Authors
Abstract
Introduction
Scientific and professional journals are assumed as ducts of scientific production and scientific communication and trying to play these two functions between scholars in different academic fields. Review of historical science shows that efficient factors have had a general role in formation, emergence, growth and development of science with a particular role in knowledge of geography in which we can consider the scientific and professional journals. Scientific and professional journals are specialized publications which are published in regular intervals and play two-function of scientific production and scientific communication. Published articles in professional journals because of the updated and (relatively) short content, transferring the results of writer to the readers speedily, low cost of journal (compared to books), relatively authentic and first-hand information, detailed analysis and effort in using known and logical methods, fast publication and distribution, introducing the past to today's textbooks and resources related to the topic, and removal of the marginal texts (due to observing a finite volume and a journal article) is so important. The place of publications in addition to the role of enormous scientific findings resource in which used by most professional staff members of the community, is another important source assessment, including the level of countries or areas of science degree in special and the ability to assess the extent of scientific research and higher education for young people. Research Journal of Geographical Research (Journal of Geographical Research Institute University of Tehran) is a scientific research journals approved by the Commission reviews of the country - the Ministry of Science, Research and Technology and is the first specialized geography journal in the country in which from past 32 year till now 66 volumes have been published. The journal was named from the year 1988 as “Geographical Report” and after that till now (from 23 years onwards) as "Geographic Research," has made available the latest scientific research and research studies from the geography of Iran for scholars.
Materials and methods
A descriptive- content analytic method is used as the research method. This article is about studying the process of published numbers of a geographical quarterly journal during the past 10 years, from no.36 of October 1998 to no.66 of the winter of 2008 in the form of an eight parameter frame of “thematic share of articles”, “science-proficiency group association”, “resources and origins”, “dividing the articles based on the extracting resource”, and “used methods and techniques”.
Result and discussion
1- Academic institutions participating
In total, 53 scientific institutions as universities and academic research institutions - participated in 320 evaluated research articles; from 320 published articles in journal, 143 numbers of articles means 44.7 percent of them has allocated to University of Tehran and most of the remaining percent (29.4percent) are from other cities universities. Also, 62 number of articles means 19.4 percent of them were allocated to other universities of Tehran. Share of the rest of country's academic institutions (11 institutions) in total were 3.4 percent and nearly 3.1 percent of the published articles institutions are unknown.
2- Author scientific degree
Reviewing the relevant data shows that scientific degree respectively, including : 10.9 percent Master’s degree, 24.1 percent associate professor, 45.3 percent assistant professor, 1.9 percent instructor, 9.7 percent doctoral graduates and doctoral students, 1.6 percent the graduates and master's graduate student, 0.3 percent BA and in 4.7 percent of articles, scientific place of scientific academy members is not mentioned.
3- Articles issue share
From 320 reviewed articles was respectively subject climatic geography: 17.5 percent, geomorphology 16.3 percent, hydrology 9.4 percent, rural geography 16.6 percent, urban geography 15.3 percent, geopolitics 8.4 percent, geography of tourism 2.8 percent, geographical area 0.9 percent and remote sensing and cultural geography 0.3 percent is allocated. Thus, the largest issue in these articles is dedicated to climate and geography articles and minimal contribution to remote sensing and geographic medicine.
4- Used techniques and methods
Nearly 83.4 percent of published articles not mentioned the method used in writing research, 8.4 percent of the articles descriptive - analytical, 1 percent empirical, 0.9 percent comparative method and 6.6 percent used from other methods.
5- Separating articles based on extractive resource
From 320 reviewed articles 21 articles means 6.6 percent of all articles extracted from previous resource and has been presented as article and separately 1.9 percent from published thesis, 0.9 percent from master's thesis and 3.8 three percent are extracted from the research project. Also 287 articles mean 93.4 percent of articles have not been extracted from the previous field of scientific research.
6- Participating of scientific– professional groups
In total, 20 scientific–specialist groups have been participating in 320 reviewed articles. However, this diversity is not so deep and 78.4 percent of articles are from the Department of Geography and this group has a general share in writing articles in this journal.
7- Time of accepting articles
Reviewing this issue is important to the arbitration process and journal organization for follow-up articles and have effective role in the satisfaction rate of applicants in publishing the magazine. From 320 articles of the time to get acceptance, 164 articles means 51.3 percent of the articles is not mentioned, and mainly are related to the first publishing decade of magazine, but in the other 157 articles the less time for acceptance of articles were 3 months and the maximum duration were 51 months.
8- Sources
Generally in reviewed articles 5757 sources have been used in performing research that from this numbers 3594 means 62.2 percent are from Persian sources and 2163 sources means 37.5 percent are from Latin sources. Average resources used for the 320 articles, are equal 18 sources for each article that is satisfactory figure in the use of resources. Average of latin sources used in each paper is equal to 7 sources and for the Persian sources is about 11 sources for each article.
Conclusion
The results and findings show the quantitative and qualitative progress of the 8 parameters. The articles with the subjects of “natural geography” have the most share of the topics of the articles, and “continental geography" was the most used subject in these articles with 17.5% percents. The editors with the educational degree of “faculty co-professor” have the biggest number of the studied authors. Different authors of 19 science-proficiency groups participated in giving the articles of this research. Only 6.6% percents of the studied articles had the results of previous science-proficiency works. In most of the articles, the methodology in not mentioned, and the mostly used research method of the articles was descriptive-analytic
Keywords
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