Correlation between journal self-citation with impact factor for the scientific publications in humanities published between 2001 and 2007 based on Persian journal citation report generated by Islamic Science Citation database

The present study investigate the correlation between journal citations with impact factor in the humanities scientific journals published for the 2001-2007 period based on the Persian journal citation reports generated by Islamic Science Citation (ISC) database. Citation analysis method was used. Findings demonstrated that there is a significant link between impact factor and journal self-citation (r=0.606, s =0.0000). In other words, journals with low impact factors have fewer self-citations, i.e. self-citation has a positive impact on the journal impact factor. There is a negative correlation between impact factor and number of articles in humanities in the period studied. The impact factor does not increase with increase in the number of articles. There is significant correlation between the number of article published and number of self-citation. The higher the number of articles, the higher would be the number of self-citation in the journal. Findings indicated that the rate of journal self-citation in humanities had been downward for the period studied. When screening journals for self-citations, 108 journals had their ranks reduced while 204 journals had their ranking increased. The ranking in 32 journals remained unchanged.