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Three dimensions of scientific impact

Author

Listed:
  • Grzegorz Siudem

    (Faculty of Physics, Warsaw University of Technology, 00-662 Warsaw, Poland)

  • Barbara Żogała-Siudem

    (Systems Research Institute, Polish Academy of Sciences, 01-447 Warsaw, Poland)

  • Anna Cena

    (Faculty of Mathematics and Information Science, Warsaw University of Technology, 00-662 Warsaw, Poland)

  • Marek Gagolewski

    (Systems Research Institute, Polish Academy of Sciences, 01-447 Warsaw, Poland; Faculty of Mathematics and Information Science, Warsaw University of Technology, 00-662 Warsaw, Poland; School of Information Technology, Deakin University, Geelong, VIC 3220, Australia)

Abstract

The growing popularity of bibliometric indexes (whose most famous example is the h index by J. E. Hirsch [J. E. Hirsch, Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A. 102, 16569–16572 (2005)]) is opposed by those claiming that one’s scientific impact cannot be reduced to a single number. Some even believe that our complex reality fails to submit to any quantitative description. We argue that neither of the two controversial extremes is true. By assuming that some citations are distributed according to the rich get richer rule (success breeds success, preferential attachment) while some others are assigned totally at random (all in all, a paper needs a bibliography), we have crafted a model that accurately summarizes citation records with merely three easily interpretable parameters: productivity, total impact, and how lucky an author has been so far.

Suggested Citation

  • Grzegorz Siudem & Barbara Żogała-Siudem & Anna Cena & Marek Gagolewski, 2020. "Three dimensions of scientific impact," Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, vol. 117(25), pages 13896-13900, June.
    • Handle: RePEc:nas:journl:v:117:y:2020:p:13896-13900
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    Citations

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    Cited by:

    1. Siudem, Grzegorz & Nowak, Przemysław & Gagolewski, Marek, 2022. "Power laws, the Price model, and the Pareto type-2 distribution," Physica A: Statistical Mechanics and its Applications, Elsevier, vol. 606(C).
    2. Żogała-Siudem, Barbara & Cena, Anna & Siudem, Grzegorz & Gagolewski, Marek, 2023. "Interpretable reparameterisations of citation models," Journal of Informetrics, Elsevier, vol. 17(1).
    3. Biró, Tamás S. & Telcs, András & Józsa, Máté & Néda, Zoltán, 2023. "Gintropic scaling of scientometric indexes," Physica A: Statistical Mechanics and its Applications, Elsevier, vol. 618(C).
    4. Mrowinski, Maciej J. & Gagolewski, Marek & Siudem, Grzegorz, 2022. "Accidentality in journal citation patterns," Journal of Informetrics, Elsevier, vol. 16(4).
    5. Bertoli-Barsotti, Lucio & Gagolewski, Marek & Siudem, Grzegorz & Żogała-Siudem, Barbara, 2024. "Gini-stable Lorenz curves and their relation to the generalised Pareto distribution," Journal of Informetrics, Elsevier, vol. 18(2).
    6. Tohalino, Jorge A.V. & Amancio, Diego R., 2022. "On predicting research grants productivity via machine learning," Journal of Informetrics, Elsevier, vol. 16(2).
    7. Cena, Anna & Gagolewski, Marek & Siudem, Grzegorz & Żogała-Siudem, Barbara, 2022. "Validating citation models by proxy indices," Journal of Informetrics, Elsevier, vol. 16(2).

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