An index to quantify an individual's scientific research output

Abstract

The current discourse delves into the effectiveness of h-index 1 as an author level metric. It further reviews and explains the algorithmic complexity of calculating h-index through algebraic method. To conduct the algebraic analysis propositional algebra, algorithm and coding techniques have been used. Some use cases have been identified with a finite data set/set of array to demonstrate the coding techniques and for further analysis. Finally, the explanation and calculative complexities to determine the index have been further simplified through geometric method of calculating the h-index using the similar use cases that was used for coding. It is concluded that determination of the h-index using Euclidean geometric method with Cartesian frame of reference provides a through and visual clarification. Finally, a set of postulates has been proposed at the end of the paper, based on the case studies.

Research productivity of doctor of physical therapy faculty promoted in the southeastern United States

“…The process of creating standard metrics for evaluating faculty within and across disciplines has a long history with a range of different proposed approaches while attempting to control for a variety of factors including discipline-specific citation practices [13], length of the researcher’s career [3,14], the relative value of co-authorship, the database in which an article’s journal is indexed, number of self-citations, and chance authorship. In 2005, the h-index [3] was introduced and was quickly incorporated as a means to control for chance authorship.…”

“…In 2005, the h-index [3] was introduced and was quickly incorporated as a means to control for chance authorship. The h-index attempts to identify a researcher’s career impact while excluding outlying successes and failures; but the h-index is also criticized, especially if used as a sole metric for comparing researchers across disciplines due to variations between disciplines [15].…”

“…Research productivity is frequently determined by analyzing the number of peer-reviewed published articles, the publishing journal’s impact factor and citation count of these published works, author h-index [3], and the research funding received by junior professors up to the time of being promoted to Associate Professor. While there is much discussion as to the nature of these measures as valid means of determining productivity, this article only attempts to measure these often used metrics to compare the results against recognized standards in other professions and previous publications of research productivity [4,5].…”

Lower Rates of Promotion of Generalists in Academic Medicine: A Follow-up to the National Faculty Survey

“…16 The H-index was assessed to determine whether, regardless of the number of publications, the impact of papers by generalists might differ from those of their specialty colleagues. H-index results were similar with and without self-citation; therefore, we included self-citation in the measure.…”

An application of Bradford’s law: identification of the core journals of pediatric neurosurgery and a regional comparison of citation density

“…These bibliometric indices-the h-index in particular-have been widely applied to neurosurgery [17][18][19][20][21][22][23][24][25]. Using this database, we identified the 25 top-ranked North American pediatric neurosurgeons based on the manually calculated h-index from Scopus (Elsevier, www.scopus.com) [17].…”