International Journal of Information Science and Management
Volume:10 Issue: 2, Jul-Dec 2012

This study historically analyzes the scientific output of Mathematics to describe its structure, notions and scientific origin using the historiographical method. The research data consisted of scientific outputs of Mathematics in ISI database, Science Citation Index (SCI) and Social Science Citation Index (SSCI) during 8 years (1990 to 2007). The data collection tool was the search engine and the analysis part of the WOS and also HistCiteTM software. According to White (2003), the sample of the study was circa one percent of the studied data (i.e. 120 documents) that was analyzed based on two different aspects: Local Citation Score (LCS) and Global Citation Score (GCS).The research results show that with regard to Local Citation Score (LCS), five scientific clusters were formed and all of them were related to different fields of “Mathematics Education”. Based on Global Citation Score (GCS), there were no significant scientific cluster in this field, and this is while the amount of Global Citation Score was significantly more than Local Citation Score. According to the findings it seems that:1. The major scientific clusters and transitions in Mathematics are mostly related to theoretical fields as this issue has caused a new paradigm in this discipline.2. The amount of this scientific field’s influence on Applied Mathematics is much more than the non- Applied Mathematics.

Using bibliographic records from the Social Science Citation Index, Science Citation Index, and Arts & Humanities Index, this paper tries to give a complete view of the characteristics of top ten Iranian authors during 1990-2007 according to their authorship pattern. Findings revealed that during 1990-2007 a total of 2650 articles were written by top ten Iranian authors. Findings showed that M. Shamsipour with 463 articles is the most productive scientist of Iran during the studied period. M. M. Heravi with 365 articles and M. Ganjali with 283 articles appeared in the table at second and third positions, respectively. Findings revealed that overwhelmingly the majority of articles (97/69%) written by Iranian top authors are the result of collaborative works and the authors are highly inclined towards collaborative rather than non-collaborative research. There was a remarkable relationship between co-authorship and number of citations. More-than-three-author articles received the most number of citations. On the other hand, it seems that international collaboration of Iranian top authors is not significant.

Physical Education being applied in nature, the role of scientific research has been widely challenged in this field. Applying a bibliometric analysis method, the present study tries to investigate scientific achievement in sports and exercises and examine its relation to practical performance, using scholarly papers indexed in ISI as substitutes of scientific productivity and medals won in olympic competitions for representations of athletic performance. The results showed that Sport Sciences is a small scientific community with a limited body of literature but a great number of contributing countries. The counts of sports scientific publications revealed to be exponentially increasing, signifying a stable annual growth comparable to that of the global science system. There is also a significant correlation between countries'' success in olympic games and their scientific productivity. However, the former is found to have no significant correlation with the counts of sports-specific publications. It implies that though the scientific productivity in sports have no direct effect on athletes'' performance in olympic games, the overall development of countries determine their performance in competitions. Consequently, to reach superiority in sports a complete evolution in all aspects of science, sports, economy and human development is necessary.

In most countries, internationally indexed scientific publications provide the possibility for the scientometric experts to study their scientific progress. In Iran, the number of scientific productions indexed in ISI was 323 in 1993 and rose to 14832 in 2008 showing about 46 manifolds. The main aim of this research is to illustrate the dynamic structure of scientific productions of Iranian biotechnologists and applied microbiologists in WOS database during 2000–2008. The data was gathered through searching WOS database of ISI. The field of search was country (CU=IRAN). 681 scientific products were reported to be indexed in ISI. Iranians'' international collaboration has been mainly with Canadian, Swedish and Australian coauthors. Compared to other Iranian universities, University of Tehran, Tarbiat Modares University and Tehran University of Medical Sciences have contributed mostly to ISI. Iranian biotechnologists’ and microbiologists’ intercontinental collaboration is generally in Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, Engineering and chemical and Biochemical research. There has been an increase in the fundamental research activities in Biotechnology and Applied Microbiology research projects which have triggered motivation for higher contribution to ISI.

The purpose of this paper was to study and map the intellectual structure of Iranian physicists using author co-citation technique during 1990-2009. The results of the study showed that Iranian physicists have produced 6290 documents indexed in Science Citation Index (SciSearch) during the studied period. Publication counts have grown at an approximate rate of 24/70 % per year. Setare M. R. with 121 documents was the most productive Iranian author in this study. Applied Physics, with1564 documents was the most interesting subject area for the Iranian physicists. We identified 42 Iranian and international physicists who were highly co-cited in 6290 documents during the studied period. Using principal components analysis, 8 subject factors were extracted. The subject areas of factors were in: «Physics, Particles & Fields», «Astronomy & Astrophysics», “Physics, Mathematical «, “Physics, Multidisciplinary», «Physics, Nuclear», «Cosmology», «Physics, Atomic, Molecular & Chemical», and «Physics, Fluids & Plasmas». The PFNet map of the intellectual structure of Iranian physicists in SciSearch during 1990-2009 showed a central subject area in «Physics, Particles & Field» with Witten E. as its focal author. The other clusters were rooted in this essential cluster.

Research centers are among the most important institutes in a scientific society. Using the AltaVista search engine and webometric methods, this research tries to find the performance and impact of the top research centers of the Islamic World Countries. The results reveal that from 57 countries, 40 of them did not have any research centers scored in webometric ranking and the rest of them had not been scored well in the webometric ranking model. In this study, we rank research centers’ websites based on some webometric indicators such as number of pages, linkages, WIF and Revised WIF. Findings show that the ranking of the websites based on the WIF and revised WIF is almost different and there is a strong correlation between the number of research centers in the Islamic countries that were scored in webometrics and their ranks based on countries’ GDP.

This research investigates factors of enterprise portals of governmental organizations of Iran. Methods used in this research are literature and descriptive survey. Data was gathered by a researcher-made checklist for enterprise portal factors in the enterprise portals of governmental organizations of Iran. The checklist contains six factors that are content management, document management, collaboration and communication, user experience and relationship management, news and security. These factors contained 38 criteria and 49 extracted questions. Research population includes all of the websites of governmental organizations of Iran that claimed that they were enterprise portals; they are 97 enterprise portals which were identified from the Portal of Electronic Services of Iran in June 2008. The results of the research showed that content management, document management and security had qualified degrees whereas other factors i.e. collaboration and communication, user experience and relationship management and news had disqualified degrees. The comparison of the portals revealed that the portal of Tejarat Bank in content management, the portals of President Deputy Strategic Planning and Control, Industrial Development and Renovation Organization of Iran and Hamedan Municipality in document management, the portal of Tejarat Bank in collaboration and communication, the portal of Ports and Maritime Organization in user experience and relationship management, the portal of Hamedan Municipality in news and the portals of Products and Services Coding National Center of Iran, Kish Free Zone Organization, Iranian Blood Transfusion Organization, Hamedan Municipality, Ministry of I.C.T, Social Security Organization, Ministry of Cooperatives and East Azarbaijan Industries and Mines Organization in Security had the highest degrees.

This survey attempts to study and interpret the deployment of ICT by faculty members of departments of Education in universities of Iran. Descriptive analytical method was used as the research method. Questionnaires were distributed among 600 full-time faculty members of Education in universities of Iran. 410 (68.3%) respondents replied and completed questionnaires. SPSS was used to analyze the data. The data analysis showed that 97% of respondents used ICT. Findings indicated that 96.4% of respondents used computer followed by 96% the internet, 69.8% intranet, 72.9% online databases, 68.8% on-disc databases, 60.3% multimedia, 88.3% CDs & DVDs, 73.5% software tools, 94.9% digital printers, 91% digital scanners, 80.9% digital cameras, 76.4% data projector, 66.3% e-boards, 43.2% expert systems. Among the internet services, web, e-mail, news services and search tools were the most popular internet services being utilized by respondents while digital publishing and online shopping have been the least used services. It showed that the majority of respondents used ICT mostly for doing research, information seeking, classroom lectures, communicating and planning.

Since early 1980s, many empirical studies were carried out to recognize stress syndrome and occupational burnout in the United States libraries; the results indicated that the librarians in other countries are susceptible to these two conditions, as well. The present paper investigates the rate of occupational burnout in librarians of University of Isfahan, and evaluates the educational level, field of study, age, occupational experience, and the position of male and female librarians. The population under study included all the 61 librarians working in the libraries of University of Isfahan. The study was conducted as census. Maslash burnout inventory was handed in to all the librarians, and 57 copies were given back. In order to analyze the data, mean and standard deviation were used for descriptive statistics; also for inductive statistics, we applied t-test and multivariate analysis of variance (MANOVA) using SPSS 16. The results showed that occupational burnout of librarians in University of Isfahan is at a moderate level in terms of intensity and abundance, while it is at a low level considering emotional exhaustion and depersonalization. There is a relationship between some demographic factors such as occupational burnout and gender (abundance of emotional exhaustion), educational level (depersonalization intensity) and field of study (intensity and abundance of emotional exhaustion), whereas there was no relationship between occupational burnout and age, occupational experience, and librarians’ positions. Regarding the obtained results, managers and officials should make appropriate plans to prevent occupational burnout in librarians working in the academic libraries.

Thesaurus is one, out of many, precious tool in information technology by which information specialists can optimize storage and retrieval of documents in scientific databases and on the web. In recent years, there has been a shift from thesaurus to ontology by downgrading thesaurus in favor of ontology. It is because thesaurus cannot meet the needs of information management because it cannot create a rich knowledge-based description of documents. It is claimed that the thesaural relationships are restricted and insufficient. The writers in this paper show that thesaural relationships are not inadequate and restricted as they are said to be but quite the opposite they cover all semantic relations and can increase the possibility of successful storage and retrieval of documents. This study shows that thesauri are semantically optimal and they cover all lexical relations; therefore, thesauri can continue as suitable tools for knowledge management.