Analyzing the Co-authoring Network of Iranian Scientific Outputs in the field of Nursing in Web of Science Database from 2013 to 2018

Co-authorship is one of the examples of scientific collaboration. In scientific collaboration, researchers share their facilities, information, and capabilities to produce high quality works. The purpose of the present study is to analyze the social network structure of co-authoring among Iranian researchers in the field of nursing, from the standpoint of micro and macro indexes of social network analysis.

This was a descriptive and applied study carried out through a scientometrics approach. The study population comprised 2036 records of scientific output by Iranian researchers in the nursing field indexed in the Web of Science Database over the period of 2013-2018.

Findings showed that the trend of publishing works on nursing by Iranian researchers was increasing during this period. Furthermore, Tehran University of Medical Sciences, Islamic Azad University, and Shahid Beheshti University of Medical Sciences were the most productive Iranian universities in the field of nursing. On the other hand, a review of the co-authorship network of scientific outputs in the field of nursing from the standpoint of micro indexes showed that Ahmadi, Abbaszadeh, Borhani, Ebadi, and Mohammadi were the most effective authors in this network. According to data retrieved from the Clarivate Analytics of Web of Science Database, these authors were among the most prolific authors in the field. In terms of macro indices, density values of 0.02, clustering coefficient of 1.67, mean distance of 3.175, and network diameter of 7 were obtained for coauthoring network of Iranian scientific outputs in the field of nursing.

In terms of scientometric indicators, this network is not sufficiently coherent. In addition, the majority of the collaborations were on a domestic scale and little scientific sharing had been made with foreign researchers.