Performance Evaluation of the Iranian Researchers, Universities and Research Institutions in the Engineering Education Using Social Network Analysis

This research used a scientometirc approach and social network analysis indices to investigate the co-authorship network between Iranian researchers, universities and research institutions in Iran’s engineering education field. The corpus of the study included 444 articles published in Persian in the Iranian Journal of Engineering Education from1999 to 2014. The network co-authorship matrix was drawn using a Ravar-Matrix; and then two types of social network software, UCINET and VOSviewer, were utilized for data analysis. The productivity index results revealed that the largest number of articles were written by M. Yaghobi (20 articles), J. Hejazi (15 articles), GH. Daneshi (15 articles), H. Memarian (15 articles) and P. Davami (14 articles). Moreover, based on centrality indices of the Iranian Journal of Engineering Education researchers like M. Yaghobi, P. Davami and J. Hejazi were assumed to play leading roles in the co-authorship network. In terms of the scientific productivity index, Sharif University of Technology (65 articles), Shiraz University (58 articles), and University of Tehran (57 articles) achieved the highest ranks.In addition, based on indices of degree centrality, between ness centrality, and closeness centrality, universities like Sharif University of Technology, Shiraz University, University of Tehran, and Islamic Azad University were the most effective universities in terms of scientific productivity in the Iranian Journal of Engineering Education.