IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/spr/scient/v127y2022i5d10.1007_s11192-022-04345-2.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Ockham’s index of citation impact

Author

Listed:
  • Marek Gagolewski

    (Deakin University
    Polish Academy of Sciences
    Warsaw University of Technology)

  • Barbara Żogała-Siudem

    (Polish Academy of Sciences)

  • Grzegorz Siudem

    (Warsaw University of Technology)

  • Anna Cena

    (Warsaw University of Technology)

Abstract

We demonstrate that by using a triple of simple numerical summaries: an author’s productivity, their overall impact, and a single other bibliometric index that aims to capture the shape of the citation distribution, we can reconstruct other popular metrics of bibliometric impact with a sufficient degree of precision. We thus conclude that the use of many indices may be unnecessary – entities should not be multiplied beyond necessity. Such a study was possible thanks to our new agent-based model (Siudem et al. in Proc Natl Acad Sci 117:13896–13900, 2020, https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.2001064117 ), which not only assumes that citations are distributed according to a mixture of the rich-get-richer rule and sheer chance, but also fits real bibliometric data quite well. We investigate which bibliometric indices have good discriminative power, which measures can be easily predicted as functions of other ones, and what implications to the research evaluation practice our findings have.

Suggested Citation

  • Marek Gagolewski & Barbara Żogała-Siudem & Grzegorz Siudem & Anna Cena, 2022. "Ockham’s index of citation impact," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 127(5), pages 2829-2845, May.
    • Handle: RePEc:spr:scient:v:127:y:2022:i:5:d:10.1007_s11192-022-04345-2
    DOI: 10.1007/s11192-022-04345-2
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://link.springer.com/10.1007/s11192-022-04345-2
    File Function: Abstract
    Download Restriction: Access to the full text of the articles in this series is restricted.
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1007/s11192-022-04345-2?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Bornmann, Lutz & Mutz, Rüdiger & Hug, Sven E. & Daniel, Hans-Dieter, 2011. "A multilevel meta-analysis of studies reporting correlations between the h index and 37 different h index variants," Journal of Informetrics, Elsevier, vol. 5(3), pages 346-359.
    2. Barbara Żogała-Siudem & Grzegorz Siudem & Anna Cena & Marek Gagolewski, 2016. "Agent-based model for the h-index – exact solution," The European Physical Journal B: Condensed Matter and Complex Systems, Springer;EDP Sciences, vol. 89(1), pages 1-9, January.
    3. Leo Egghe, 2006. "Theory and practise of the g-index," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 69(1), pages 131-152, October.
    4. Lutz Bornmann & Rüdiger Mutz & Hans‐Dieter Daniel, 2008. "Are there better indices for evaluation purposes than the h index? A comparison of nine different variants of the h index using data from biomedicine," Journal of the American Society for Information Science and Technology, Association for Information Science & Technology, vol. 59(5), pages 830-837, March.
    5. Lucio Bertoli-Barsotti & Tommaso Lando, 2017. "The h-index as an almost-exact function of some basic statistics," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 113(2), pages 1209-1228, November.
    6. Leo Egghe & Ronald Rousseau, 2021. "The h-index formalism," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 126(7), pages 6137-6145, July.
    7. Qiang Wu & Peng Zhang, 2017. "Some indices violating the basic domination relation," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 113(1), pages 495-500, October.
    8. Cena, Anna & Gagolewski, Marek & Siudem, Grzegorz & Żogała-Siudem, Barbara, 2022. "Validating citation models by proxy indices," Journal of Informetrics, Elsevier, vol. 16(2).
    9. Woeginger, Gerhard J., 2008. "An axiomatic characterization of the Hirsch-index," Mathematical Social Sciences, Elsevier, vol. 56(2), pages 224-232, September.
    10. Samreen Ayaz & Nayyer Masood, 2020. "Comparison of researchers’ impact indices," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 15(5), pages 1-15, May.
    11. Rizwan Ghani & Faiza Qayyum & Muhammad Tanvir Afzal & Hermann Maurer, 2019. "Comprehensive evaluation of h-index and its extensions in the domain of mathematics," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 118(3), pages 809-822, March.
    12. Gagolewski, Marek, 2013. "Scientific impact assessment cannot be fair," Journal of Informetrics, Elsevier, vol. 7(4), pages 792-802.
    13. Lorna Wildgaard & Jesper W. Schneider & Birger Larsen, 2014. "A review of the characteristics of 108 author-level bibliometric indicators," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 101(1), pages 125-158, October.
    14. Lucio Bertoli-Barsotti & Tommaso Lando, 2017. "A theoretical model of the relationship between the h-index and other simple citation indicators," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 111(3), pages 1415-1448, June.
    15. S. Alonso & F. J. Cabrerizo & E. Herrera-Viedma & F. Herrera, 2010. "hg-index: a new index to characterize the scientific output of researchers based on the h- and g-indices," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 82(2), pages 391-400, February.
    16. Alonso, S. & Cabrerizo, F.J. & Herrera-Viedma, E. & Herrera, F., 2009. "h-Index: A review focused in its variants, computation and standardization for different scientific fields," Journal of Informetrics, Elsevier, vol. 3(4), pages 273-289.
    17. Barbara Żogała-Siudem & Grzegorz Siudem & Anna Cena & Marek Gagolewski, 2016. "Agent-based model for the h-index – exact solution," The European Physical Journal B: Condensed Matter and Complex Systems, Springer;EDP Sciences, vol. 89(1), pages 1-9, January.
    18. Mingyang Wang & Zhenyu Wang & Guangsheng Chen, 2019. "Which can better predict the future success of articles? Bibliometric indices or alternative metrics," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 119(3), pages 1575-1595, June.
    19. Qurat-ul Ain & Hira Riaz & Muhammad Tanvir Afzal, 2019. "Evaluation of h-index and its citation intensity based variants in the field of mathematics," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 119(1), pages 187-211, April.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Gangan Prathap, 2022. "Letter to the editor: comments on the paper of Gagolewski et al.: Ockham’s index of citation impact," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 127(10), pages 6051-6054, October.
    2. Lucio Bertoli-Barsotti, 2023. "Equivalent Gini coefficient, not shape parameter!," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 128(1), pages 867-870, January.
    3. Marek Gagolewski & Barbara Żogała-Siudem & Grzegorz Siudem & Anna Cena, 2022. "Fairness in the three-dimensional model for citation impact," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 127(10), pages 6055-6059, October.
    4. Mrowinski, Maciej J. & Gagolewski, Marek & Siudem, Grzegorz, 2022. "Accidentality in journal citation patterns," Journal of Informetrics, Elsevier, vol. 16(4).
    5. Lucio Bertoli-Barsotti & Marek Gagolewski & Grzegorz Siudem & Barbara .Zoga{l}a-Siudem, 2023. "Equivalence of inequality indices: Three dimensions of impact revisited," Papers 2304.07479, arXiv.org.
    6. Lucio Bertoli-Barsotti & Marek Gagolewski & Grzegorz Siudem & Barbara .Zoga{l}a-Siudem, 2023. "Gini-stable Lorenz curves and their relation to the generalised Pareto distribution," Papers 2304.07480, arXiv.org, revised Jan 2024.
    7. 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).
    8. Żogała-Siudem, Barbara & Cena, Anna & Siudem, Grzegorz & Gagolewski, Marek, 2023. "Interpretable reparameterisations of citation models," Journal of Informetrics, Elsevier, vol. 17(1).
    9. 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).

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Żogała-Siudem, Barbara & Cena, Anna & Siudem, Grzegorz & Gagolewski, Marek, 2023. "Interpretable reparameterisations of citation models," Journal of Informetrics, Elsevier, vol. 17(1).
    2. Cena, Anna & Gagolewski, Marek & Siudem, Grzegorz & Żogała-Siudem, Barbara, 2022. "Validating citation models by proxy indices," Journal of Informetrics, Elsevier, vol. 16(2).
    3. Deming Lin & Tianhui Gong & Wenbin Liu & Martin Meyer, 2020. "An entropy-based measure for the evolution of h index research," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 125(3), pages 2283-2298, December.
    4. Madiha Ameer & Muhammad Tanvir Afzal, 2019. "Evaluation of h-index and its qualitative and quantitative variants in Neuroscience," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 121(2), pages 653-673, November.
    5. Sidiropoulos, A. & Gogoglou, A. & Katsaros, D. & Manolopoulos, Y., 2016. "Gazing at the skyline for star scientists," Journal of Informetrics, Elsevier, vol. 10(3), pages 789-813.
    6. Vîiu, Gabriel-Alexandru, 2016. "A theoretical evaluation of Hirsch-type bibliometric indicators confronted with extreme self-citation," Journal of Informetrics, Elsevier, vol. 10(2), pages 552-566.
    7. 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).
    8. Zhenbin Yan & Qiang Wu & Xingchen Li, 2016. "Do Hirsch-type indices behave the same in assessing single publications? An empirical study of 29 bibliometric indicators," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 109(3), pages 1815-1833, December.
    9. Georgios Stoupas & Antonis Sidiropoulos & Antonia Gogoglou & Dimitrios Katsaros & Yannis Manolopoulos, 2018. "Rainbow ranking: an adaptable, multidimensional ranking method for publication sets," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 116(1), pages 147-160, July.
    10. Bouyssou, Denis & Marchant, Thierry, 2014. "An axiomatic approach to bibliometric rankings and indices," Journal of Informetrics, Elsevier, vol. 8(3), pages 449-477.
    11. Brandão, Luana Carneiro & Soares de Mello, João Carlos Correia Baptista, 2019. "A multi-criteria approach to the h-index," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 276(1), pages 357-363.
    12. Ana Paula dos Santos Rubem & Ariane Lima Moura & João Carlos Correia Baptista Soares de Mello, 2015. "Comparative analysis of some individual bibliometric indices when applied to groups of researchers," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 102(1), pages 1019-1035, January.
    13. Qurat-ul Ain & Hira Riaz & Muhammad Tanvir Afzal, 2019. "Evaluation of h-index and its citation intensity based variants in the field of mathematics," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 119(1), pages 187-211, April.
    14. Nadia Simoes & Nuno Crespo, 2020. "A flexible approach for measuring author-level publishing performance," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 122(1), pages 331-355, January.
    15. Daniella B Deutz & Evgenios Vlachos & Dorte Drongstrup & Bertil F Dorch & Charlotte Wien, 2020. "Effective publication strategies in clinical research," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 15(1), pages 1-12, January.
    16. Yu Liu & Wei Zuo & Ying Gao & Yanhong Qiao, 2013. "Comprehensive geometrical interpretation of h-type indices," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 96(2), pages 605-615, August.
    17. Kuan, Chung-Huei & Huang, Mu-Hsuan & Chen, Dar-Zen, 2011. "Ranking patent assignee performance by h-index and shape descriptors," Journal of Informetrics, Elsevier, vol. 5(2), pages 303-312.
    18. Lorna Wildgaard & Jesper W. Schneider & Birger Larsen, 2014. "A review of the characteristics of 108 author-level bibliometric indicators," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 101(1), pages 125-158, October.
    19. Giovanni Anania & Annarosa Caruso, 2013. "Two simple new bibliometric indexes to better evaluate research in disciplines where publications typically receive less citations," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 96(2), pages 617-631, August.
    20. Chen, Meiqian & Guo, Zhaoxia & Dong, Yucheng & Chiclana, Francisco & Herrera-Viedma, Enrique, 2021. "Citations optimal growth path: A tool to analyze sensitivity to citations of h-like indexes," Journal of Informetrics, Elsevier, vol. 15(4).

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:spr:scient:v:127:y:2022:i:5:d:10.1007_s11192-022-04345-2. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Sonal Shukla or Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.springer.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.