Measuring research performance of Iraqi universities using Scopus data

Abstract

This study investigates the research performance of the Iraqi public and private universities using the Scopus citation database. The investigation consists of three stages. The first stage includes the registration of these universities in the database. The second represents the process of merging the multiple accounts of each university. The two stages have been completed within one year (from start to end of 2017), which result in a significant improvement in the research performance, in term of number of published articles (Pu), number of citations (C) and h index. Analysis of the improved h index obtained from the Scopus site, reveals a clear bias towards large universities, due to neglecting the number of researchers (NS) in calculating the h index. In the third stage, two new empirical equations are suggested for measuring research performance of universities. The first proposed equation predicts a modified h index as a function of Pu, C, and NS and implements to Iraqi universities and selected universities from other countries. The second proposed equation is a combination of three sub-indicators, namely: citations per article, articles per researcher, and percentage of non-cited articles. Discussion of results indicates that the developed equations eliminate the bias of the large universities over the small ones and highlight some useful recommendations for the universities to enhance their ranking in scientific performance.