A comparison of Iranian scientific publications in the Science Citation Index: 1985-1989 and 1990-1994

Iranian scientific publications in the Science Citation Index for two five- year periods, 1985-1989 and 1990-1994, were compared. Distributions of vari ous attributes of the publication output for the two periods were obtained primarily through the Rank command of the Dialog Online System. Results inc lude: productivity by publication year and by ranked order of the most prod uctive iranian authors; influence or impact of the most productive Iranian authors by ranking them as cited authors; collaboration of Iranian scientis ts with scientists from other countries; and the journals Iranian scientist s published in and the journals they cite in their papers. The subject area s of Iran's scientific publications were examined vis-a-vis the world's pub lication output and that of the Third World Countries (TWC).