Qualitative evaluation of research activities using the same keywords

Background and aim: Various scientometric indicators have been developed for quantitative and qualitative evaluation of scientific output. Each of these indicators has its own weaknesses and strengths. The study aimed at using the keywords as a qualitative evaluation instrument in research of many scholars of Medical Sciences University. Material and methods: This study was conducted as a cross-sectional study within a 6-year period (2005-2010). The research population included all papers published by faculty members of Medical Science University of Babol who were as the first/corresponding authors with at least 2 papers and these indexed articles in periodicals published in WOS during this period. The data were collected by means of a tailor-made data collection sheet. The repeated or synonym keywords were collected from different papers of an author and were analyzed in terms of repetition for qualitative evaluation of the research of every scholar. The data were analyzed by using descriptive statistical indexes and statistical software spss version16. Findings: During this period, 127 articles have been indexed in WoS database from researchers of this University. in 11 articles of 300 words, 21 repeated words or synonyms were used by 25 researchers who had two or more than two papers. By considering these findings, the overall ratio of articles with repetitive keywords was 16 and the proportion of repeated keywords to whole words was 7. Statistical processing of the data using linear regression indicates an inverse relationship between the number of articles of each author and repeated keywords or synonyms in his/her articles. So, by increasing the number of articles for every author from 2 to 5, the repeated words in per article were decreased to 0/83, 0/77, 0/25 and finally zero, respectively. Conclusion: low rate of the same keywords and synonyms in the articles of one researcher may be a sign of dispersion and lack of coordination in research activities. Therefore, regarding the coordination and concentration of the subject in scientific activities is very important in assessing the quality of research and researchers.