This is definetely an interesting and crucial question.
H-index and impact factor are important issues definetely.
I believe though that the journal identity (scopes, themes, manuscript guidlines) is also very important. I guess the researchers has to see which journal suits more their research and goals as well, aside others
The journal impact factor and h index are different in their fundamental design: The former is used to measure journal prestige, while the latter is used to measure researcher impact. Therefore, the two cannot be compared. Let me explain.
The journal impact factor measures the average number of citations received by articles published within a journal over a two-year period. It can be a reliable measure of journal reputation but does not measure the impact of individual articles or researchers.
On the other hand, the h index is designed to measure the scientific output of a researcher by considering a combination of the number of papers the researcher has published and the number of citations those papers have received. Thus it measures both your publication record and its impact.
Link may helpful:
https://www.editage.com/insights/is-the-h-index-better-than-the-impact-factor
Impact factor is used to measure journal prestige while the h index is used to measure researcher impact. Therefore both are different things and cannot be compared.
Please also have a look at these useful ResearchGate links
https://www.researchgate.net/post/Which_is_important_for_a_researcher-impact_factor_citation_index_or_h_index
https://www.researchgate.net/post/Is_H-index_the_most_important_metric_of_publication_performance
I think it mainly depends on what your field values the most. In my field impact factors matter most, but in others it may be the H-index.
Additionally, I agree with Konstantinos: the identity of the journal matters, as this determines who will read your work. I once got the advise to opt for journals where ´the debate that you want to contribute to, is taking place´. I still think that is sound advise. And it will increase the likelihood of you getting cited...
Dear, it is better to consider impact factor which measures the quality and growth of a journal.
Hi,
The H-index was originally designed to measure researchers' excellence while the impact factor is designed for journals.
Of course in journals with high IF and High CiteScore, also h-index is an evaluation parameter used to evaluate researcher NOT journals.
Presentation Journal Impact Factors, Researcher h-index, How to improve r...
Presentation How to publish paper?
Regards,
Emad
Impact factor
The journal may has h index and don't had impact factor
I think Journal Citation Ranking and Quartile Scores (Q1-Q4). Some journals have high IF but Q3 or Q4. Other Journals may have lower IF but Q1. Therefore, I think it is better to select Q1 journals in your topic or specialty.
Impact factor shows that your publication is been accepted by a prestigeous journal And thus work has good worth. Most of researchers ask for impact factor of the journal and while accessment in diffterent interviews IF is been given credit. So better to go for impact factor i feel.
When you talk about "how many people do or make something useful as a result of the paper" and "how well a researcher is benefiting humankind" you're obviously talking about applied research. That leaves the big question of how to gauge the impact of fundamental research which may neither be "useful" or "benefiting" except in the indirect way of answering curiosity-driven questions and thus adding to our collective human knowledge. One pragmatic way of measuring this is to see how many other scientists finds this new information of such importance that the cite it in their papers. That's one reason why we look at citation frequencies as a measure of the impact of basic research.
The common scale for journals is the impact factor. H-index is more related to individual researchers.
I think that H index is more appreciate for reseach publications than IF
Hi,
The H-index is basically a measure of excellence of researchers . A journal could be measured by its impact factor. I think that it is better to consider the scope and the coverage range of a journal and where it is indexed, rather than its impact factor. The impact factor tend to fluctuate over the years.
As h index and IF rely on the number of citations they are closely related.
The only difference is that h index counts all citations over all times - except for h 5 index for instance which is for 5 last years.
When IF has its own formula : number of citations years n+1 and n+2 for papers published in year n. And thus is the original IF. As since IF can be calculated over periods of 3 or 5 years as proposed by SCOPUS for instance.
You seem to be comparing two incomparable things. Impact factor is of the journal and h index is of the researcher.
- Everyone has its own h-index either researcher, journal, School or country and same for impact factor (IF).
- In the lower limit just IF is most important but in the upper limit Q score and all other indexing such as h-index, Nature Index etc. are also important.
- These all are interlinked with each other.
I think IF of a journal is not only one tool to measure the quality of research because IF is only based on number of citations, these citations may be supportive or against. So a bad citation means the devalue of said research. On the other hand, an open access journal has automatically more citations, this does not show the high quality of work.
We should make some measurements to improve the quality instead of collecting rough stuff. I noticed that publishing research paper is going to convert into a business and there are many journals/publishers who just want to earn money. They do not have any concern about quality of research.
When you publish in an impacted journal, already your h index will be raised. Your work in an impacted and reputable journal will attract the others to cite your paper and then your h index will be high.
Publishing in a journal having good repute within the discipline may be a better option. Journals being run by the professional societies generally have low Impact factor but high prestige.
Hi all. Index H is an indicator of scientific production and is currently applied to authors and journals; that is, authors and journals have an H index. They can check it in the Google Scholar, the web portal of Web of Science, in Scopus or in Scimago. The H Index for an author and for a journal aims to assess the scientific trajectory.
The impact factor specifically measures the citations of authors who publish in journals that are part of the collection that has the database [Web of Science or Scopus].
They are different things, I could say that the H Index is more open and democratic and the impact factor is very restricted or closed. On the one hand, the H Index increases as the years go by and the published work has citations, regardless of where they come from. In contrast, the impact factor is limited only to citations and in a strict period of time and is only applicable to the journals they have indexed.
Finally, each author will know what their expectations are and what they seek to do with the knowledge produced [research, article, essay]. Some will go for the impact factor because they will think that it is the maximum that an author can ask for and others will prefer the index h because it will show you how popular it is independent of other measurements. All serious academic work does not need an impact factor or an H index, it only needs to be known to continue building knowledge and broadening the inestigative view.
Hi Cesar
thanks for your detailed communication about IF and H
the consideration of time is very important, as you mention the H index keeps increasing, while the IF is related on a short period of time and thus can vary rapidly
I do not completely agree with your final statement about H index or IF would be not so important. On a conceptual basis I agree, but unfortunately our administrations use these indicators as a ranking parameter between researchers and to deliver extra funding and salaries...
So we have to consider them even if we do not agree with this individualist kind of assessment, while otherwise there is no such kind of parameter to assess team performance...
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