, governments , charities , and private companies have made large investments in this sector ( 1 ) . studies in this area should be performed with high precision and confidence levels for both cost - benefit and cost - effectiveness purposes . quantitative evaluation of scientific findings from research activities helps authorities and planners , allowing them to benefit from human and financial resources with less cost , which can optimize the economic and social structure of the country ( 2 ) . the scientometric method is a quantitative evaluation method that properly balances budgets , economic costs , and increased research efficiency ( 3 ) . in this approach , various evaluation methods are used , and they deliver credible research outputs and knowledge production . reviewing the articles indexed in valid databases is the most efficient method of assessing scientific output and the overall credibility of studies . in these types of studies , quantitative measurement of scientific production may , to some extent , determine both the frequency and process of studies of any country , institution , discipline , and individual ( 4 ) . however , this method is not as precise as other methods , and it has many deficiencies . for example , publications that are not cited also may be useful ( 5 ) , because many non - writer experts , e.g. , practitioners , master s students ( 6 ) , public people ( 7 ) , and instructors , read research papers ( 8) and use research publications in such activities as teaching ( 9 ) or business ( 10 ) . for this reason , complementary methods have been added to the evaluation method in recent years , among which the concepts related to measures in scientific journals such as  read ,   usage ,  and  download  ( 7 ) can be noted . media or social networks provide tools that can provide the data used for this evaluation . the tool can provide a broader image of scientific impact due to increasing popularity among people ( 11 ) . bookmarking is one feature of these networks , which refers to the number of usages of a paper or document . the number of bookmarkings of an article or document shows how many times that article or document was used ( 12 ) . a by - product of the academic usage of a social website is that it determines the latest statistics on the popularity of articles on social websites . this feature creates new online indexes for evaluating the effect of articles and a new category called  altmetrics ,  which is a new approach  for assessing and tracking the scientific impact of a social website  ( 13 ) . as mentioned earlier , one method can not be used for the evaluation of research output and the assessment of its effectiveness ; however , a combination of various methods may deliver useful data . many studies have investigated the research production of different scholars in the field of medical sciences . some studies have examined the scientific production related to such specific subjects as hiv ( 14 ) , stems cells ( 15 ) , and traditional medicine ( 16 ) . some studies have also investigated the research production of scholars in various universities of medical sciences , such as isfahan university of medical sciences ( 2 ) , gilan university of medical sciences ( 17 ) , and iran university of medical sciences ( 18 ) . in most of these studies , scientific products indexed in the citation databases of web of science ( 19 ) , scopus ( 20 ) , or both databases ( 21 ) the authors did not found a study that investigated scientific outputs at the same time on citation databases and social networks , such as researchgate and mendeley . for this reason , the authors decided to conduct a study of the scientific output of scholars at kashan university of medical sciences . the present study aimed to evaluate their scientific output by the end of march 2014 based on scientometric measures of scopus , researchgate , and mendeley . the specific objectives of the study were : to determine the number of indexed articles of scholars at kashan university of medical sciences in the scopus citation index in terms of year , type of article , journal , and citation . to determine the number of citations received by indexed articles of scholars at kashan university of medical sciences in the scopus citation index in terms of year and type of paper . to determine the coverage of social networks of researchgate and mendeley on articles from kashan university of medical sciences indexed in the scopus citation index . to determine the number of views of articles of scholars at kashan university of medical sciences in researchgate . to determine the number of articles of scholars at kashan university of medical sciences with the highest frequency of views and downloads in researchgate . to determine the frequency with which the articles of scholars at kashan university of medical sciences in mendeley were read . to determine the articles of scholars at kashan university of medical sciences with the highest reading frequency in mendeley . to determine the correlation between the number of views of articles of scholars at kashan university of medical sciences in researchgate and mendeley social networks with citations to the articles in scopus no sampling procedure was conducted in this study , and all of the articles published in the scopus citation database by the scholars at kashan university of medical sciences by the end of march 2014 were investigated . the required data were collected from the scopus citation index and two social networks , i.e. , researchgate and mendeley . scopus was selected due to its relative homogeneity regarding all disciplines and delivery of better results . this is unlike the science citation databases , which focus only on science and social science . it should be stated that the two social networks are academic and scientific and provide social bookmarking and evaluation services ( 22 , 30 ) . the authors followed two major steps to extract the required data as follows : the first step : data extraction from scopus articles the name , kashan university of medical sciences , was logged into the search section based on organizational affiliation in scopus 2014 in order to extract the titles . all articles were reviewed due to the diversity of the writing styles of the authors and the need to determine the authors who were affiliated with the university . in addition , information on each article was saved in an spss file to be analyzed in the final stage . the extracted information included title , authors , authors affiliations with kashan university of medical sciences , year of publication , type of article , name of the journal , and the number of citations of each article . the second step : bookmark data extraction from researchgate and mendeley the titles of articles affiliated with kashan university of medical sciences that were indexed in the scopus citation databases were searched in two social networks , i.e. , researchgate and mendeley . in addition , bookmarking data on each article were recovered from the two social networks . in the case of availability of papers , reading frequency and full texts of every article were added to the data extracted in the first stage . for statistical analysis of the data , we used descriptive statistic for objectives ( 18 ) and , for the eighth objective , we used spearman s correlative test in spss version 16 ( spss , inc . , chicago , illinois , usa ) . no sampling procedure was conducted in this study , and all of the articles published in the scopus citation database by the scholars at kashan university of medical sciences by the end of march 2014 were investigated . the required data were collected from the scopus citation index and two social networks , i.e. , researchgate and mendeley . scopus was selected due to its relative homogeneity regarding all disciplines and delivery of better results . this is unlike the science citation databases , which focus only on science and social science . it should be stated that the two social networks are academic and scientific and provide social bookmarking and evaluation services ( 22 , 30 ) . the authors followed two major steps to extract the required data as follows : the first step : data extraction from scopus articles the name , kashan university of medical sciences , was logged into the search section based on organizational affiliation in scopus 2014 in order to extract the titles . all articles were reviewed due to the diversity of the writing styles of the authors and the need to determine the authors who were affiliated with the university . in addition , information on each article was saved in an spss file to be analyzed in the final stage . the extracted information included title , authors , authors affiliations with kashan university of medical sciences , year of publication , type of article , name of the journal , and the number of citations of each article . the second step : bookmark data extraction from researchgate and mendeley the titles of articles affiliated with kashan university of medical sciences that were indexed in the scopus citation databases were searched in two social networks , i.e. , researchgate and mendeley . in addition , bookmarking data on each article were recovered from the two social networks . in the case of availability of papers , reading frequency and full texts of every article for statistical analysis of the data , we used descriptive statistic for objectives ( 18 ) and , for the eighth objective , we used spearman s correlative test in spss version 16 ( spss , inc . , chicago , illinois , usa ) . the findings showed that 533 articles from 1960 to 2014 were indexed in the scopus citation database in which at least one author was affiliated with kashan university of medical sciences . in addition , 2,297 authors contributed to these articles , 1,263 of whom were affiliated with kashan university of medical sciences . in fact , an average of four authors were involved per article . moreover , 35.4% of the articles were prepared by scholars at kashan university of medical sciences , and 65.4% of the articles were developed in collaboration with academics of other universities and research centers . considering the type of articles , the results showed that 92.7% were research papers , and 7.3% were other types of articles . approximately 20% of the citations were to seven articles , with 90 , 35 , 31 , 28 , 25 , 24 , and 22 citations ( table 1 ) . table 2 shows the frequency distribution of citations of the articles based on the year of publication . as shown in table 2 , only 21.2% of the articles were published prior to 2008 , and 78.8% of the articles were published after 2008 . however , 80% of the citations belonged to the articles published prior to 2011 . table 3 shows the frequency distribution of then citations of articles based on the types of articles . as shown in table 3 , due to the ratio of research articles compared to review articles , review articles were cited more than research articles . it was found out that 395 articles were indexed in researchgate among 533 articles indexed in scopus . in addition , 395 indexed articles in researchgate were viewed 20,799 times and downloaded 2,324 times . moreover , all of these articles were viewed 901 times in this social network ( table 4 ) . the articles were covered by researchgate ( 74% ) more than mendeley ( 44% ) . furthermore , 98% of the articles indexed in researchgate and 92% of the articles indexed in mendeley were viewed at least once . as observed in table 4 , any article bookmarked in researchgate was viewed 54 times on average . examining the frequency of viewing the articles in researchgate showed that 54% of the articles were viewed between one to 50 times ,  32% of the articles were viewed between  50 to 100 times ,  and 11% of the articles were viewed  more than 100 times .  only 2% of the articles the results showed that five of the 29 articles ( 20% ) that were viewed the most in researchgate were review articles . one article was downloaded 239 times which had highest rate of downloads . on average , any bookmarked article was downloaded six times in mendeley . table 6 shows that an article entitled  gastrointestinal parasites of stray cats in kashan , iran  had the highest number of downloads ( 239 times , 10% of the downloading frequency ) . also , two of the five articles that had the highest number of downloads in researchgate ( 20% ) were review articles . examining the reading frequency of the articles in mendeley showed that 86% of the articles were read between  1 to 10 times ,  5% of the articles was read between  11 and 20 times ,  and 2% of the articles were read  more than 20 times .  studied articles in mendeley were viewed 901 times . table 7 shows that 20% of the articles had the highest number of views in mendeley . two of the five articles maximally viewed ( 20% ) in mendeley were review articles . the correlation between the number of views of articles in researchgate with citation number of the articles in scopus and reading frequency of the articles in mendeley with citation number in scopus were examined using the spearman correlation . the results showed a significant relationship between the variables with 99% confidence level and an error level less than 1% . in this regard , the correlation coefficient between two variables of the number of views of articles in researchgate with citation number of the articles in scopus was 0.310 , which showed a positive relationship between the two variables . it can be concluded that increased number of views of articles in researchgate increased citations to the articles . the correlation coefficient between the two variables of reading frequency of the articles in mendeley with citation number of the articles in scopus was equal to 0.247 , which indicated a positive relationship between the two variables . thus , the increased number of views of articles in mendeley increased the citations to the articles . however , the correlation between the numbers of views of articles in researchgate was associated with higher citations of reading frequency of the articles in mendeley with the number of citations to the articles . the findings showed that 533 articles from 1960 to 2014 were indexed in the scopus citation database in which at least one author was affiliated with kashan university of medical sciences . in addition , 2,297 authors contributed to these articles , 1,263 of whom were affiliated with kashan university of medical sciences . in fact , an average of four authors were involved per article . moreover , 35.4% of the articles were prepared by scholars at kashan university of medical sciences , and 65.4% of the articles were developed in collaboration with academics of other universities and research centers . considering the type of articles , the results showed that 92.7% were research papers , and 7.3% were other types of articles . approximately 20% of the citations were to seven articles , with 90 , 35 , 31 , 28 , 25 , 24 , and 22 citations ( table 1 ) . table 2 shows the frequency distribution of citations of the articles based on the year of publication . as shown in table 2 , only 21.2% of the articles were published prior to 2008 , and 78.8% of the articles were published after 2008 . however , 80% of the citations belonged to the articles published prior to 2011 . table 3 shows the frequency distribution of then citations of articles based on the types of articles . as shown in table 3 , 95.8% of the articles were research papers , and 3.4% were review articles . due to the ratio of research articles compared to review articles , it was found out that 395 articles were indexed in researchgate among 533 articles indexed in scopus . in addition , 395 indexed articles in researchgate were viewed 20,799 times and downloaded 2,324 times . moreover , all of these articles were viewed 901 times in this social network ( table 4 ) . the articles were covered by researchgate ( 74% ) more than mendeley ( 44% ) . furthermore , 98% of the articles indexed in researchgate and 92% of the articles indexed in mendeley were viewed at least once . as observed in table 4 , any article bookmarked in researchgate was viewed 54 times on average . examining the frequency of viewing the articles in researchgate showed that 54% of the articles were viewed between  one to 50 times ,  32% of the articles were viewed between  50 to 100 times ,  and 11% of the articles were viewed  more than 100 times .  only 2% of the articles were never viewed . the results showed that five of the 29 articles ( 20% ) that were viewed the most in researchgate were review articles . one article was downloaded 239 times which had highest rate of downloads . on average , table 6 shows that an article entitled  gastrointestinal parasites of stray cats in kashan , iran  had the highest number of downloads ( 239 times , 10% of the downloading frequency ) . also , two of the five articles that had the highest number of downloads in researchgate ( 20% ) were review articles . examining the reading frequency of the articles in mendeley showed that 86% of the articles were read between  1 to 10 times , 5% of the articles was read between  11 and 20 times ,  and 2% of the articles were read  more than 20 times . table 7 shows that 20% of the articles had the highest number of views in mendeley . two of the five articles maximally viewed ( 20% ) in mendeley were review articles . the correlation between the number of views of articles in researchgate with citation number of the articles in scopus and reading frequency of the articles in mendeley with citation number in scopus were examined using the spearman correlation . the results showed a significant relationship between the variables with 99% confidence level and an error level less than 1% . in this regard , the correlation coefficient between two variables of the number of views of articles in researchgate with citation number of the articles in scopus was 0.310 , which showed a positive relationship between the two variables . it can be concluded that increased number of views of articles in researchgate increased citations to the articles . the correlation coefficient between the two variables of reading frequency of the articles in mendeley with citation number of the articles in scopus was equal to 0.247 , which indicated a positive relationship between the two variables . thus , the increased number of views of articles in mendeley increased the citations to the articles . however , the correlation between the numbers of views of articles in researchgate was associated with higher citations of reading frequency of the articles in mendeley with the number of citations to the articles . the results showed an increase in publication of articles in recent years . in terms of article type , 92.7% covered  original research ,  2.6% encompassed  review articles ,  and 4.7% was allocated to other types of articles . investigating scientific products of shahre - kord university of medical sciences showed that 74.6% of scientific production in the web of science consisted of research papers ( 14 ) . it can be observed that the nature of scientific production in the field of medical science significantly was the research format , i.e. , medical science produced mostly research papers . examining the citations to articles showed that the highest number of citations to an article was 90 times . in addition , 48% of the articles indexed in scopus were cited at least once . examining 1,613 articles in nature and science journals in 2007 showed that all the articles were viewed at least once and a maximum of 1000 times in the science citation index ( 32 ) . sotoudeh , mazarei and mirzabeygi investigated articles of 83 journals in the fields of librarianship and information science and showed that 22.17% of the articles were cited at least once in wos , and 22.6% of these papers were bookmarked in citeulike ( 26 ) . coverage of articles and the number of bookmarking were higher in researchgate than in mendeley . in addition , access to full text of the articles was higher in researchgate than in mendeley . this showed the popularity of researchgate as a research scientific social network among the community of medical sciences . this was because the correlation between all indices was reported on average or high levels ( 27 ) . in most studies , the results showed excellent coverage of mendeley on articles of most scientific fields ( 28 , 25 ) . thelwall and wilson ( 2015 ) reviewed the articles in the field of medical science indexed in scopus in 2009 and showed that 89% of the papers were saved in mendeley , 78% of the articles were at least read once in mendeley , and 73% of the articles were cited at least once in scopus ( 28 ) . ( 2015 ) studied the papers in four areas of clinical medicine , engineering and technology , social sciences , physics and chemistry , which were indexed in wos in 2008 . another study showed that 80% of articles of public library of science were covered by mendeley , 31% were covered by citeulike , and 10% of the articles were covered by delicious ( 11 ) . in addition , 355 studied articles were viewed 20,799 times in researchgate and 901 times in mendeley . furthermore , 98% of the articles indexed in researchgate and 92% of the articles indexed in mendeley were viewed at least once . any bookmarked articles in researchgate were viewed 54 times on average . any bookmarked article in mendeley was viewed four times on average . the results showed that mean viewing number of the articles in researchgate was 10 times the mean number of citations to papers . these findings indicated that the articles were read by many people but were rarely cited . therefore , viewing number of the articles shows how many times the articles were used in other contexts , such as teaching and business . ( 2015 ) reported that the mean reading number of the articles in the field of social sciences was twice the mean number of citation to the articles in mendeley . this was reversed in case of articles in the fields of chemistry , physics , and clinical medicine . the mean reading number of the articles was equal to the mean number of citation to the articles in the field of engineering and technology ( 25 ) . another study showed that the number of bookmarked works was higher than the mean number of citations in mendeley ( 3.32% bookmarking vs. 2.17% citations ) . the highest number of bookmarked works was observed in the field of health and biomedical sciences ( 13.6% ) ( 29 ) . mohammadi and thelwal ( 2015 ) showed that the mean number of saved articles in all disciplines , except psychology , was higher than the mean number of citations to articles in mendeley ( 24 ) . these results are not in line with those obtained by sotoude , mazarei and mirzabeygi ( 2015 ) . they showed that the number of bookmarked articles in citeulike was negligible compared to the number of citation to the articles in wos ( 26 ) . although only 2.6% of the studied papers were review articles , these article covered part of 20% of the most visited and downloaded articles . review articles are an important category of medical papers , which are mostly read and associated with high credibility due to importance and integrity . editors are mostly interested in such articles because a review article written by a well - known author is widely welcomed , read more , and referred more , which increases the impact factor of the journal . readers are also interested in this type of articles as the perfect solution to meet the increasing spread of knowledge and acquire up - to - date information . the results indicated that the correlation coefficient between the two variables of viewing number of the articles in researchgate with citations to the article in scopus and the correlation coefficient between two variables of reading frequency of the articles in mendeley with the number of citations to articles in scopus were positive and significant . it can be concluded that increased number of viewed articles in researchgate and mendeley increased the number of citations to articles . 2012 ) showed that 81.6% of works of 57 scholars in field of scientometrics indexed in scopus were covered by mendeley . the results showed that the correlation coefficient between the number of citations to articles in scopus and reading frequency of the articles in mandeley was equal to 0.448 ( 33 ) . mohammadi and thelwal ( 2013 ) showed a significant and positive correlation between the number of bookmarked articles in mendeley and number of citations to articles in studied fields ( 22 ) . li and thelwal ( 2012 ) also showed a significant correlation between citations and altmetrics bookmarking index in mendeley for some genetic articles published in 2008 ( 34 ) . thelwall and wilson ( 2015 ) showed a significant and positive correlation between frequency of bookmarking in mendeley and the number of citations in scopus in the field of medical sciences ( 28 ) . although the correlation between altmetrics measures and the number of citations in citation indexes does not prove that the former leads to the latter , the study of this issue is the first step to rational evaluation of an altmetrics measure . a positive correlation indicates that the two are not completely apart from each other and have common similarities . a significant correlation between bookmarking and citation is not an evidence of causality but probably indicates that some readers have cited the papers . the significant correlation between the two variables shows that bookmarking and citation reflect similar aspects of impact of an article . however , the correlation between the two variables was not strong enough to conclude that the number of citations and bookmarking reflects the same image of significant impact of research . it seems that frequency of bookmarking shows reading frequency of an article , which combines the two impacts of research and broad expertise . this may be due to the fact that most researchgate users are working in the fields of medical sciences and biology . high viewing number of articles in researchgate and mendeley suggests the high impact of the two social networks in increasing the visibility of scientific works . it is recommended that medical scholars use this network as a means of  self - archiving  and  finding information . also , the ministry of health , universities , research institutions , and research centers should be aware of the importance of attendance and membership of scholars , faculty members , and even students in social networks , particularly higher education students . this probably will be used as a criterion for scientific  research assessment of scholars and academics in science policy - making .