The relationship between the research activity of Iranian medical universities and their web impact factor

Abstract

PurposeThe aim of this paper is to look at the relationship between research in Iranian medical universities, together with their Web Impact Factor (WIF).Design/methodology/approachThe Altavista search engine was chosen because of its advanced search facilities for counting links and having a wider scope of academic web sites than other search engines. It was searched for determining the number of pages, in‐links and self‐links of 42 web sites of Iranian medical universities. The Web Impact Factor (WIF) was calculated by two formulas and the relationship between the two grades of universities (WIF and ISI) was calculated by using the Spearman's correlation coefficient.FindingsTehran, Iran and Gilan medical universities had the first to third grade in the number of web sites' pages. The number of in‐links to Tehran, Isfahan and Tabriz medical universities was more than the others. The WIF of universities' web sites was counted in four groups with regard to their number of web pages and Kerman, Kermanshah, Fasa and Qom had the highest grades of WIF in each group, but there was no meaningful relationship between WIF grades and ISI grades. Also, the WIF of university web sites was counted with regard to the number of their members in the four groups and the result shows that Hormozgan, Shiraz, Isfahan and Tehran had the highest grade in each group. Again, there was no meaningful relation between WIF grades and ISI grades.Research limitations/implicationsIt seems that counting the number of in‐links is a better scale for ranking university web sites than WIF. WIF is proposed only in situations where the number of web pages is about equal.Originality/valueThe paper provides rankings, for the first time, of Iranian medical university web sites with regard to WIF based on the number of the web pages as well as on the number of the academic staff. The research shows a methodology that others can follow.