Effects of Scientific Collaboration between Domestic and Foreign Authors on Quality Indices of Journals

The aim of the study was to determine the effect of scientific collaboration between domestic (Iranian) and foreign authors on their quality indices in articles published in Iranian medical journals, indexed in the Web of Science citation database. The present scientometric study was conducted on the 22 Iranian medical journals that indexed in Web of Science from 2010 to 2016. Using stratified systematic random sampling method and Cochran formula, the sample size was determined 1230 articles. The data analysis was performed by Microsoft Excel and descriptive methods. The qualitative indices were determined using the Klimogrof-Smirnov test, Kruskal-Wallis test and correlation coefficient. The results revealed that 4.66 percent of the articles were compiled by Iranian authors, 29 percent written by foreign authors and 6.4 percent was written by scientific collaboration between Iranian and foreign authors. The average number of authors for each article was 4.9. The journals that have articles which have Iranian authors have a lower Impact Factor (0.69%) than the journal's articles which is the product of the collaboration of Iranian and foreign authors (0.82%). In conclusion, international collaboration in the writing of articles has a direct effect on qualitative indexes of articles, including Impact Factor, 5-years Impact Factor, Immediacy index and journal's Impact Factor.