Search

Background and aim: Self-citation occurs when the author cites his/her own previous scientific works. The purpose of this study was to investigate the effect of self-citation on the H- index of faculty members of the top 5 engineering universities in Iran based on the Scopus database. Materials and methods: This applied study was conducted using scientometric method. The statistical population was 303 faculty members of universities (Sharif, Amirkabir University of Technology, Isfahan University of Technology, Iran University of Science & Technology, Babol Noshirvani University of Technology) with an H-index of more than 20 in the Scopus during 2015-2019. The data were analyzed in Excel and SPSS-19, and the Spearman correlation test was applied to determine the relationship between the variables. Findings: The results showed that the faculty members of mechanics, materials and chemical engineering had the highest index with 1376, 1248 and 1176 articles before the removal of self-citation, respectively. Moreover, after the removal of self-citation, the mentioned fields of study had a high H-index with 1271, 1183 and 1087 articles, respectively. After removing the self-citation of the chemistry field with a decrease of 112 units, the most and least change was related to the field of architecture with a decrease of 2 units in the H-index; the highest and lowest impacts of the H-index after removing the citations were related to Noshirvani University and Sharif University, respectively. In addition, it was found there was a significant relationship between the self-citation of the faculty members and the number of articles in the study population. Conclusion: The results of the study indicated that self-citation in Sharif University and Babol Noshirvani University of Technology had the least and most impact on the H-index of faculty members. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]