Are the h-index and some of its derivatives discriminatory when applied to rank social scientists with different epistemological beliefs and methodological preferences?
Dear All,
Looking into my own experience, I have the lowest citation rate for the papers where I provided the complete solution of a specific problem. There is no need to cite a research when everything is done already. I believe the same is applicable to many researchers in social sciences, regardless of possible fields and subfields.
I suppose that could be a viable point of view if you don't believe in measures and measurement, but then you would need to propose some alternative criteria for evaluating your work. Beyond its face value validity, the obvious advantage of the h-index that it is easy to calculate and interpret, so you would need too offer a replacement that was not overly burdensome on those who do not share your beliefs.
My view of the h-index is that it is an indicator of the extent to which your work is part of the conversation among a community of scholars, who are paying attention to your research in their own work. So, if you choose to ignore the h-index, what evidence of this recognition would you suggest instead?
As David points out, the h-index is a means of evaluating recognition amongst a community of scholars. As such, it depends very much on how you define the boundaries of that community. In a multidisciplinary field such as business and management, citation families vary hugely in both size and practice. In some fields you can achieve an h-index of 30+ quite early in your career by publishing with large research teams; in others you can get a chair with half that. H-index as you might expect tends to be retrospective and conservative, rather than recognising innovation, at least in the short term, as non-incremental innovation tends to come from the margins, which may involve publishing in less widely read journals (Daniel Kahneman did this with some early papers). Some unrecognised work can still be significant, but criteria for that are even more contentious.
Dear All,
Looking into my own experience, I have the lowest citation rate for the papers where I provided the complete solution of a specific problem. There is no need to cite a research when everything is done already. I believe the same is applicable to many researchers in social sciences, regardless of possible fields and subfields.
Regards. Today science and technology need be looked more than an indicator. I don´t believe that highest h-index, explain a high impact. Tools for evaluating impact of R&D activities need evolution toward criteria more specific that show "real impact" more than a citation.
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