A bibliometric analysis and science mapping of scientific publications of Alzahra University during 1986–2019

Abstract

Purpose

Currently, the evaluation of scientific performance of universities is one of the important indicators in various ranking systems. One way to evaluate the academic performance of universities is to analyze the scientific documents of universities in reputable international databases. The purpose of this article is to analyze and evaluate the scientific publications of Alzahra University (Iran) as the top 100–200 universities during 1986–2019.

Design/methodology/approach

This study was performed using bibliometrics and visualization techniques. The Scopus database was used to collect data. Affiliation search and advanced search were used to retrieve the data. Excel, VOSviewer and CRExplorer software were used to analyze the data.

Findings

The results showed that the scientific publications and received citations by Alzahra University documents during the time have been upward. At the national level, it was the most scientific collaboration with researchers at the University of Tehran. Also at the international level, the most scientific collaboration has been with the United States, Canada and Germany. In total, 80% of scientific publications were published by 20% of authors. Also, 70% of the highly cited articles were published in journals with quartile 1. Finally, clustering results showed that Alzahra University's scientific publications are in five main categories, including “chemistry,” “physics,” “biology,” “psychology and educational sciences” and “accounting sciences, management, and computer science.”

Originality/value

This study could be a good model for evaluating the performance of scientific productions of universities and scientific institutions with bibliometrics and visualization approaches.

Citation

Doulani, A. (2021), "A bibliometric analysis and science mapping of scientific publications of Alzahra University during 1986–2019", Library Hi Tech, Vol. 39 No. 4, pp. 915-935. https://doi.org/10.1108/LHT-06-2020-0131