Selective Dissemination of Journals Information and its Effect on Citation Indicators

Background and Aim: In this study, in order to increase the visibility of articles in Scopus journals of Tehran University of Medical Sciences (TUMS), selective dissemination of information (SDI) service was presented and its impact on some citation indices was investigated. Materials and Methods: This is a semi-experimental study of two groups (pretest-posttest design with a control group). In this study, TUMS Scopus indexed journals (20 titles) were randomly divided into test and control groups  and their citation indices were assessed. Then, the SDI services for test group journals were designed based on PubMed's Alert system and presented to the university's top researchers for one year. Finally, the citation indices of the journals of test and control groups were reassessed and compared. For data analysis, independent t-test, paired t-test and, covariance analysis were used. Results: Comparison of mean citations as well as SJR, SNIP and CiteScore indices before and after the intervention showed no significant difference between the test and control groups. But the average CiteScore in both groups after the intervention was significantly higher than the average before the intervention.  Conclusion: The results showed that the provision of the aformentioned services in the time period defined in this study had no significant effect on the citation indices. However, the valuable experiences gained in this study will undoubtedly be applicable to future research as well as services to researchers, librarians, and journal managers.