The h-index is an index that attempts to measure both the productivity and impact of the published work of a scientist or scholar. The index is based on the distribution of citations received by a given researcher's publications.
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
H - index increase the image of individual scientist and shows how many of his research publications are used by other scientists.Eg If his h-index is 25 all the 25 articles cited 25 times or more than 25 times.How scientist will get importance in his field. --- Prof.S.L.Sangam
The h-index is a measure invented by a physicist and justified by correlations with other indicators of quality, some of which are as questionable as the h-index itself. Bibliometricians reject it because there are no theoretical foundations that would justify its application (lets face it: its arbitrary), because it attempts to reduce quality to a single number (which is one of the most important "don'ts" in bibliometrics), and because it has technical problems.
Having said that, its importance for researchers is grwoing depending on the country and management practices. Its easy to calculate, which is why everybody who cannot judge the content of a researcher's work resorts to it to get an idea of their quality. Administrative convenience trumps validity. As far as I know, its by now very important in the Netherlands, where it has permeated most fields of science, social science, and humanities. In Germany its used by many (including researchers) in a more inofficial manner (also because the opportunities for management to decide on research are more limited).
So depending on your country and professional situation, it might be very important indeed in practical terms. Scientifically, its just not important because it doesn't measure anything interesting in interesting ways.
In my recent article entitled "Effective Strategies for Increasing Citation Frequency" http://ssrn.com/abstract=2344585, I explained why the H-Index is important and how we can increase it.
The h-index is well explored and adopted by the information science community. They have done extensive research into its mathematical properties and found them to be in conformity to Lotkain informetrics.
There are many varieties of the h-index that compensate for various factors (See Truex, Cuellar, Takeda, 2009; and Truex, Cuellar, Takeda, Vidgen, 2011). This avoids the "single number" issue and yields a profile of a scholar's influence.
It is becoming a very important and valued measure of a scholar's productivity.
H-index is the best performance evaluation of individual scientist and a research organization.
None of these numbers are total substitutes for having someone who understands the material read the actual papers and judge the quality.
Dear Shivappa, Jochen, Nader, Michel and George,
Thank you for your answer in previous months to my question about the h-index.
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
I think h index is more suitable as an evaluation to the output of groups of researchers and institutions more than individuals.
Please find all about researcher and paper evaluations at https://dx.doi.org/10.6084/m9.figshare.4468841.v1 .
Happy new year, Mostafa, Saddam and Nader; thank you for oyur valuable answers to my question.
What Mr. Cuellar had said about the conformity of the h-index to Lotkaian Framework is true and was first revealed by Dr. Leo Egghe.
Article An informetric model for the Hirsch-index. Scientometrics, 6...
The h-index is not just a number. It is also the number of significant works in the career of a researcher. So, comparing the works contributing to the h-index with the other works of the researcher can give an idea about the research behaviour of the scientists
Article Probing the h-core: An investigation of the tail-core ratio ...
Article The h-index, h-core citation rate and the bibliometric profi...
Article A Review of Theory and Practice in Scientometrics
Thank you Houcemeddine for your valuable and interesting comments as well as uploaded articles !!!
Researchers who focus on a special topic can attain high h-index values in a shorter time because they can cite their older papers in their new ones. On the other hand, a researcher who works on scattered topics has less chance. Also, a researcher can increase her/his citation with a review paper, but it is important whether she/he can repeat that work, or she/he was lucky to be a co-author of a valuable paper; the h-index value may be a good yardstick here.
Of course, we should consider that the citation rate is not the same in different topics, so it is better to compare the researchers' citation based on their expertise.
Thank you Masoos for your valuable comments specially the usefulness of self-citation !!!
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