Thanks to all.

As Dean has mentioned that IF is popular, despite the fact that it doesn't reveal actual impact of authors. If we talk about practical scenario, in India most of the funding agencies, high profile interview bodies, academic institutes and etc consider the IF as an important criteria to evaluate one's research potential (Plz note that I don't have idea about international status). Now if authors wants to improve their IF then they may have to bear loss on citations because most of the restricted access journals have high IFs. On the other hand, open access journals may help get more citations

but what about IFs then? There may be a few classic exceptions to the point, I have discussed here.

Hi Tejas,

The h-index “gives an estimate of the importance, significance, and broad impact of a scientist’s cumulative research contributions”

Hirsch, J. E. (2005). An index to quantify an individual's scientific research output. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 102(46), 16569-16572

If an h-graph for an author has an h index of 12, it means that of the total number of documents selected to produce the graph, 12 of the documents have been cited at least 12 times. Published documents with fewer citations than h, in this case less than 12, are considered, but would not count in the h index.

Tejas - This is an often-asked question on RG. Check the many lengthy question strands - and all will be revealed

Hello all,

Thanks for that - this is understable... but, at Google Scholar there is the i10-index which would indicate the publications that have more than 10 citations! I still have a long way to go -:). Hope this helps.

Regards

Theodora Issa

Theodora - yes - but I don't think that too many people are taking too much notice of the i10 index. In a previous similar strand that I referred to earlier - I asked where will it all end - i5 - or what about i1. You just need one person then to cite one of your articles and then you're 'in the club'!!

Thanks Dean... indeed, it is becoming a game of numbers! - which might be a bit too much!

Regards

Despite all it's flaws - IF is 'popular' essentially because it is the most established and universal metric of its kind. Until a feasible alternative emerges - it will remain so.

Thanks to all.

As Dean has mentioned that IF is popular, despite the fact that it doesn't reveal actual impact of authors. If we talk about practical scenario, in India most of the funding agencies, high profile interview bodies, academic institutes and etc consider the IF as an important criteria to evaluate one's research potential (Plz note that I don't have idea about international status). Now if authors wants to improve their IF then they may have to bear loss on citations because most of the restricted access journals have high IFs. On the other hand, open access journals may help get more citations

but what about IFs then? There may be a few classic exceptions to the point, I have discussed here.

Hi Tejas - you seem to have a good grasp in this. While your experiences might be confined to a national perspective - it is similar on the international stage.

Yes Dean, I consider my self 'rookie'. Thanks to the technology which gives us platform to interact and improve.

In my opinion H-index is more important in scientific community. It somehow reflects the impact, quantity and quality level of a scientist in his/her field of works comparing with others in the same field.

A scientist has index "h" if "h" of his/her papers (N) have at least "h" citations each, and the other (N − h) papers have no more than h citations each.

In other words, a scholar with an index of "h" has published "h" papers each of which has been cited in other papers at least "h" times. Thus, the h-index reflects both the number of publications and the number of citations per publication.

As citation conventions differ widely among different fields, this index works properly only for comparing scientists working in the same field of science.