Why do the h-indices vary for different indexing databases like Google Scholar, Scopus, and ResearchGate? Isn't there a possibility for common h-index?
While there is an immediate update of new citations with Google Scholar, Scopus is particulary slow in making updates. Why is it so?
Hi,
It seems that every database producer relies on a group of researchers who are always trying to improve bibliometric indicators, and that is the reason why each database has its own H-index. The databases cannot update the incoming material as quickly as a search engine, since in databases there are screening process of incoming material while the search engine indexes everything automatically, and it does not have the analytical functions that a database has.
There is NO mutual cooperation between such academic platform, in other words, there is no unifying of the gained data base between these academic sites.
Regards,
Emad
Hi
h index depends on the number of citations on a given period of 3 years (for the usual h index).
The number of citations depend on the number of journals referenced in the base.
Web of Knowledge has the fewer number of journals, compared to scopus, Scholar and researchgate. It is why the h index is lower with WOK.
Then Scopus gives usually a higher h index because it gets about 12% more journals indexed than WOK.
Then Researchgate gives a higher h index, as there are much more scientific material referenced in RG, just because in RG people can uplaod any scientific production, even if it is not a paper in the selection of journals you can find on WOK or Scopus (in RG you can uplaod conference papers, posters, research notes, PhD and Master memories, maps, etc...)
The higher h index you can find for an individual is on Google Scholar, because it contents even more results than RG. As a difference with RG, Scholar references everything that can be found on the web, when the RG content depends on what peoiple upload on it.
I wrote a short note on this.
best
Gil
Hi,
In the analysis of the various indexing databases, there is a need to add information on the different purposes and characteristics of each. If the PoP was the best indexing production then it is possible that promotion committees in universities would have used this H-index of Impact Factor source, but this is not the case. There is a question of selectivity and reliability, and for academic promotions and ranking usually the WoK is used.
In France and in many countries of Africa scopus is used at the same level than WOK.
And about the reliability it is true that there are many publications indexed by scholar and available on RG that are less reliable than others, but the other side of this system is that clarivate analytics and else vier are the real power of science... as they created the indexes that our administration use to assess our work... and they own many of the international journals in which we are due to publish if we want to see our indexes rise up...
Time has come to propose alternatives to this ...
There is no centralized database for indexing. As such different h-index happens.
Thank you all for sharing your views.
@Prof. Gil Mahe: Thanks of sharing the write-up. It is quite handy indeed.
Producer wants to make it different to make attention of researcher.
Hi everyone
I agree with Mohammad Younis ,
There are not a common database among these three platforms.
Because the indexed journals with each one ae different.
There is a lot of difference between them for example the reserchegate based of : citations, questions ,projects , reading .
Academic institutions and many university rankings follow Scopus for h index and citations, but google scholar gathers citations from many sources and hence gives a higher h index. Google scholar uses an automated approach and is less selective which has advantages and disadvantages. Google scholar also has non-journal sources.
There is no uniform approach to this. So some will be slow and others very quick in capturing any changes.
Thank you so much for your valuable responses.
To add on, I also think that though the H-index and i10-index are considered as research superiority parameters, these indices do not take into consideration the total number of publications of the author. To clarify it further, an author might have published thousands of papers and of those hundreds might have received good number of citations while the rest may have rare visibility. In all, a parameter is needed which takes into account the total number of publications by an author. This will promote limited but good research stuff. My apologies if I am stretching the thread.
I will appreciate your comments on it.
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