iranian biomedical articles were recruited from Thomson Science Citation Index
Expanded and PubMed databases according to Thomson Scientific subject categorization of
journals. Three subject-normalized impact factors were employed: rank-normalized impact factor,
journal to field impact score, and standardized impact factor.
Results: Tehran and Shiraz Universities of Medical Sciences and University of Tehran were the
top three institutes regarding the sum of impact factor in 2004. On the basis of the mean crude
impact factor, Sharif University of Technology, University of Shiraz, and Baqiyatollah University
were ranked as the first to third. However, the subject normalization of impact factor made some
considerable changes in impact factor-based rankings of research institutes.
Conclusion: The Iranian scientific community and science development policy makers are
recommended to employ subject-normalized impact factor, rather than crude impact factor, in
quality assessment of biomedical research held in various academic and research institutes
