Self-citation in Iran in Comparison with Other Countries.

Self-citation is a debate in citation analysis and evaluating research performance.This study aimed to investigate the self-citation rate of Iranian scholars in comparison with scholars of other countries in the World.The scientific output of 238 countries in the time span of 1996-2017(two recent decades) was studied from perspective of some bibliometric indicators, using "country ranking" section in SJR database for data collection.Regarding self-citation rate, Iran ranked third in the world, second in Asia and first in the Middle East. However, Iran ranked 22 in the World, second in Asia and Middle East in scientific production. Iran has self-citation rate of 36.57%, which is higher than World standard level.It is needed that Iranian researchers consider their research quality as well as making the appropriate context for more visibility of their works by receiving more citations from other researchers and taking other scientific visibility modes into account. Science policy-makers in Iran should consider some approaches to decreasing the self-citation rate in Iranian publications.