| Objective: This paper purports to evaluate, from an academic perspective, the performance of scientific researches at Anhui Medical University and thus provide a theoretic basis for the criteria established by the Department of the Scientific Research Management. It analyzes the changes in the quantity and quality of the scientific and technical papers produced by Anhui Medical University during 1997-2006 and compares such changes with those occurred at the other eight domestic medical universities at different levels. Finally it is devoted to conclude that the scientific research evaluation takes an active role in the university administration and the research levels.Methods: Through the use of CBM, MEDLINE, CSCD and SCIE databases, We conduct a bibliometric study at Anhui Medical University on its paper productivity and the impact the papers published. This paper focuses on analyzing the quantity of the scientific and technical papers published, foundation papers, papers published in core journals, papers accepted by SCIE and the citations of those papers.Results: (1) Anhui Medical University produced 9009 domestic papers during 1997-2006, and the number of papers published in each year increased by an average of 34.8% per year. the paper productivity has seen an up-going trend, especially in the years after 2003, in which the output of papers increased rapidly. (2) The distribution of paper productivity is not even among institutions. The First Affiliated Hospital, which produced 57.69% of all the papers, is top productive, followed by the School of Basic Medical Sciences and the School of Public Health (The result holds true unless the difference of the number of professionals is considered). (3) There is also an upgoing trend in the scientific research group as a whole, and authors'group devoted to publish papers in the core journals has formed. The papers produced by these authors are in highest quality and quantity with a trend toward research collaborations. (4) The periodicals covered are primarily the local journals or the journals sponsored by Anhui Medical University. The top 8 periodicals which published 3410 papers (37.85%) produced by the university are all local journals, of which 6 are sponsored by the university and published 2796 papers (31.04%). (5) The number of foundation papers tends to grow extremely quickly while its percentage goes up steadily every year, from 5.93% in 1997 to 38.39% in 2006. Almost two-third foundation papers (62.29%) were supported by provincial fund, followed by 31.59% supported by national fund. (6) The number of papers published in core journals is relatively fixed, but its percentage of the total papers goes down. The scientific and technical papers emphasize the absorption of outside information. (7) The international papers increase steadily in terms of publication counts. (8) As of March 2008, a total of 560 papers were cited by the source journal of CSCD, with a rate of 27.63%; the total citations are 1326 times with a frequency of 0.65 time/paper. (9) The number of papers accepted by SCIE tends to rise at an accelerate speed and the quality of these papers was getting better. However, the quantity and quality of self-originated papers need to be improved. (10) The papers covered a wide range of subjects, with an emphasis on core subjects. The subjects covered by high-quality papers are the ones supported by Anhui province or the university. Such a fact shows that the subjects and the field of research were developed unevenly. Pharmacology and dermatology are the two subjects covered by the most papers accepted by SCIE.Conclusion: An up-going tendency in terms of paper productivity and the impact of the papers published has been observed in a decade at Anhui Medical University, especially the number of papers accepted by SCIE increasing at an accelerate speed. However, compared to the top-ranked medical universities our university still has some gaps with regards to paper productivity and academic impact of the papers published. Therefore, we should create a good environment in which researchers are encouraged to take continuous education to broaden their and improve their capabilities. At the other hand, we should optimize our hiring policies so that we can attract into our team as more scientific and technical professionals as we can, to make it highly efficient and effective. Accordingly, we suggest that the department of scientific research management propagate the importance of academic researches and make some reward policies. By doing so, we hope researchers can be encouraged to produce more international papers with high quality and high theoretic values and submit more papers to SCI and CSCD source journals to increase their citations. |
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