Hi, Please see this link: https://www.researchgate.net/post/How_I_can_find_a_list_of_very_famous_professors_in_my_topic_with_H_index

Dear Rafael,

I think h-index became a requirement towards scientists in order to improve bureaucracy in the spirit of these days. It has no practical value because from this index nobody can fancy why the given publications were cited. Citations consider often not the valuable message of a paper but some collateral information.

I love the insightful humour on the quoted site: "I guess they avoid reviewing and/or analyzing (with love and care) a lot of requests, such as those who do not understand the h-index, those do not maintain it, or those without citations, among others. Why wasting time browsing hundreds of academic curriculums when they have the miraculous h-index?"

I already knew that is becoming an extended practice. Many academic centers start their recruiting new personnel with the h-index. And afterwards they ask the CV and go on with the interview, probably.

The practical value is that the h-index is being taken as a guide, i.e. a criterium. I don't' know of any institution that reduces its evaluation solely on the h-index - at the same time.

Possible answers of readers in RG to this post can be divided thus:

a) Those who have a high h-index

b) Those who have a small h-index

c) Those who do not have any h-index

By this I mean: It would be convenient trying not to be biased in questions such as this.

(I have noticed that many answers in RG are openly biased: either by religious belief, by epistemological preconceptions, and many others…).

Dear Carlos,

There are only three answers until now. I hope the answerer can be classified into your three classes a, b and c. Another question whether participants answer according to their h-index or try to find a logical and not biased reply?

Dear All,

I propose that participants commenting this thread should provide their h-index in order to see their motivation.

Dear Andras, hope so, too, indeed.

Trying not to be biased is a very difficult task, as we know. However, good science is precisely about such an endeavor.

Dear Carlos,

I think this is the point where ethics should operate!

Dear Colleagues,

It is an interesting conversation. Let me please to add something as a quite important point of view, at least by my opinion.

As far as I know, only the quantity is expressed in h-index and not the quality of references. A given publication in a high quality journal e.g. with IF 1,8 has got one refernce coming from a journal, e.g. IF 0,3. Both of them is h-1 isn't it? Therefore, if an academic position, as your original topic started from, depends on the quantity (expressed by h-index) it should not be a serious one, is that?

Dear Andras, by all means! With one proviso: ethics should not be the exception, but the rule. I know you'll agree.

Now, @Agnes: of course it is a quantitative measure. We all agree on that. Moreover, there have been numerous criticisms on to the h-index. No question about that.

I do not pretend to defend it. I just mention that that is one of the indicators, currently for a researcher or an academician. Whence the sense of Rafael' s question: the practical value - or not, of the h-index.

No one would say nowadays that there is an absolutely valid criterium or indicator. I think no one would claim such a think…

The general framework where the h-index enters is, as we all know, scientometrics.

For those who do not know it, I would like to refer to one of Springer's most prestigious journals: Scientometrics:

http://link.springer.com/journal/11192

Springer is known for the rigor of their journals and publications.

The h-index is not a good metric for the quality of one's work, but at least it shows publication activity. So it should just be treated as one characterization of scientific work, but only of a (very limited) aspect.

IEEE issued a statement about the use of bibliometrics, it is an interesting read:

http://theinstitute.ieee.org/briefings/business/evaluating-the-quality-of-research

Dear Matthias, thank you very much for showing us the IEEE statement. It was of a big help - to me.

basically human beings want to compare and fell superior

as an evaluator of projects it is used to judge used to judge the project manager's

credentials

Well, not quite, dear prof. V.S. Muralidharan. Evluation has existed, at leats since the origins of this civilization. Quite another isue is the current wave of indicators, which, as I mentioned, started with the emergence of scientometrics; the Frascati Manual was the first document produced in this sense.

Let me please remind the folowing story: in the ancient Greece (long before Gutenberg), any author - whether philosopher, scientist, etc. - stood up in the center of the Agora in Athens and there he or she read for the first tiem his or her book (poetry, discoveries, and the like).

That was enough at the time to be considered published. - The listeners liked or disliked (= approved or disapporved) the text read. End of the story.

Later on, the entire process became much more complex and sophisticated, alike. Till ve arrived to the discusssion of the h-index...

I am a librarian with some knowledge in bibliometrics and scientometrics and trying to support academics when they are considering publishing their research.

Anyway: the h-index is apparently the most widely used measurement of an authors impact in the academic field. But there are quite a few characteristics to consider. As mentioned before the h-index does count quantity of citations and not quality (which is complicated) and it increases over time. Meaning: older researchers have an advantage - and researchers at the beginning of their career are disadvantaged. Also different disciplines have very different cultures of citing. E.g. an h-index of 20 in the area of chemistry is good, but not great, but the same number in civil engineering is outstanding! So it really shoudnt be used to compare academics from different fields and with different length of careers.

These aspects should be on your mind if you are going to judge via h-index.

Generally it might be worth looking at other means of measuring impact such as the h-index on Google Scholar or even better Altmetrics which is trying to measure impact on social media. http://altmetrics.org/manifesto/

These could well complement traditional impact tools such as h-index.

Sorry this did get rather long.

Dear Tina, thank you so much for your valuable post  but neither of the documents can be opened, sorry.

Ágnes

sorry, apparently I cant edit my entry. Hope these do:

Tina

http://altmetrics.org/manifesto/

http://www.altmetric.com/

dear All

in the modern world we donot have patience  to listen to others  - some one did for us   for evaluation -- we follow  - dear Carlos

Though I acknowledge the above comments and find them to be valuable controbutions, I think it depends on the discipline. For example, in the engineering disciplines, an H index is reflective of whether or not a researcher is condcuting research with practical implications, or, in other words, useful research. A low H index may indicate quite the opposite.

The purpose of the impact factor was only bibliometric i.e. to recommend whether or not the subscription the particular journals be renewed. It sholund not be used to assess the quality of research produced by an individual researcher. The purpose of h-index is also bibliometric. It should not be mistaken for assessing the quality of research produced by an individual researcher. In my view, any quantitative metrics or a combination of them  should not be mistaken to used to assess the quality of research  produced by an individual researcher. Their usefulness is only bibliometric. Quality of research is a subjective term and there is no universally agreed upon definition of quality.  It may vary from discipline to discipline and even from subdiscipline to subdiscipline, subsubdiscpline to subsubdiscipline, and so on, and even from one research group to another research group. Quantitative means are only for bibliometrics and should not be mistaken to evaluate the quality of research produced by an individual researcher, a research group,  or a research organization. In my view, the quality, a subjective term, cannot be expressed by a single or even a combination of metrics. (There might be a researcher, who has sweated for years, has wriiten and published a qualitatative paper but it did not receive any citation. All metrices will fail to quantify the quality of research produced by such an author. )  

And what about the working preassure on a place that calls for the h-index to their professors/researchers? Will it be worth it?

H-index or any other bibliometric measure should not be taken too seriously. One should continue working without worrying for all these. If people will start working for enhancement of their bibliometric measures, then they will not be able to focus on their actual work and as a result quality of research may deteroirate. The focus should not be achieving a bibliometric measure, the focus should be the actual work.

we have to coop with pressure - we are paid and students want quality

we expect  higher H index   from a  professor who is paid well

others with time shoud show more H

should show more H index

In my view, H-index or any other bibliometric measure is not some thing that a researcher or professor can deliver. In other words, none of the bibliometric is included among the deliverables of any research. The purpose of these bibliometrics is only statistical. They should not be taken to serve any purpose other than statistical one. One should continue working without worrying about his own h-index and h-index of others. Similar is true with other bibliometric measures.    

sorry   - days are changed    Mr. Abbas -- you are accountable  --

Hi, Please see this link: https://www.researchgate.net/post/How_I_can_find_a_list_of_very_famous_professors_in_my_topic_with_H_index

What about ht-index?

https://www.researchgate.net/post/Can_ht-index_be_used_to_measure_the_impact_of_a_scholar_Or_what_is_your_ht-index

The h-index has no practical value, as it is a meaningless metric. Its arbitrary nature has been well-documented. Not only does that the h-index lack an intrinsic value, it  encourages mediocre research and favours those individuals who are most adept at gamesmanship. I document these points in a recent article at: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/1360080X.2014.936087.

http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/1360080X.2014.936087

I agree with TIna hohmann

i want to share my experience

since 1968 i do research and even now active- we are some how not rewarded for publishing outside/ inside india -- there was not measure

my best papers are in INDIA as those days to get a paper published it will take 6 months

in my field i have 5 best journals and 4 Indian journals - now you have ample chances to get them published - now the time has come to assess the journals - i donot say it bad and good we accept the H index now - it is a race not  for us ---for the publishers

For a academic job H-index is not a required criteria in all most all countries of the world.

The h-index of both journals and academics is the most widely used metric for evaluating academic research quality, impact and productivity.

Many leading universities use the h-index to evaluate journals and academics.

In my opinion, h-index is important and researcher can think and improve the quality of the research.

this is one example: Researchers shall move from salami type publications (dividing your working into several publications with less meaningful output to the community) rather than trying to deliver a high quality one output.

Ex: A young researcher's one year of researcher work output finding can be published;

Option A. Four medium to low impact publications (lets say A1, A2, A3, A4). Option B. One or two good quality publication (B1, B2). Then lets say the publications achieved (after five years) following number of citations,

A1= 4

A2=4

A3=10

A4=6

B1=14

B2=10

Even the total number of citations are equal. Once the time goes, publications B1 and B2 will be beneficial to achieve a higher h index. Publications such as A1, A2, A4 have no impact on achieving higher h index.

So, the researches shall be focussing on more high quality publications rather than the number.

Citations and the h-index are widely used in many countries to evaluate an academic's research output.

RG reports both Citations and the h-index, with and without self citations.