Participation of Iranian Medical Universities in ResearchGate

ReseachGate network provides an opportunity for scientific collaboration between researchers in process of knowledge production. This study investigated the situation of Iranian medical universities in ReseachGate.
This applied and quantitative study used a scientometric method (altmetrics). Population of the study was 45 Iranian medical universities present in ReseachGate. Data collection was carried out from 27 April until 21 June 2015 by means of manual observation and recording information from ReseachGate, webometric and Islamic World Science Citation Center (ISC) websites. Spearman coefficient was used to test the correlation between variables. SPSS17 software was used for data analysis and Pajak software for drawing the related graphs.
Medical universities of Tehran, Shahid Behesti, Shiraz, Mashhad, Isfahan and Tabriz had the highest ReseachGate scores, respectively. United State of America, China and Iran respectively had the most view and download of Iranian medical documents (papers) in ReseachGate. Tehran University of Medical Sciences had a central role in co-authorship with majority of Iranian medical universities. Finally, there was a strong and positive correlation between ReseachGate score and ranking of medical universities in ISC and webometics.
The results showed that the higher ranking universities are more active in ReseachGate. Tehran University of Medical Sciences is the most important node of co-authorship network. Geographical closeness is influential in co-authorship.