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Four problems of the h-index for assessing the research productivity and impact of individual authors

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  • Henry H. Bi

    (Willamette University)

Abstract

This paper reveals that when the h-index is used to assess the research productivity and impact of individual authors, four major problems exist because the h-index does not take into account the number of authors in each publication. This paper shows that the fractional h-index (or the individual hi-index in this paper), which distributes each publication’s received citations among its authors, can solve these problems effectively. This paper recommends that websites (such as scholar.google.com and researchgate.net) should add the hi-index for the sake of building a fairer and more ethical research community.

Suggested Citation

  • Henry H. Bi, 2023. "Four problems of the h-index for assessing the research productivity and impact of individual authors," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 128(5), pages 2677-2691, May.
    • Handle: RePEc:spr:scient:v:128:y:2023:i:5:d:10.1007_s11192-022-04323-8
    DOI: 10.1007/s11192-022-04323-8
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    1. Elizabeth S. Vieira & José A. N. F. Gomes, 2011. "An impact indicator for researchers," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 89(2), pages 607-629, November.
    2. Teja Tscharntke & Michael E Hochberg & Tatyana A Rand & Vincent H Resh & Jochen Krauss, 2007. "Author Sequence and Credit for Contributions in Multiauthored Publications," PLOS Biology, Public Library of Science, vol. 5(1), pages 1-2, January.
    3. 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.
    4. Pablo D. Batista & Mônica G. Campiteli & Osame Kinouchi, 2006. "Is it possible to compare researchers with different scientific interests?," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 68(1), pages 179-189, July.
    5. 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.
    6. J. E. Hirsch, 2019. "hα: An index to quantify an individual’s scientific leadership," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 118(2), pages 673-686, February.
    7. Schreiber, Michael, 2008. "A modification of the h-index: The hm-index accounts for multi-authored manuscripts," Journal of Informetrics, Elsevier, vol. 2(3), pages 211-216.
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    Cited by:

    1. Lázaro G. Lagóstena-Barrios & Enrique Aragón-Núñez, 2023. "The Contribution of GPR to the Historical Research of Urban and Rural Landscapes of Antiquity," Land, MDPI, vol. 12(6), pages 1-21, June.
    2. Yang, Alex Jie & Wu, Linwei & Zhang, Qi & Wang, Hao & Deng, Sanhong, 2023. "The k-step h-index in citation networks at the paper, author, and institution levels," Journal of Informetrics, Elsevier, vol. 17(4).

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