Citation Rate of Scientific Articles of Isfahan University of Medical Sciences between 2003 and 2010 in the Scopus Citation Database

Introduction: Information is one of the major strategic resources of development, but it is considered valuable only when it is efficient. The current study was conducted to determine the citation rate of scientific research conducted in Isfahan University of Medical Sciences in Scopus databases. Methods: This descriptive research was done on all scientific articles (1830 documents) indexed in SCOPUS between 2003-2010 using citation analysis. The data collection instrument was considering search results of the documents. To analyze the data, the following approaches were used: 1) result analysis through ‘analyze results’ tab at the Scopus 2) SPSS. Descriptive statistical indexes were used to present the findings. Results: the results indicated that 1830 documents had been indexed in Scopus under the name of Isfahan University of Medical Sciences through 2003 to 2010.These had received a citation rate of 4129 with an average of 2/33 times for each documents received .Ten authors were most frequently cited ,the first with an average citation rate of 47 and the tenth with 8.4.Dentistry was the least cited subject and veterinary the most(6.2 citations) and self-citation was observed only in 16.49% of the documents indexed. Conclusion: The result of this study indicated that the citation mean for scientific articles of Isfahan University of Medical Sciences is more than twice the total number of documents indexed in Scopus. The results also indicated that the amount of articles produced by every author did not affect the citation rate; some authors with a few articles had received a high rate of citation. A common field of study like veterinary received the highest citation rate and major fields received the lowest citation rates. It could be stated that the increase in scientific articles of Isfahan University of Medical Sciences on one hand and the increase in their citation rate on the other indicates a quantitative and qualitative progress.   Key words: Citation; Databases; Scientometrics.