IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/spr/scient/v128y2023i4d10.1007_s11192-023-04643-3.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Impact of the number and rank of coauthors on h-index and π-index. The part-impact method

Author

Listed:
  • Péter Vinkler

    (Research Centre for Natural Sciences)

Abstract

The publication activity of 20 Price-medallists was analysed by calculating several scientometric indices from data of elite sets of their publications. The following elite sets (i.e. most cited papers within the total) were obtained: π-set (where the number of papers is equal to √P, and P is the number of total papers), h-set (in which the number of papers equals to the Hirsch index), 2π-set, 2h-set, and the set of papers (ECP) which are cited more frequently than the average. The percentage share of papers and citations was found to increase in the mentioned rank of the elite sets, except ECP-set. The number of publications and citations in the elite sets was calculated also by different part-impact methods for sharing credit among the coauthors. The applied methods take into account the number or number and rank of coauthors in the by-line of the papers. It was demostrated that any of the methods changes both π and h-index significantly related to the value calculated by attributing total credit to the evaluated individual. The changes strongly depend on the number of coauthors and rank of the studied author in the by-line of the papers. Consequently, in assessing personal contribution of scientists by scientometric indices, sharing credit of publications and citations among the coauthors of publications seems to be highly relevant. Selecting the appropriate impact sharing method depends on the purpose of the evaluation.

Suggested Citation

  • Péter Vinkler, 2023. "Impact of the number and rank of coauthors on h-index and π-index. The part-impact method," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 128(4), pages 2349-2369, April.
    • Handle: RePEc:spr:scient:v:128:y:2023:i:4:d:10.1007_s11192-023-04643-3
    DOI: 10.1007/s11192-023-04643-3
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://link.springer.com/10.1007/s11192-023-04643-3
    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/s11192-023-04643-3?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 & Leydesdorff, Loet & Mutz, Rüdiger, 2013. "The use of percentiles and percentile rank classes in the analysis of bibliometric data: Opportunities and limits," Journal of Informetrics, Elsevier, vol. 7(1), pages 158-165.
    2. Juan E. Iglesias & Carlos Pecharromán, 2007. "Scaling the h-index for different scientific ISI fields," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 73(3), pages 303-320, December.
    3. Loet Leydesdorff, 2012. "Alternatives to the journal impact factor: I3 and the top-10% (or top-25%?) of the most-highly cited papers," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 92(2), pages 355-365, August.
    4. I. Lukovits & P. Vinkler, 1995. "Correct credit distribution: A model for sharing credit among coauthors," Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, Springer, vol. 36(1), pages 91-98, September.
    5. Per O. Seglen, 1992. "The skewness of science," Journal of the American Society for Information Science, Association for Information Science & Technology, vol. 43(9), pages 628-638, October.
    6. Caroline S. Wagner & Lin Zhang & Loet Leydesdorff, 2022. "A discussion of measuring the top-1% most-highly cited publications: quality and impact of Chinese papers," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 127(4), pages 1825-1839, April.
    7. 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.
    8. Leo Egghe, 2006. "Theory and practise of the g-index," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 69(1), pages 131-152, October.
    9. Leo Egghe, 2007. "Dynamic h‐index: The Hirsch index in function of time," Journal of the American Society for Information Science and Technology, Association for Information Science & Technology, vol. 58(3), pages 452-454, February.
    10. Lutz Bornmann & Werner Marx, 2014. "How to evaluate individual researchers working in the natural and life sciences meaningfully? A proposal of methods based on percentiles of citations," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 98(1), pages 487-509, January.
    11. Péter Vinkler, 2017. "Core indicators and professional recognition of scientometricians," Journal of the Association for Information Science & Technology, Association for Information Science & Technology, vol. 68(1), pages 234-242, January.
    12. Péter Vinkler, 2021. "Evaluation of publications by the part-set method," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 126(4), pages 2737-2757, April.
    13. António Osório, 2018. "On the impossibility of a perfect counting method to allocate the credits of multi-authored publications," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 116(3), pages 2161-2173, September.
    14. Gangan Prathap, 2021. "Letter to the editor: Dimensionless citation indicators for fractional counting," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 126(10), pages 8765-8769, October.
    15. Schreiber, M. & Malesios, C.C. & Psarakis, S., 2012. "Exploratory factor analysis for the Hirsch index, 17 h-type variants, and some traditional bibliometric indicators," Journal of Informetrics, Elsevier, vol. 6(3), pages 347-358.
    16. Leo Egghe, 2008. "Mathematical theory of the h‐ and g‐index in case of fractional counting of authorship," Journal of the American Society for Information Science and Technology, Association for Information Science & Technology, vol. 59(10), pages 1608-1616, August.
    17. Péter Vinkler, 2017. "The size and impact of the elite set of publications in scientometric assessments," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 110(1), pages 163-177, January.
    18. Dag W Aksnes, 2003. "Characteristics of highly cited papers," Research Evaluation, Oxford University Press, vol. 12(3), pages 159-170, December.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    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. Péter Vinkler, 2019. "Core journals and elite subsets in scientometrics," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 121(1), pages 241-259, October.
    2. Péter Vinkler, 2017. "The size and impact of the elite set of publications in scientometric assessments," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 110(1), pages 163-177, January.
    3. Péter Vinkler, 2021. "Evaluation of publications by the part-set method," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 126(4), pages 2737-2757, April.
    4. Loet Leydesdorff & Paul Wouters & Lutz Bornmann, 2016. "Professional and citizen bibliometrics: complementarities and ambivalences in the development and use of indicators—a state-of-the-art report," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 109(3), pages 2129-2150, December.
    5. Wei, Shelia X. & Tong, Tong & Rousseau, Ronald & Wang, Wanru & Ye, Fred Y., 2022. "Relations among the h-, g-, ψ-, and p-index and offset-ability," Journal of Informetrics, Elsevier, vol. 16(4).
    6. Petr Praus, 2019. "High-ranked citations percentage as an indicator of publications quality," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 120(1), pages 319-329, July.
    7. Asma Hammami & Nabil Semmar, 2022. "The simplex simulation as a tool to reveal publication strategies and citation factors," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 127(1), pages 319-350, January.
    8. 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.
    9. Simoes, Nadia & Crespo, Nuno, 2020. "Self-Citations and scientific evaluation: Leadership, influence, and performance," Journal of Informetrics, Elsevier, vol. 14(1).
    10. Vîiu, Gabriel-Alexandru, 2017. "Disaggregated research evaluation through median-based characteristic scores and scales: a comparison with the mean-based approach," Journal of Informetrics, Elsevier, vol. 11(3), pages 748-765.
    11. Yves Fassin, 2020. "The HF-rating as a universal complement to the h-index," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 125(2), pages 965-990, November.
    12. Thor, Andreas & Marx, Werner & Leydesdorff, Loet & Bornmann, Lutz, 2016. "Introducing CitedReferencesExplorer (CRExplorer): A program for reference publication year spectroscopy with cited references standardization," Journal of Informetrics, Elsevier, vol. 10(2), pages 503-515.
    13. Waltman, Ludo, 2016. "A review of the literature on citation impact indicators," Journal of Informetrics, Elsevier, vol. 10(2), pages 365-391.
    14. Christin Katharina Kreutz & Premtim Sahitaj & Ralf Schenkel, 2020. "Evaluating semantometrics from computer science publications," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 125(3), pages 2915-2954, December.
    15. Mingyang Wang & Shijia Jiao & Kah-Hin Chai & Guangsheng Chen, 2019. "Building journal’s long-term impact: using indicators detected from the sustained active articles," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 121(1), pages 261-283, October.
    16. Yannick Berker, 2018. "Golden-ratio as a substitute to geometric and harmonic counting to determine multi-author publication credit," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 114(3), pages 839-857, March.
    17. Péter Vinkler, 2012. "The Garfield impact factor, one of the fundamental indicators in scientometrics," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 92(2), pages 471-483, August.
    18. Osório, António (António Miguel), 2019. "The value and credits of n-authors publications," Working Papers 2072/376026, Universitat Rovira i Virgili, Department of Economics.
    19. Péter Vinkler, 2011. "Application of the distribution of citations among publications in scientometric evaluations," Journal of the American Society for Information Science and Technology, Association for Information Science & Technology, vol. 62(10), pages 1963-1978, October.
    20. Jingda Ding & Chao Liu & Goodluck Asobenie Kandonga, 2020. "Exploring the limitations of the h-index and h-type indexes in measuring the research performance of authors," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 122(3), pages 1303-1322, March.

    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:128:y:2023:i:4:d:10.1007_s11192-023-04643-3. 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.